She could not cry, or sob, or rave; she could only say, "Let it fall on me, O God, on me!" over and over again.
Also, she was far too crushed and stunned to think precisely what it was she dreaded so.

It seemed afterwards, as Frank Maberly told me, that she had an indefinable horror of Charles meeting his father, and of their coming to know one another.

She half feared that her husband would appear and carry away her son with him, and even if he did not, the lad was reckless enough as it was, without being known and pointed at through the country as the son of Hawker the bushranger.
These were after-thoughts, however; at present she leaned giddily against the house-side, trying, in the wild hurrying night-rack of her thoughts, to distinguish some tiny star of hope, or even some glimmer of reason.

Impossible! Nothing but swift, confused clouds everywhere, driving wildly on,--whither?
But a desire came upon her to see her boy again, and compare his face to his father's.

So she slid quietly into the room where Tom and Charles were still talking together of Tom's adventure, and sat looking at the boy, pretending to work.