The hand of fate is brutal but impersonal. The hand of one's mother is something different.
Witting or unwitting ?Carelessness-the thing picked up off the hall mat,thrust into her pocket and forgotten, or deliberate appropriation?well,one would never know and either way the effect was the same. Helen began to shake. Her mind raced. A number of things fell into place. That time. The coolness about....about what had it been ?
Anger giving way to misery and then to regret and eventually to...nothing.Until now, when one sat here surrounded by old raincoats, shaking as though struck down by fever."