I am sure that he had meant to confide to her the future of the house, and one gaze had been enough to silence him. That gaze alone had told him that there was no need. She who was there, close beside him, was she not his flesh and his heart? All those years together, day by day, without one difference of opinion, one cloud, had made them indissolubly one. What could one utterance add to all that? Was ever greater evidence of love given to wife than that silence, that confidence, that peace! ... After those high moments I was overpowered by the human cowardice which finds a sort of solace in absence from the scene of calamity. I left the room. Grandfather was getting down from the diligence with Nicola, already a big girl, growing serious, and Jamie, lighter minded, whose twelve years were not yet troubled by any presentiment. Grandfather was anxiously superintending the transportation of his violin case and his almanacs; his collection of pipes was not to be entrusted to any hands but his own. Aunt Deen attended in person to the heavy luggage. Notwithstanding her years and declining strength, she still took upon herself a servant’s duties. Physical effort alone could relieve her mind; with her, sorrow expressed itself in increased activity. Once in the house, grandfather wandered about like a soul in pain. He hovered around the sick room without venturing to enter. He dared not ask questions, and in his uncertainty he made his moan to any one whom he saw: “I am getting old. I am old.” They saw one another, but I was not present. It was not necessary to be present to realise what it must have been, and that the son, inevitably, supported and comforted the father. If life does not draw from a religious heart the fervour of a constant upward progress, one must always remain what one has been. For some the burden, for others the looking on. And even the approach of death does not change things. As evening drew on, grandfather, who was dragging himself from room to room, bemoaning himself, timidly proposed that we should take a walk. “That’s a good idea,” said Aunt Deen, who understood him. “There are two or three errands at the chemist’s and the grocer’s.”