"Was I?" Richard laughed. "I'm afraid I must always have kept my good behavior for you. Aren't your phloxes splendid this year? Best I've ever seen." They paced the walk arm-in-arm, admiring the glow of color. At last Richard said: "Mother, I've got something to tell you." She knew immediately what it was. "You're going to South Africa." "Yes. I'm in the _Gazette_ this morning. I thought you'd all have seen it." "They went out to golf without reading the papers," she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. "What regiment, darling?" "Rifle brigade." "Are you pleased?" "Pleased to be a rifleman? Mother, of course I am!" "I'm glad you're pleased about it, darling. I'm glad you've got what you wanted." "My battalion is at the front." She braced herself for the next question. "And when do you think you'll have to go, darling?" "Rather soon," he told her in his gentlest voice. "Rather soon," she echoed in a whisper. "Shall we go and sit somewhere in the shade? The sun is so hot along this wall. I wonder the phloxes can stand it without wilting." "There was a heavy dew this morning," he reminded her. A heavy dew this morning? It was a day then, a real day in time. The date was in the almanac. It was not a dream. There was a heavy dew this morning, and Richard would be on his way to South Africa rather soon. "And I suppose you'll have to go up to town about your uniform?" she asked. "Yes, I shall have to see about my kit." "And that will mean some of the little time we have left will be taken away from us." "You could come up to town with me and we could have lunch somewhere," he suggested. Yes, they could have lunch together, and then a week or two later he would be gone. "Richard!" He looked round in astonishment at the poignant exclamation of his name. "No, I did not want to say anything," she told him with a sad smile. "Nothing more than 'Richard,' while you can still look round at me like that, while you are still here to look round at me." The fine autumn weather lasted until Richard left for South Africa. His mother at his earnestly expressed desire did not go to Southampton to wave the last farewell. When he was trying to dissuade her from the journey, she felt as she used to feel when as a boy he had always tried to dissuade her from coming to Paddington to bid him good-by on the platform before he went back to Eton. They parted on the steps of Woodworth Lodge, and the carriage drove off with ghostly quietude along the road that was littered with dead leaves, drove off with her Richard in the yellow light of an October morning. "Seems strange without him," said Jemmie, taking his wife's arm affectionately and guiding her when she stumbled on the stairs because the tears in her eyes obscured all objects familiar and unfamiliar, all life indeed for the moment.