“The doctor’s been gone a long time, hasn’t he?” he said. Harriett was silent. She didn’t understand. Her mother was looking at her with a serene comprehension and compassion. “Poor Hatty,” he said, “she can’t tell a lie to save my life.” “Oh--Papa----” He smiled as if he was thinking of something that amused him. “You should consider other people, my dear. Not just your own selfish feelings.... You ought to write and tell Mr. Hichens.” Her mother gave a short sobbing laugh. “Oh, you darling,” she said. He lay still. Then suddenly he began pressing hard on the mattress with both hands, bracing himself up in the bed. Her mother leaned closer towards him. He threw himself over slantways, and with his head bent as if it was broken, dropped into her arms. Harriett wondered why he was making that queer grating and coughing noise. Three times. Her mother called softly to her--“Harriett.” She began to tremble. VIII Her mother had some secret that she couldn’t share. She was wonderful in her pure, high serenity. Surely she had some secret. She said he was closer to her now than he had ever been. And in her correct, precise answers to the letters of condolence Harriett wrote: “I feel that he is closer to us now than he ever was.” But she didn’t really feel it. She only felt that to feel it was the beautiful and proper thing. She looked for her mother’s secret and couldn’t find it. Meanwhile Mr. Hichens had given them six weeks. They had to decide where they would go: into Devonshire or into a cottage at Hampstead where Sarah Barmby lived now. Her mother said, “Do you think you’d like to live in Sidmouth, near Aunt Harriett?” They had stayed one summer at Sidmouth with Aunt Harriett. She remembered the red cliffs, the sea, and Aunt Harriett’s garden stuffed with flowers. They had been happy there. She thought she would love that: the sea and the red cliffs and a garden like Aunt Harriett’s. But she was not sure whether it was what her mother really wanted. Mamma would never say. She would have to find out somehow. “Well--what do you think?” “It would be leaving all your friends, Hatty.” “My friends--yes. But----” Lizzie and Sarah and Connie Pennefather. She could live without them. “Oh, there’s Mrs. Hancock.” “Well----” Her mother’s voice suggested that if she were put to it she could live without Mrs. Hancock. And Harriett thought: She does want to go to Sidmouth then. “It would be very nice to be near Aunt Harriett.” She was afraid to say more than that lest she should show her own wish before she knew her mother’s. “Aunt Harriett. Yes.... But it’s very far away, Hatty. We should be cut off from everything. Lectures and concerts. We couldn’t afford to come up and down.” “No. We couldn’t.”