"If I'd said what I was thinking----" The red light in his eyes flickered as he saw how she drooped against the table. "Why are you not sitting down? Come here. How many miles have you tramped to-day? Let me have your boots. Why will you do it? Why will you do it?" He chafed her stockinged feet. She leant forward to touch his face. "Alec, I'm sorry we weren't here when you came home. My heart was here." "No, no!" "Part of it, then." "As much as that? I was thinking you'd be in the porch, with the light from the kitchen creeping round the passage corner; and there was Janet on the horse-block, like a great black bird. Couldn't you have let him run by himself for this one day?" "I daren't." She shivered. "If you did it once he'd stop." "No, it's like a disease. It's inherited, Alexander." "Ay, that's his excuse. It gives him the kind of pleasure a child gets when it's ill." He thought it was the first time he had heard her sigh. "You'll have to be patient with us, Alec. And could you stir the fire up a bit? I'm cold, my son." "Are you? Ah, you're killing yourself!" He felt her hands. They were of a clinging cold that frightened him. "I'll have a blaze in a minute," he said; but as he would have risen he felt her limp arms round his neck and her cheek against his. "Such miles, and miles, and miles," she sobbed; "such miles and miles! And to have you angry at the end of it! You mustn't be angry, Alec." "I'm not; I'm not." "You must help me." "I want to." His own voice was as strange in his ears as her appeal. "I shan't leave you again. I'm going to stay with you." She started back from him and sat straight in the chair. "No! How can you? I'll have no idle son." She wiped her eyes and smoothed back her hair. "Let me see to the fire," she said briskly. "What do you mean, Alexander?" "When did you eat last?" "I don't know. I won't have you doing things out of pity. I don't need pity, or you, or anyone. I was tired to-night; and yes, perhaps I do need some food. Alec, you're not going to live here, buried." "Will you have your milk hot or cold?" he said. "And here's a rice-pudding." "You've never known me behave like that before. I'm getting old, but, still, I'm strong--very strong." "Or would you rather have some meat? The pudding will be better at this time of night." "You must forget it, Alexander. It seems as if I was complaining--unhappy. There's no woman happier than I am--and have always been. Remember that. But the sight of you, and being tired, and cold, and hungry----" "I won't listen till you've had your supper," he said, and filled a pipe. She ate quickly under the whip of her thoughts. "If anyone but you had seen me just now----" "But no one did. And I've forgotten it, very nearly." He raised that droll left eyebrow, and she smiled at him. "A night's rest is a very good thing for a memory that's too thorough," she said. "I expect to find it so."