there is some hunger, so persistent, so peculiar, so intense, that one
feels as if it must be satisfied eventually, as if it were impossible
for it not to be satisfied. I think that human hunger for immortal
life is like that, and I think my hunger for a son is like that. I
know my hunger can never be satisfied. And yet it lives on in me just
as if it knew more than I know, as if it knew that it could and must.
After all these years I can't, no, I can't reconcile myself to the
fact that Maurice was taken from me so utterly, that he died without
stamping himself upon a son. It seems as if it couldn't be. And I feel
to-day that I cannot bear that it is."

There were tears standing in her eyes. She had spoken with a force of
feeling, with a depth of sincerity, that startled Artois, intimately
as he knew her. Till this moment he had not quite realized the
wonderful persistence of love in the hearts of certain women, and not
only the persistence of love's existence, but of its existence
undiminished, unabated by time.

"How am I to bear it?" she said, as he did not speak.

"I cannot tell. I am not worthy to know. And besides, I must say to
you, Hermione, that one of the greatest mysteries in human life, at
any rate to me, is this: how some human beings do bear the burdens
laid upon them. Christ bore His cross. But there has only been, since
the beginning of things, one Christ, and it is unthinkable that there
can ever be another. But all those who are not Christ, how is it they
bear what they do bear? It is easy to talk of bravery, the necessity
for it in life. It is always very easy to talk. The thing that is
impossible is to understand. How can you come to me to help you, my
friend? And suppose I were to try. How could I try, except by saying