The wrong she had done him long ago vexed her. It was not possible this
boy could fit in with a life where, in one sense, he did not belong. It
was not part of her sorrow that he had given himself to painting and
sculpture. In her soul she believed this might be best for him in the
end. She had a surreptitious, an almost anguished, joy in the thought
that he and John Grier could not hit it off. It seemed natural that
both men, ignorant of their own tragedy, believing themselves to be
father and son, should feel for each other the torture of distance,
a misunderstanding, which only she and one other human being understood.

John Grier was not the boy's father. Carnac was the son of Barode
Barouche.

After a moment he said: "Mother, I know why I've come to you. It's
because I feel when I'm in trouble, I get helped by being with you."

"How do I help, my boy?" she asked with a sad smile, for he had said
the thing dearest to her heart.

"When I'm with you, I seem to get a hold on myself. I've always had a
strange feeling about you. I felt when I was a child that you're two
people; one that lives on some distant, lonely prairie, silent, shadowy
and terribly loving; and the other, a vocal person, affectionate, alert,
good and generous."

He paused, but she only shook her head. After a moment he continued:
"I know you aren't happy, mother, but maybe you once were--at the start."

She got to her feet, and drew herself up.