And on the other side there seemed to rise before him another picture: the man with his smile arguing the question, persuading himself that anything he had done was, if not wholly right, at least far from being wrong, that it was the thing most natural to be done--with his air of mental confusion, yet satisfaction, his amiability, his conciliatory looks, his humorous self-consciousness, the subtle semi-intoxication which seemed to have got into his character. These things had made John smile a short time ago; they had filled him with a sort of compassionate kindness, an amused toleration of all the ways of this strange specimen of what human nature could come to. He was not amused or tolerant now. He thought with shrinking of this new, never-realised, impossible agent who had come into his life, impossible, yet, alas! real, never to be ignored again. But the first thing was his mother, his mother who, their positions reversed in a moment, clung to him with that face full of panic and anguish, flinging herself upon his protection. She, who was so strong, the embodiment of self-reliance and authority, to see her as weak as water, as weak as any poor woman, imploring her son to save her! He had never in his life till now given her more than the conventional kiss which their relationship seemed to demand when they met and parted. But now he held her close and kissed over and over again the white, agonised face which was pressed against his arm. Presently he raised her up tenderly and restored her to her seat--where gradually her panic calmed down, and she was able to speak. But it was very terrible and strange to John that she asked no questions, but took the miserable fact for granted, as if it were a thing that must have happened, that she had expected sooner or later, something inevitable in her way. ‘The only thing is,’ he said, with a sigh of subdued impatience, ‘why did you not tell me, mother. Why didn’t I know?’ His question brought the shivering back, but she replied, with an effort, ‘How can I tell you? We thought it was better so. I would not have you exposed to that knowledge. You were so young--and then it might never have been necessary--it might never have come----’ ‘You mean that he might have died--there?’ ‘It would,’ she said, bowing her head, ‘have been better so.’ ‘Without anyone to stand by him or say a word, without love or succour,’ he cried. Was there not another side to the question? He thought she drew herself away from him with a renewed movement of alarm, and he rose from her side, too pitiful to be indignant, his heart wrung with contending thoughts. She held out her hands to him with another outcry of terror. ‘Don’t go! I have no one. Don’t forsake me, don’t leave me alone! John, John!’ ‘I must,’ he said, ‘if I am to defend you, to save you, as you say. And then,’ he added, ‘there is more than that: to take care of--him. He cannot be ignored, mother; at least he has claims upon me.’