uld be an
estrangement.... Nor could he allow Riversdale to be turned into an
orphanage. Perhaps he would allow her to do anything; that pleased
her; all the same, she would feel that the permission did not come
out of his instinct, only out of a desire to please her.

"Well, Owen," she said as soon as he had finished breakfast, "I don't
want to hurry you, but if you are to catch that train we must start
at once."

It was one of her off days, and she was going to spend it at the
cottage. There were a great many things for her to do. She never had
much time, but she would go to the station with him.

"But you have already walked two miles."

"Ah! Eliza has told you?"

"Yes, that you go to Mass every morning."

Owen seemed to regret the fact, and when he broke silence again it
was to inquire into the expenses of the orphanage and to deplore the
necessity which governed her life of going to London every day,
returning home late, and he offered her a subscription which would
cover the entire cost. But his offer of money seemed to embarrass
her, and he understood that her pleasure was to go to London to work
for these children, for only in that way could the home be entirely
her own. If she were to accept help from the outside it would drift
away from her and from its original intention, just as the convent
had done. Nor was it very likely that she would care to give up her
work and come to live at Riversdale, as his wife, of course as his
wife, and it would pain her to refuse him.... Better leave things as
they were.

"You are right," he said, "not to live in London; one avoids a great
deal of loneliness. One is more lonely in London than anywhere I
know. The country is the natural home of man. Man is an arborial
animal," he added, laughing, "and is only happy among trees."

"And woman, what is she? A material animal?"

"I suppose so. You have your children; I have my trees."

The words seemed to have a meaning which eluded them, and they
pondered while they descended the hillside until the piece of
low-lying land came into view and the bridge crossing the sluggish
stream, amid whose rushes he had gathered the wild forget-me-not. As
he was about to speak of them he remembered her singing classes, and
that yester evening had worn away without hearing her sing. "You have
lost all interest in music, I fear. You think of it now as a means of
making money... for your children," he added, so that his words might
not