"But you wanted me to be more, and so did I. And I find I'm just an ordinary person, and I want--I want--oh, I may as well say it--I want love. To have it and to give it. I have been feeding on myself all these years, and I am so weary of the taste of me. It's as though I had grown old since New Year's Day. I wonder if I'm any wiser. I feel to-day as if you couldn't teach me anything, but to-morrow--oh, to-morrow, I may be young and brave again! It's strange," she went on thoughtfully, "I have had a very humdrum life, and yet I feel that I have lived through great adventures. It's quite an effort to convince myself of their unreality. I have been loved, and I have loved; I have had children, and seen them die. I've heard men shouting as they fight, and giving grunting, gasping breaths under the shriek of steel, and I have gone on long voyages and seen far countries. I know how they smell. Why is it? Why is it?" He made no answer, and they both gazed in the fire, and, defying the habits of youth and age, it was Theresa who saw the scrolls of the past, and Edward Webb who looked towards the future. "I want you to promise me something," he said at last. "What is it?" "You'll marry no one whom you do not love with your best self; you will try not to be the servant of your imagination. Teach it to serve you, Theresa." "I'll promise that," she said. "And, Theresa, while--while we are speaking of serious things, I want to tell you I made my will long ago, of course, and it is in the desk with the rest of my papers. Those are all yours. There are your mother's letters to me, mine to her, and all the letters you ever wrote to me, and Grace's, too. You will find I have been very methodical; everything is ticketed and dated; and there are all my poems, Theresa, with Alexander's criticisms, and his letters. You can do what you like with them." She put her hand on his knee, and he saw how thin she was. "Why are you telling me all this? I won't have you giving these instructions. It's what Mother did. You are not ill, are you? Don't have secrets from me. "I am not ill, my dear. I am very well and happy. But there is never any knowing what may happen. The train might run off the lines when I go to the farm on Easter Saturday." She took her hand away and held it. She would not let it shake. "But," she said--and in the effort to steady her voice, it came loudly--"but what about Alexander?" "He cannot come. I heard last night--only last night. And I--I have decided to go there instead." "Why can't he come?" she asked, and she seemed to hear the thudding drop of her heart. "He cannot leave his mother. He is a good son." She was silent. Then, "I'm glad you're going," she said. "It will do you good." "I have no doubt it will do me good." He gave a secret smile she did not see.