in it more than once or twice before.
"It's a queer thing, but though you've altered this completely from what
it was when I was a boy, it still seems the oldest and most familiar
thing in the world. And though it's really rather exposed as houses go,
hanging up here over the marshes, I feel when I come back to it as if I
were creeping down into some hiding-place, into some warm, closed place
where nothing horrible could ever find me. Do you feel like that,
mother?"

She nodded. "I might hate this house, considering all that's happened
here. But I, too ..." She spoke in the slightly disagreeable tone that a
reticent nature assumes when it is obliged to confess to strong feeling.
"Yes, I love it."

They looked solemnly into the crepitant blaze of the new fire. He
grasped her hand; but suddenly released it and asked querulously, as if
he had remembered certain tedious obligations: "And Ellen, does she like
the house?"

She was appalled, "Yes, yes! I think so," she stammered.

"Good," he said curtly, and buried his head in her lap again.

For as long as possible she endured her dismay; then, bending forward
and trying to twist his face round so that she could read it, she asked
unsteadily, "Richard, you do love Ellen, don't you?"

He sat up and met her eyes. "Of course I do. Have you been thirty-six
hours with her without seeing that I must? She--she's a lamp with a
double burner. There's her beauty, and her dear, funny, young little
soul. It's good to have someone that one can worship and befriend at the
same time. Yes, we're going to be quite happy." His eyes slid away from
hers evasively, then hardened and resolved to be honest, and returned
again. "Mother, I tell you this is the end." After that his honesty
faltered. He chose to take it that his mother was looking so fixedly at
him because she had not understood the meaning of his words, so he
repeated soberly, "I tell you, this is the end. The end of love making
for me. I shall never love any other woman but Ellen as long as I live."
And he turned to the fire, the set of his shoulders confessing what his
lips would not--that though he loved Ellen, though he wanted Ellen,
there was something imperfect in the condition of his love which made
him leaden and uneager.

"That's right, that's right; you must be good to her," Marion murmured,
and stroked his hair. "I don't think you could have done better than
your Ellen if you'd searched the whole world," she said ti