He did not wish to go in until his mother was asleep.
Very well he knew that it would be better that she did not see his face that night.

When he went in, the house was dark and still.

As he passed his mother's door, she called, "Steve!" "All right, mother.

They'll come," he replied, and ran swiftly up to his own room.
During this half-hour, Mercy had been sitting in her low chair by the fire, looking steadily into the leaping blaze, and communing very sternly with her own heart on the subject of Stephen White.

Her pitiless honesty of nature was just as inexorable in its dealing with her own soul as with others; she never paltered with, nor evaded an accusation of, her consciousness.