did not even know for certain that
Vere's flush, Vere's abrupt hesitation at lunch, were a betrayal of the
child's secret.

But that she would find out.

Again the fierce curiosity besieged and took possession of her. After
all, she was a mother. A mother had rights. Surely she had a right to
know what another knew of her child.

"I will ask Vere," she said to herself.

Once before she had said to herself that she would do that, and she had
not done it. She had felt that to do it would be a humiliation. But now
she was resolved to do it, for she knew more of her own condition and
was more afraid of herself. She began to feel like one who has undergone
a prolonged strain of work, who believes that it has not been too great
and has been capably supported, and who suddenly is aware of a
yielding, of a downward and outward movement, like a wide and spreading
disintegration, in which brain, nerves, the whole body are involved.

Yet what had been the strain that she had been supporting, that now
suddenly she began to feel too much? The strain of a loss. Time should
have eased it. But had Time eased it, or only lengthened the period
during which she had been forced to carry her load? People ought to
get accustomed to things. She knew that it is supposed by many that the
human body, the human mind, the human heart can get accustomed--by which
is apparently meant can cease passionately and instinctively to strive
to repel--can get accustomed to anything. Well she could not. Never
could she get accustomed to the loss of love, of man's love. The whole
world might proclaim its proverbs. For her they had no truth. For
her--and for how many other silent women!

And now suddenly she felt that for years she had been struggling,
and that the struggle had told upon her far more than she had ever
suspected. Nothing must be added to her burden or she would sink down.
The dust would cover her. She would be as nothing--or she would be as
something terrible, nameless.

She must ask Vere, do what she had said to herself that she would not
do. Unless she had the complete confidence of her child she could not
continue to do without the cherishing love she had lost. She saw herself
a cripple, something maimed. Hitherto she had been supported by blessed
human crutches: by Vere, Emile, Gaspare. How heavily she had leaned upon
them! She knew that now. How heavily she must still lean if she were to
continue on her way. And a fierce, an almost