“Then you remember the letters? But you didn't come then. But I began to fancy how it would be when you came, and then somehow it seemed as if you were here. Out in the orchard sometimes, don't you see? And more often when Kezzy was cross. And when she went to sleep by the fire at night--she was so old--we were quite alone and talked. Don't you remember?--I mean--But Kezzy didn't like to hear me talking to myself. 'Mutter, mutter!' like that. 'Never was such a child!' And then she died, too, seven--seven years ago, and it was quite different. I--I grew older. You seemed to be here quite and quite close to me always. There was no one else, except--But, I don't know why, I had an aching from having to wait, and it has been a long time, hasn't it?” “Rather long. Go on. There was no one else?” “No. We lived here--I mean--it grew that way, and you changed from the picture, too, and became like Mr. Sebastian, only younger, and just as you are now, only--not quite.” She looked at him with sudden fear, then dropped her eyes, drew her long hair around under her cloak and leaned closer to the fire. “But there is so much to tell you it comes out all mixed.” Sebastian sat silently looking down at her, and felt the burden of his thinking grow heavier; the pondering how David Sebastian had left him an inheritance of advice, declaring his own life full and brimming, and to Harriet the inheritance of a curious duty that had grown to people her nights and days with intense sheltered dreams, and made her life, too, seem to her full and brimming, multitudinous with events and interchanges, himself so close and cherished an actor in it that his own parallel unconsciousness of it had almost dropped out of conception. And the burden grew heavier still with the weight of memories, and the record between the Old and New Testaments; with the sense of the isolation and covert of the midnight, and the storm; with the sight of Harriet crouching by the fire, her story, how David Sebastian left this world and went out into the wild night crying, “Charles! Charles!” It was something not logical, but compelling. It forced him to remark that his own cup appeared partially empty from this point of view. Harriet seemed to feel that her hour had come and he was given to her hands.. Success even in methods of living is a convincing thing over unsuccess. Ah, well! too late to remodel to David Sebastian's notion. It was singular, though, a woman silent, restrained, scrupulous, moving probably to the dictates of village opinion--suddenly the key was turned, and she threw back the gates of her prison; threw open doors, windows, intimate curtains; asked him to look in and explore everywhere and know all the history and the forecasts; became simple, primitive, unrestrained, willing to sit there at his feet and as innocent as her white linen gown. How smooth and pale her hair was and gentle cheek, and there were little sleepy smiles in the corners of the lips. He thought