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.