When Stephen returned, they buried James Talbert. And then the other, placing stones over the mounds to keep the wolves off. There were no other adornments to give them. And even as they worked, the clouds thickened and turned to rain, as if Nature wept, to see the unending tragedy of Man. Sixteen "May I take you back to the hut," Stephen said when they had laid the last stone. "I have much on my conscience already. I would see you safely home, at least." He could say no more, nor did she wish him to. They rode back in silence, and in silence they parted. With silence, too, did she greet her mother, who asked no questions, but only welcomed her with a strange, apologetic smile. Hardly able to notice, let alone dissect the mysterious change in her, Mary shed her wet and tattered garments, then hung her cloak by the fire to dry. As she put on the nightgown the old woman provided she said blankly, and bitterly. "James Talbert is dead. I must go and tell Anne this evening. Please don't wake me until then." She lay listlessly in the bed, and after a long, empty passage of time, fell asleep. She did not dream. Her mother returned to her place by the fire, and sat down in a melancholy heap. She felt anxious and utterly lost, without place or purpose in the world. For a change had in fact taken place in her, with or without her consent. In the troubled hours since her daughter's flight, it had become impossible to think of killing and tearing down. Too clearly did she see, and feel, and remember all the dark, destructive forces that pull the living back to earth, wholly without a woman's schemes. And she felt this to the core of her being, because she knew that she, too, would soon return to dust. Because her body was at long last giving out. Beside the painful angina which had plagued her since the night of the Stone, she felt in these bitter, infinite hours a dizziness and blurring of vision which she knew to be the forerunner of stroke. Her daughter had not yet realized her condition, and for this, at least, she was grateful. As her own life inexorably diminished, she found she thought less and less of herself---of the past---and more and more of her daughter's future. This was both painful and sad, because she saw the tragedy of her own life mingling, and becoming one, with Mary's. How similar. Her love for John MacCain---clean, strong, yet ended by untimely death. Then the desperate, animal attraction to a handsome, brutal man who had broken her heart, and crushed the last of her dreams. He was his father's son..... Then the emptiness, and finally the horrid, burning hatred of all that still lived, loved, and desired happiness. Her one hope now, strange as it might have seemed but a few days before, was that the girl might still be young enough to heal, and wise enough to seek that healing in the light of life, rather than the darkness of revenge, which had so fruitlessly swallowed the remnant of her years.