But he had known also that the old have their hours of weary withdrawal from life, as if all in a moment somebody hailed them to look beyond. It was then that they wanted wide, tranquil skies, rolling lands and the distant sea—all these spacious country things which speak of a wider country still. So in Mrs. Clapham’s kitchen at least he had set that second window towards the west, the eye that looked to the marsh and the park and the dim blueness of the bay. He knew that sometimes, when the evening came, the old would let down the blind of the window that looked to the road, and sit in the other that looked to the sky in the west. Through the window behind them they would hear hoofs and wheels, voices and young laughter, footsteps and talk; but their eyes would be fixed immovably on the thing “beyond.” At that hour they would not raise a corner of the blind to look at “life,” because they would be looking at something so much bigger than life. Leaning back in one of his easy chairs, with half-dropped lids and quietly-folded hands, they would sit staring at the colour and light, the shining mystery of evening peace. He liked to think that some of them might even pass like that, without any nuisance of doctor and sick-bed; that, soothed and content, alone and yet not lonely, ready yet not afraid, they might step straight out of the house which he had built into those other houses not made with hands.... He built many almshouses during the course of his long life, but it was only when he built the last of them in his old age that he came finally to think of that. Mrs. Clapham remembered now, as she came back to it again, that it was in that very kitchen he had called her a “d—d good sort.” The almshouses were just finished but had not been allotted, and one morning, as she waited on him at breakfast, he had asked her if she would like to see them. A little later, therefore, they had found themselves walking out, and although she had felt coy and abashed, the old gentleman had not cared a button. “Come along, Jones! Step out!” he had ordered her, when he found her attempting to hang back. “Short life.... Short days. Put your best foot foremost, Jones! Step along; step out!” He had taken her over each house in turn, jerking out explanations of his ideas, and watching her keenly all the time. He had waited patiently while she lingered and stared, and over and over again he had asked her opinion. Presently she made an effort and ventured a shy hint, and with mixed horror and pride watched him enter it in a book. Finally, she had blurted out that nobody would ever believe the houses to have been planned by a man, and suddenly his eyes had twinkled, his lips parted, and he had chuckled grimly and looked pleased....