son. I've just been telling her so."

"Rose? What has Rose said?"

"Not much. Only I had the feeling, when I was with her, that she loved
you and didn't hardly know about your loving her. So I came down here."

"You did right to come."

Grannie drew a long breath. The thing was out of her hands, now, she
knew. What his hands would do with it did not yet appear. She rose.

"Well, son," she said, "I'll go back. Come with me to the wall. Then
I'll manage it alone."

He did go with her, helping her in a tender silence, and at the door she
kissed him good-night.

"What time is breakfast, grannie?"

"Eight o'clock."

The next morning when they had assembled in the dining-room, grannie,
standing with a hand on the back of her chair, waited. Her face had a
flush of expectation. Her eyes sought the window.

"There!" she said, "he's coming. Peter, I've moved your place. Osmond
will sit opposite me."

"Osmond!" Peter almost shouted it.

"Yes," said grannie, in what seemed pride. "I thought Osmond would be
here."

Osmond came in, a workman in his blouse, fresh from cold water and the
night's stern counseling. Rose, hearing his step, could not, for a
minute, look at him, because he had once forbidden it. The commonplace
room, with the morning light in it, swam before her. After he had spoken
to grannie, he walked up to her and offered his hand. Then their eyes
met. Hers were full of tears, and through their blur, even, his face
looked stern and beautiful.

"I wanted to see you," Osmond said; and she answered, feeling his
kindness as from some dim distance,--

"To say good-by?"

"No, not to say good-by."

Then they sat down, and there was no constraint, but a good deal of
talking; and, strangely, it was Osmond who led it. He did not touch upon
things of wider interest than his own garden ground, where he was at
home. He had pleasant chronicles of the work to give grannie, and
MacLeod took a genial interest. Only Peter sat, wide-eyed at the turn
things were taking, and Rose grew paler and left her plate untouched.
She did not know whether it was joy that moved her, or grief at parting
with him. Only the morning seemed like no other morning. When they rose
from the table, Osmond turned at once to MacLeod.

"May I see you for a minute or two?" he asked. "We'll go into the west
room, grannie."

While Peter started forward, as if to help or hinder as the case might
be when he understood it, Osmond had led the way