"So was mine to me. She was--sweet, my mother was, but that didn't prevent my getting angry with her. I wish I didn't get so angry. Do you understand that you're engaged to a volcano, an active one?" "I'm beginning to." "And I'm in eruption now. Be careful." "I love my volcano." "She'll hurt you, often. Destroy you altogether, perhaps. Basil, I want to tell you something. There'll be times when I shall nearly hate you." "Why?" "I don't know. It's just me. I'm cruel. But love me always, and I'll come back to you." "I can't help loving you, dear," he said, and kissed her hair. "But do you trust me?" "Darling, of course!" She made herself more comfortable in his arms. "Then I'll be worthy, if I can. Take care of me." She was happy that night when she went to bed, and, sitting by the fire with her softly slippered feet close to the blaze, she could take Alexander's letter from its place, and hold it easily in a hand on which Basil's diamonds sparkled. Only that morning the letter had been dropped into the hall as she stood there in her travelling coat, with the veil that swathed her little hat pushed up so that she might drink the hot milk Bessie offered. "That'll be for the master," Bessie said. "No, it's for you, Miss Terry. Now, drink the milk. I won't have people telling me you're thin. Of course, you're thin! You tell 'im I've given you hot milk every morning this last week." "All right, Bessie, all right. He knows you take care of me." "So 'e ought." She had held the letter in her pocket, stroking it with her thumb; and then Grace and the baby had come in to say good-bye, and not until she was in the train had she been able to read what Alexander wrote. Then she read it many times. "Will you not be here to see it flush the hills? And the streams so fierce and heavy that it takes your breath away." She wanted to be there. She thought she felt the cold spray on her face. She felt the air: passing through it was to be new-made. Her steps were buoyant, her eyes were washed and clean. She heard the water, she heard the larches singing, and her heart cried in her breast. She would dream to-night, and she longed for the darkness and feared it. She would see the lakeside and the black precipice, the water would be whispering at her feet, and she would be waiting, waiting. It was a long time since she had been there.