You were much the stronger, mother, and directed him.

As a child, I knew it as well as I know it now.

I knew that your ascendancy over him was the cause of his going to China to take care of the business there, while you took care of it here (though I do not even now know whether these were really terms of separation that you agreed upon); and that it was your will that I should remain with you until I was twenty, and then go to him as I did.

You will not be offended by my recalling this, after twenty years ?' 'I am waiting to hear why you recall it.' He lowered his voice, and said, with manifest reluctance, and against his will: 'I want to ask you, mother, whether it ever occurred to you to suspect--' At the word Suspect, she turned her eyes momentarily upon her son, with a dark frown.

She then suffered them to seek the fire, as before; but with the frown fixed above them, as if the sculptor of old Egypt had indented it in the hard granite face, to frown for ages.
'-- that he had any secret remembrance which caused him trouble of mind--remorse?
Whether you ever observed anything in his conduct suggesting that; or ever spoke to him upon it, or ever heard him hint at such a thing ?' 'I do not understand what kind of secret remembrance you mean to infer that your father was a prey to,' she returned, after a silence.