Even after she had ceased to wonder she could not tear herself away. The low room was not only a room, such as anybody might prepare for a guest; it was a refuge, a place for himself that she had made for a stray. She had stained the floor with her own hands, and washed the knitted quilt on the bed. She had made the white valances with their borders of knitted lace, the cloth rug by the bedside, the white window-curtains with their pleated frills. She had distempered the white walls and polished the chest of drawers so that the brass-bound Bible on its top was reflected deeply as in a pool. All the paint was white; perhaps she was proudest of the paint. The new bedstead was iron, with brass knobs crowning its slender posts. In a crinkly vase on one sill was a posy of coloured flowers.... Surely the old man would be able to rest here? The windows of the room were so full of sun that they looked like translucent plates of beaten gold. Beyond them, the scene was so bright that it hurt the eye—the river shining and glinting close below the farm, the sands all sparkling as if they were sown with quartz, and the houses across the bay snow-white against the hill. The tide was dead out—at the end of the world it seemed; yet never at any time was it very far. Always, when you had forgotten it, it came stealing back, a thief in the night, a trespasser by day. Even now she had not grown used to the tides, though she did not look out of the windows all the time, as she had done when she first arrived on the marsh. But he, when he came, would look out of the windows all day long.... She stood in the long rays, staring round the room, her blue eyes frowning a little as she looked. Her young, firm figure was full of energy and strength. Her dark hair was ruffled and her cheek flushed with the final effort that was actually the last.