When they had gone there was a silence. Mrs. Agar made no attempt to follow. She sat down again on the sofa, swaying backwards and forwards. Perhaps she was dimly aware that there remained something still to be said. Jem Agar crossed the room and stood in front of her. Dora, from the background, was pleading with her eyes for this woman. There were the makings of a very hard man in James Edward Makerstone Agar, and seven years of the grimmest soldiering of modern days had done nothing to soften him. He was strictly just; but it is not justice that women want. To all men there comes a time when they recognise the fact that all their time and all their energies are required for the taking care of _one_ woman, and that all the rest must take care of themselves. “You may stay,” he said to his step-mother, “until Arthur is removed from this house--but no longer. I shall never pretend to forgive you, and I never want to see you again.” Mrs. Agar made no answer, nor did she look up. “Go,” said Jem, with a little jerk of his head towards the door. Slowly she rose, and without looking at either of them she passed out of the room. When, at last, they were left alone in the quiet library where they had played together as children, where the happiest moments of his life and the most miserable of hers had been lived through. Dora did not seem to know quite what to do. She was standing by the writing-table, with one hand resting on it, facing him, but not looking at him. She suddenly felt unable to do that--felt at a loss, abashed, unequal to the moment. But Jem seemed to have no hesitation. He was quite natural and very deliberate. He seemed to know quite well what to do. He closed the door behind Mrs. Agar, and then he came across the room and took Dora in his arms, as if there were no question about it. He said nothing. After all, there was nothing to be said. THE END End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of From One Generation to Another, by Henry Seton Merriman