Mattie spoke to her then, though in an altered tone which corresponded with her altered presence. With an obvious effort she made her little speech of thanks,--Dolly moving restlessly the while,--and then bade her wait a moment. Going back into the kitchen, she reappeared with a pot of her Best Strawberry. “Nay, I want you to take it,” she insisted, firmly if dully, as Mrs. Machell protested. “You’ve been right kind. I’ll give you them pink vases, if you’ll have ’em, before the sale, but anyhow I’d like you to have a taste of my good strawberry.” The tears came into Dolly’s eyes. Regardless of the jam-pot, she put her arms round Mattie’s neck and hugged her. “I don’t need presents just for enjoying myself!” she said, laughing and crying together. “Eh, Mrs. Kirkby, but I’d be right glad if I heard as you weren’t going!” She was gone herself then, running across the gardens, jam-pot in hand, and Mattie waited until she had lost sight of her. Her lips had quivered a little at the warm pressure of Dolly’s cheek, but they did not quiver now. Her figure straightened itself slightly as she turned on her heel, and went back slowly, but with set purpose, into the darkening house. VI She went back into the kitchen and sat down at the table from which the tea-things had been removed, and which now wore its evening glory of crimson cloth. The sight of the cloth reminded her that Kirkby had not yet come in for his meal, and she wondered what had become of him. But she forgot him again in the urge for settlement with herself which had suddenly seized her. Sinking herself in the problems which beset her, she lost all consciousness of time and place. She sat heavily in her chair, with the heaviness of exhaustion, but with less of that air of lowered vitality which had frightened Mrs. Machell. A little force had returned to her joined hands, laid loosely along the table. Her face, lifted and looking straight before her, was the face of one who at the same time sits in judgment and awaits the decision of some tribunal. She was still numb from the shock of Dolly’s communication, but she was bracing herself all the time. She was trying to make herself understand that she had still to decide about Canada, still to set the balance dipping one way or the other. She had thought the choice made long since, clinched long ago beyond all possible change. But the truth was that you could neither test nor be tested by a situation which had not as yet arisen. She saw now that the decision had never really been made at all; that it never could have been made until Kirkby had written the letter....