This uncouth boy was the son she had put her faith in.

She loved him best of all things on earth, but for the moment she saw him in the hard light of disillusionment.
A loutish backwoods child, like Dennis Hanks or Tom Sparrow or anybody else.

He had been a comfort to her, for he had been quick to learn and had a strange womanish tenderness in his ways.

But she was leaving him, and he would grow up like his father before him to a life of ceaseless toil with no daylight or honour in it....

She almost hated the sight of him, for he was the memorial of her failure.
The boy did not guess these thoughts.