It did not occur to either of them to go to the side of this sobbing woman whose eyes had always been dry and cold, this mother who had wiped away their tears a hundred times and more with dainty lace handkerchiefs not unlike the one she now pressed so tightly to her own wet cheeks.

They could not understand this thing happening to her.

They could not believe that after all their mother possessed the power to shed tears, to sob as other women do, to choke and snivel softly, to blubber inelegantly; they had always looked upon her as proof against emotion.

Their mother was crying! Her back was toward them, evidence of a new weakness in her armour.

It shook with the effort she made to control the cowardly spasmodic sobs.