"Gussie and Gladys are back at work," she said at once, to explain the fact that none of his new connections were there to greet him, "and momma’s lying down. She always lies down at this time of day, ever since daddy died." She dropped into one big shabby armchair, motioning him to another. "And there’s something else I must tell you. Ever since—this thing happened to Teddy—she hasn’t been—well, not right in her mind." The stand he had taken became more imperative. A father’s death, a mother’s collapse, a brother’s crime had put her at the head of her little troop of three, to bear everything alone. He had left behind him an inexperienced girl; he had come back to find a woman already accustomed to rising to emergencies. The change was perceptible in the clearer, slightly older cutting of her features, as well as in the greater authority with which she spoke. Where the contours of her profile had been soft and vague, there was now a delicate chiseling; where there had been hesitation in words, there was now the firmness of one obliged to know her mind. As she sketched her mother’s mental state, he sat on the extreme edge of his big chair, straining forward so as to be near her without touching her, his fingers clasped between his knees. She continued to speak nervously, with agitation, and yet lucidly. "She isn’t very bad. She’s only what you’d call unsettled. It’s not that she does anything, but rather that, after all the years when she’s worked so hard, she just sits and does nothing. It’s as if she was lost in thinking; and when she comes back she says such terribly strange things." "What sort of things?" "For one, that it’s no use living any longer—that the world’s so bad that the best thing left is to get out of it. She says you can’t help the world, or hope to see it improve, because human beings will always reject the principles that would make it any better." He smiled gently. "I’ve heard people talk like that who weren’t considered unsettled in their minds." "Oh, but she doesn’t stop there. She tells Teddy he was quite within his rights in taking money from the bank, and when she goes to see him she begs him to be brave and not be sorry for anything he’s done." "And is he sorry?" "I don’t know that you could call it sorry. He’s dazed and bewildered. He knows he took the money and that he killed a man; but he thinks he was placed in a position where he couldn’t help it." "And does he say who could have helped it?" As she looked down at that twisting and untwisting of her fingers which was the chief sign of her effort at self-control, her color rose. "He says your father could have helped it; but I don’t believe he’s right." "No, he isn’t right—not as dad himself sees it. I know he’s been worried ever since your father left the bank; but he thinks he couldn’t help dismissing him. Life isn’t very simple for anyone—not for my dad any more than it was for yours. If I could see Teddy—" "Would you go to see him?"