sons. If they haven't got them they feel like a
mare that's missed her spring. Daughters don't matter. That's because a
son's a happier thing than a daughter--there's something a little sad
about women, don't you think, Richard? I suppose it's something to do
with this business of having children--and men like that do so love
happiness. He had coveted you most terribly when he saw you about the
lanes. Truly he had. Then he said he felt tired, and he lay down on the
couch. I covered him with a rug, and he had a little sleep. Then he woke
up and said he must go because there was a solicitor coming at four,
and he was going to settle everything so that it was all right for you
and me. Then we said good-bye. And on the step he turned round and asked
if I thought you would like a Sealyham pup. And I said I thought you
would."

"Mother, it wasn't Punch?"

"Yes. It was Punch."

She noted the murderous gesture of his hands with bitter rapture. He had
loved that dog, but now he wished he could hail it out of death so that
he could send it back there cruelly. He was then capable of rooting up
old affections. She was not permitted to hope for anything better.

She pretended anger. "You've taken more than a dog from him. You know
that it's his money that's made life so easy for us."

"I should have had that by right. And you should have been at Torque
Hall."

The thought of what Torque Hall would have been at this hour if he had,
so full of lovely sleeping sons and daughters, made her sigh. She went
on dully: "Well, that's all. He turned at the gate and waved good-bye.
And the next day when you came in from school you told me he was dead."
For a time she looked down into the depths of her old sorrow. When she
raised her eyes, she was appalled by his harsh refusal to believe that
there was any beauty in her story, and she forgot why she was telling
it, and stammered out: "Richard, Richard, don't you understand? Don't
you feel about Ellen that there was a part of you that loved her long
before you ever met? It was like that with Harry and me. There was a
part in each of us that loved the other long before we knew each
other--and though Harry left me and I was bitter against him, it didn't
matter. That part of us went on loving all the time, and making
something--something--" Her hands fluttered before her; she gasped for
some image to express the high spiritual business that had been afoot,
and her eyes rolled in ecstasy till