But it was not of death which they spoke. It was as though the elder woman’s life was already closed, as though she already stood afar off and saw the world and life with other and clearer eyes. There was no regret or fear in her attitude towards the unknown future, and that calm, high confidence inspired Nora with a curious awe which hushed all tears and passionate grief. She looked up to her mother as to a being high above all earthly sorrow, yet linked to the world by an infinite, all-comprehending pity. That pity was Nora’s one refuge. The wild delight which had borne her up through that long night journey had died almost in the same hour that her father had clasped her in his arms and killed the fatted calf in honour of the long-despaired-of prodigal. Something like an icy disappointment had crept into her aching heart as she had woken the first morning in her girlhood’s room and realised that this was her home, the home she had longed and prayed for, in which she had chosen to pass her life. She had laughed scorn at herself and had greeted the hideous church-spire which peered over the leafless trees with a seeming new-born affection, and to her father and brother she maintained that same seeming of delight and thankfulness. Before her mother she had broken down for a moment, and the stormy sobs which had shaken her had not wholly been the expression of a pent-up longing. She had recovered herself almost at once, the grave, clear eyes of the dying woman warning her, perhaps, that her secret was no longer entirely hidden, and now she knelt and told her story as she would have told it twenty-four hours before, with bitterness, resentment, and self-pity. "It was all a dreadful mistake, mother," she said. "I believed I loved him enough to forget whom and what I was, but I could not. Every hour showed me that I was a stranger, and would always remain a stranger. I could not grow to love his people, and they hated me. You don’t know how they hated me. When trouble began and there came the first rumour of war, they did not let a chance pass to hurt me. There were moments when I felt I could bear it no longer, but I held out until that night. Then—when I was in that crowd, and heard them cheering, and knew that it was against me—against us—I knew that I could never go back, that the strain of pretending or trying to pretend would send me mad. And oh, I longed so for my home and for you all! It was just as though I were in some frightful exile among enemies——" "So you escaped," Mrs. Ingestre interrupted gently. "It was natural, and yet——" Nora looked into her mother’s face, and wondered at the depth of pity which the low voice had betrayed. "And yet——?" she asked. "I was thinking of Wolff," Mrs. Ingestre said. "He must have suffered terribly."