“I can’t be bothered!” she exclaimed crossly.
“Well, you’ve got to, so there, now it’s put out ready,” he insisted.
So she sat down and sipped her tea, and ate a little, in silence. She was thinking.
In a few minutes she was gone, to walk the two and a half miles to Keston Station. All the things she was taking him she had in her bulging string bag. Paul watched her go up the road between the hedges — a little, quick-stepping figure, and his heart ached for her, that she was thrust forward again into pain and trouble. And she, tripping so quickly in her anxiety, felt at the back of her her son’s heart waiting on her, felt him bearing what part of the burden he could, even supporting her. And when she was at the hospital, she thought: “It WILL upset that lad when I tell him how bad it is. I’d better be careful.” And when she was trudging home again, she felt he was coming to share her burden.