l very well for you, Anne. He isn't your
son."

"You don't know what he is," said Anne. She thought: "He's Jerrold's
brother. He's what Jerrold loves more than anything."

"No," said Adeline. "Everything ended for me when Robert died. I shall
never marry again. I couldn't bear to put anybody in Robert's place."

"Of course you couldn't. I know it's been awful for you, Auntie."

"I couldn't bear it, Anne, if I didn't believe that there is Something
Somewhere. I can't think how you get on without any religion."

"How do you know I haven't any?"

"Well, you've no faith in Anything. Have you, ducky?"

"I don't know what I've faith in. It's too difficult. If you love
people, that's enough, I think. It keeps you going through everything."

"No, it doesn't. It's all the other way about. It's loving people that
makes it all so hard. If you didn't love them you wouldn't care what
happened to them. If I didn't love Colin I could bear his shell-shock
better."

"If _I_ didn't love him, I couldn't bear it at all."

"I expect," said Adeline, "we both mean the same thing."

Anne thought of Adeline's locked door; and, in spite of her love for
her, she had a doubt. She wondered whether in this matter of loving they
had ever meant the same thing. With Adeline love was a passive state
that began and ended in emotion. With Anne love was power in action.
More than anything it meant doing things for the people that you loved.
Adeline loved her husband and her sons, but she had run away from the
sight of Robert's haemorrhage, she had tried to keep back Eliot and
Jerrold from the life they wanted, she locked her door at night and shut
Colin out. To Anne that was the worst thing Adeline had done yet. She
tried not to think of that locked door.

"I suppose," said Adeline, "you'll leave me now your father's coming
home?"

John Severn's letter lay between them on the table. He was retiring
after twenty-five years of India. He would be home as soon as his
letter.

"I shall do nothing of the sort," said Anne. "I shall stay as long as
you want me. If father wants me he must come down here."

In another three days he had come.

iv

He had grey hair now and his face was a little lined, a little faded,
but he was slender and handsome still--handsomer, more distinguished,
Adeline thought, than ever.

Again he sat out with her on the terrace when the October days were
warm; he walked with her up and down the lawn and on the flagge