“She makes me tired, mother.”
“Yes; I wish she wouldn’t come,” Mrs. Morel replied.
Another day Miriam came, but she seemed almost like a stranger to him.
“You know, I don’t care about them, mother,” he said.
“I’m afraid you don’t, my son,” she replied sadly.
It was given out everywhere that it was a bicycle accident. Soon he was able to go to work again, but now there was a constant sickness and gnawing at his heart. He went to Clara, but there seemed, as it were, nobody there. He could not work. He and his mother seemed almost to avoid each other. There was some secret between them which they could not bear. He was not aware of it. He only knew that his life seemed unbalanced, as if it were going to smash into pieces.