This was all the conversation that passed between them. It was repeated in about the same words three or four times during the day. For what was there else to say? All was either too trifling or too solemn. How could they talk of _her_, lying upstairs upon the edge of the eternal world? And how, she being there, could anything else be spoken of? The day went on like a century. Grandfather went up and down stairs, trying to walk softly, stealing into the room above on tiptoe, coming out again after a while shaking his head. John downstairs sat still and listened, sometimes dozing, in the long strain of that expectancy, waiting, almost wishing, for the news that would break his heart to hear. At last the evening came, and it was time to see after the cab at Johnson’s, and to set out to meet his mother. To meet his mother! How strange the words sounded! and yet he did not think much of them now. He drove to the station across the edge of the common, watching all the lights in the cottage windows staring out into the night. There were several people arriving by the train, as John stood half stupified on the platform, still vaguely gazing, looking at the dark figures undistinguishable, which flitted to and fro against the background of the lights: the flicker of the lamps in the wind, the movement, the noise, the little crowd, confused him, even if he had not been confused before by all the effects of the domestic tragedy. He looked helplessly at the moving figures, wondering should he know her whom he sought, wondering if she had come, wondering which could be her? He felt now, at this moment for which he believed himself to have wished, that if she had not come it would be a relief, then he could go back all the easier, more peacefully if he went back alone. Even as the thought passed through his mind, one of the figures which he had been following with his eyes, that of a tall woman, detached itself quickly from the group of the others, and came towards him. ‘You are John?’ she asked. ‘Yes,’ he answered, with a gasp. ‘Have you a cab? This is all I have brought. Let us lose no time.’ She had put her hand in his as she had come up to him. She gave him no other salutation, no kiss; but followed, as the boy, once more with the sensation of falling down, down, from he knew not what height, led the way to where the cab was standing. She put in her bag, stepped in hastily, motioned him to her side, and in another moment they were driving away together, seated there, this mother and son who had not met for years. John felt timid, altogether stupid, unable to say a word, his heart one moment giving a great throb, the next like a lump of lead in his breast. ‘How is my mother?’ she asked, ‘is she still alive?’ It was like a stab to John to have this question put to him in so many words, though he knew that it was a question of how long she might survive. ‘I was told,’ he said, ‘to tell you that your mother was a little better and might rally.’