They felt strange with each other, now that they were alone, because of all that the other had done while the two of them were apart. Simon’s sudden decision was as inexplicable to his wife as her afternoon’s jest with Eliza had seemed to him. In his place she would never have stooped to make of herself the younger brother’s man; she would have worked for the hardest driver amongst them sooner than that. Even the close affection between the brothers could not dignify the position in her eyes. She could understand something of Simon’s yearning towards the farm, but Sarah was never the sort of which they make doorkeepers in Heaven. She would never really have understood the strength of the pull, even with no Eliza set like a many-eyed monster on the farmyard wall. He, on the other hand, could not even pretend to understand the Lie, but then the Vision of the Parlour had been granted to her and not to him. Both their minds, however, were at work more on the change that was coming than on Sarah’s sudden craze, since always the pressing business of life must supersede the dream. Simon, indeed, did not want to think about Sarah’s behaviour further than he could help, because of that sinister saying about the doings of blind brains. As for Sarah herself, she had done with the dream for ever in that moment when she came face to face with the limits of her lie. It had had its tremendous hour in the down-treading of a lifelong foe, but in that one stupendous achievement it had finally passed. Never again would she be able to shut herself in the spell, until the blind saw and the lost spoke, and the sea was crossed in a leap. Never again would she be able to believe that Geordie might come home. In spite of their shameful departure, fast fading, however, from his mind, Simon was already planning the bitter-sweet prospect of their near return. Like so many ideas impossible and even repellent at the start, this had already become natural and full of an acid charm. For the time being he was content to ignore the drawbacks of the position, and to concentrate only upon its obvious gains. His mind, hurrying forward over the next few months, was already disposing of stock, farm-implements and surplus household gear; and in his complete absorption he forgot that he was not alone, and kept jerking out fragments of disjointed speech. Sarah allowed him to amuse himself after this fashion for some time, and then broke dryly into his current of thought. "You may as well tell me what’s settled, and get it by with," she observed in a sardonic tone. "So far, even Eliza seems to know more about it than me. You and Will seem to ha’ fixed things up wi’ a vengeance, that you have! You’d best to tell me how it come about, instead of booing away to yourself like a badly calf."