All the same, it was a tremendous responsibility, and it might result—I came back to this again and again—in a tremendous sacrifice. Because if I agreed to be Rose’s foster-father, I should have to be thorough and absolute. She might in time go to school, but while she was my child she would be mine and no one else’s. I could not share the duty of bringing her up. This means that the marriage upon which Mrs. Stratton had set her mind would not materialize. Whether or not celibacy was going to involve any kind of martyrdom for me I did not know; certainly up to the present time I had not fallen in love or felt in danger of doing so; and that is a good deal to say at thirty-four. But there were years ahead famous for their susceptibility. And then, as to education, a girl, even when one can give her adequate attention, is a disquieting creature. One never knows of what she is thinking, as she sits there, knitting, or apparently poring over a book, or arranging flowers without a sound: more than thinking, plotting even. A boy is simpler. To begin with, he is rarely being still, and for the most part he wears his thoughts outside. As for a boy, if I had one to bring up I don’t quite know what I should teach him, except that he must not step away from fast bowling, and that it isn’t fair to get into a railway compartment where the only other passengers are a pair of lovers. During a wakeful night my thoughts traversed the ground again and again, in unprogressive circles; but amid the dubieties that crowded on me this steady question periodically challenged me—Could you let her be brought up by that Stratton woman? Then, for the moment, I saw my course clear and shining: only however to lose it again when the gigantic difficulties of the task of education—made infinitely greater and more difficult by the fact that I was considering them in the small hours, when no man’s judgment is well-balanced—arose to darken the future. Thus pondering and fearing, I fell asleep. How long I should have overslept, as the result of this earlier restlessness, had not some gravel rattled on the window, I cannot say. I hastened to it and peered out. The sun was high, the scent of the garden came up warm and fresh, and just below me was Rose herself, all strange and pathetic in her stiff black clothes, lifting her transparent little face upwards and calling “Dombeen, Dombeen. Oh, I do want you so.” How could I have disregarded such a sign? Was it not an answer to Mrs. Stratton’s prayer? “I have decided finally to take charge of Rose, as her father wished,” I wrote to Mrs. Stratton before she left for her own home. * * * * * My first duty now was to secure Hannah Banks; because it would be necessary for Rose to have a nurse and steady companion, and I had never cared greatly for the one in Allinson’s employ.