"You see, sir," she said to Francis, "Mr. Serge found me when everything was as complicated as that piece of lace, and he made it all simple. And after that, being with him made one able to bear everything, because one felt that, whatever it was, it would go away. He used to say that being unhappy and dark in your mind was just the same as being unwell in your body, and if it was taken in time there was always a cure for it. So funny he used to be about it. He was always talking to me about the boy, and he used to say that I must teach him nothing, because children are always right by themselves until they begin to imitate grown-up people, and bad things are easier to imitate than good because they are grotesque, and grown-up people have always to be learning good things from children over and over again." "I have never forgotten that day when I came to see you." "Nor I, sir." "We're going away, for ever. It is queer, but you are the only person whom I really wanted to see before I left. We have never seemed to belong to this place." "I used to hate it too, but Mr. Serge made me laugh at it all. He said it was just an accident, though I didn't know what he meant by that. I often didn't really understand Mr. Serge, except about the boy, but then I could see that everything he said was true." "I hope you will be very, very happy." Annie surprised Francis by putting her arms round his neck and kissing him. He returned the kiss. It was only some time after he had left her that it struck him that he had never once thought of Frederic in connection with her. When he called Frederic to his mind it was always as a graceful, impudent, funny little boy. He had never known the man Frederic. Frederic had never been a man. * * * Even in our town the green of spring was showing and the zestful wind was blowing upon the blackened houses when Francis, his wife and Mary left upon their long journey to the south. Gleeful and glad they were, and the spring was in their hearts and the keen adventurousness of escape. After long captivity they were shaking from their shoes the dust of the hostile city, leaving in its toils the sole hostage of all their family, Annette, doomed to the life of drudgery to which that city condemns its women, for, except they be born in drudgery, the sons of its women could never endure its service, nor would they be fitted for it. XXXIV NUNC DIMITTIS SERVUM TUUM, DOMINE _For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation._ THE SONG OF SIMEON. MANY wise men have laughed at the futility of thought and discarded an opinion as a worthless thing. In the garden at Crabtrees Francis grew roses and delphiniums and tall hollyhocks and all homely flowers, and busily he tended his vegetables and herbs. He kept bees and grew skilled in their ways. Every day in summer Mrs. Folyat sat in the gazebo, and in the winter she had her own little drawing-room where the gossips would come in and take tea over a great fire.