It was not the sort of maternal feeling to hem in the mother
and oppress the children. It was love in freedom--love that did not hold
in or try to hold in. It would develop a sense of the preciousness of
life. It did not glorify self-sacrifice--that insidious foe to the
fullness of living.

Thinking of that, and going out from that to other things, she sat down
on a log by the roadside, luxuriating in the opulence and freshness of
the world that May morning, newly tuned to life, vibrant with that same
fresh sense of it, glad gratefulness in return to it, that comes after
long sickness, after imprisonment. The world was full of singing birds
that morning,--glorious to be in a world of singing birds! The earth
smelled so good! There were plum trees in bloom behind her; every little
breeze brought their fragrance. The grass under her feet was
springy--the world was vibrant, beautiful, glad. The earth seemed so
strong, so full of still unused powers, so ready to give.

She sat there a long time; she had the courage this morning to face the
facts of her life. She was eager to face them, to understand them that
she might go on understandingly. She had the courage to face the facts
relating to herself and Stuart. That was a thing she had not dared do.
With them, love _had_ to last, for love was all they had. They had only
each other. They did not dare let themselves think of such a thing as
the love between them failing.

Well, it had not failed; but she let herself see now how greatly it had
changed. There was something strangely freeing in just letting herself
see it. Of course there had been change; things always changed. Love
changed within marriage--she did not know why she should expect it to be
different with her. But in the usual way--within marriage--it would
matter less for there would be more ways of adapting one's self to the
changing. Then one could reach out into new places in life, gaining new
channels, taking on new things as old ones slipped away, finding in
common interests, common pleasures, the new adjustment for feeling. But
with them life had seemed to shut right down around them. And they had
never been able to relax in the reassuring sense of the lastingness of
their love. She had held herself tense in the idea that there was no
change, would be none. She had a feeling now of having tried too hard,
of being tired through long trying. There was relief in just admitting
that she was tired. And so she le