“Let us go straight to the point. Let me collect my thoughts. You see, Mabel, it’s like this. But perhaps I had better begin at the beginning. You see, even before he went blind, I knew that he was not made for the country, you know how one can tell about one’s boy. Well, anyway, from one thing or another I saw that he was not happy down here. You see, he has never liked huntin’ or shootin’ or any of those things, and now he can’t fish. I don’t know how it is, he is not in the least like Ralph or me. Where can he have got it from? And this writing that he is so keen about, of course I encourage it, my dear, it is so good for the boy to have a hobby, but no one has ever written on either side of the family. Ralph even found letter-writing almost impossible. So that it is so difficult to understand him, dear.” “Yes, Emily, I have always felt that, you know.” “And then one has had girls to the house so that he might see some nice young things, but he has never taken to any of them, Mabel. There was Jane Blandair, a charming girl, but he has told me, in confidence of course, that he definitely dislikes her. My dear, I asked him why, and he said that it was everything about her. What can one do? Jane would have made such a splendid wife and mother. And of the other girls who have been, there was not one of them I would not have liked for a daughter-in-law. And he is quite a catch, isn’t he, clever and artistic, and he will have a little money. It was all very depressing, Mabel.” “Yes, dear, I felt for you so.” “Well, I was wretched about the whole business, and I slowly came to realise that he was not made for the country, like you or I. You see, he does not really care for the village, though he makes great efforts, poor boy. And then it is his future that matters. He gets terribly bored down here, he has no interests. He is always talking of the towns. He never actually says it, but I know he thinks we all get into grooves in the country, and so I suppose we do, I mean I personally am always fussin’ about the village, but of course he is too young to realise that one gets into a groove wherever one is. But there is his writing. That is his only interest. He has been so very brave all through this business, and he is now writing as hard as ever he did; naturally I encourage it, I think everyone should have a hobby, and I am sure you agree with me in this, Mabel. But he seems to think that one can’t write books in the country. Though all the books that you and I used to read, Mabel, like Jane Austen, were written about the country. Still, he thinks that he can’t, and I have always told him to try, but it must be so different when one is blind. So what he wants is to go away, Mabel, that is what it all comes to. He has never said it, of course, but that is what he wants to do.” “To go away, Emily? What for?” “Well, he is young ...”