come: it was so
far, and there were so many rainy Sundays. Then, often very late indeed,
she came in, with her long stride, her head bowed, her face hidden under
her bat of dark green velvet. Her face, as she sat opposite, was always
in shadow. But it gave him a very keen feeling, as if all his soul
stirred within him, to see her there. It was not the same glow,
happiness, and pride, that he felt in having his mother in charge:
something more wonderful, less human, and tinged to intensity by a pain,
as if there were something he could not get to.

At this time he was beginning to question the orthodox creed. He was
twenty-one, and she was twenty. She was beginning to dread the spring:
he became so wild, and hurt her so much. All the way he went cruelly
smashing her beliefs. Edgar enjoyed it. He was by nature critical and
rather dispassionate. But Miriam suffered exquisite pain, as, with an
intellect like a knife, the man she loved examined her religion in which
she lived and moved and had her being. But he did not spare her. He was
cruel. And when they went alone he was even more fierce, as if he would
kill her soul. He bled her beliefs till she almost lost consciousness.

"She exults--she exults as she carries him off from me," Mrs. Morel
cried in her heart when Paul had gone. "She's not like an ordinary
woman, who can leave me my share in him. She wants to absorb him. She
wants to draw him out and absorb him till there is nothing left of him,
even for himself. He will never be a man on his own feet--she will suck
him up." So the mother sat, and battled and brooded bitterly.

And he, coming home from his walks with Miriam, was wild with torture.
He walked biting his lips and with clenched fists, going at a great
rate. Then, brought up against a stile, he stood for some minutes, and
did not move. There was a great hollow of darkness fronting him, and on
the black upslopes patches of tiny lights, and in the lowest trough of
the night, a flare of the pit. It was all weird and dreadful. Why was he
torn so, almost bewildered, and unable to move? Why did his mother sit
at home and suffer? He knew she suffered badly. But why should she? And
why did he hate Miriam, and feel so cruel towards her, at the thought
of his mother. If Miriam caused his mother suffering, then he hated
her--and he easily hated her. Why did she make him feel as if he were
uncertain of himself, insecure, an indefinite thing, as if he had not
sufficien