In any other young man, brought up in the ordinary way, with the
ordinary advantages, such submission would have seemed mean-
spirited; but the bond between these two was riveted with memories
of penury and privation; any appeal to those black days brought
Raymond on his knees; it was intolerable to him that he should
ever cause a pang in his dear mother's breast. Thus, at the age
when the heart is hungriest for companionship; when for the first
time a young man seems to discover the existence of a hitherto
unknown and unimportant sex; when an inner voice urges him to take
his place in the ranks and keep step with the mighty army of his
generation, Raymond was doomed to walk alone, a wistful outcast,
regarding his enviable companions from afar.
He was in his second year at college when his studies were broken
off by his mother's illness. He was suddenly called home to find
her delirious in bed, struck down in the full tide of strength by
the disease she had taken from a patient. It was scarlet fever,
and when it had run its course the doctor took him to one side and
told him that his mother's nursing days were over. During her
tedious convalescence, as Raymond would sit beside her bed and
read aloud to her, their eyes were constantly meeting in unspoken
apprehension. They saw the ground, so solid a month before, now
crumbling beneath their feet; their struggles, their makeshifts,
their starved and meagre life had all been in vain.
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