"And then out into the world to make your name as a great architect," she said.
He smiled a ghost of a smile.
"Yes," he said; "but far away, Knutty, out in the colonies somewhere."
"Alan," she said suddenly, "you asked me about your mother—whether I thought she had been unhappy. I don't know; I never knew her well enough to be able to say. I thought she seemed happy when I saw her last—about two years ago, I think—and she was looking very beautiful. She was a beautiful woman your mother, and well set-up, too, wasn't she?"
"Yes," she boy said, and his lip quivered. He turned away and leaned against the pillar of the porch.
"Oh, Knutty," he said, turning round to her impetuously, "why did she die? Why isn't she here? There wasn't any need for her to die. She never would have died if father had been kinder to her, if we'd both been kinder to her; but—she was unhappy. Mrs Stanhope said she was unhappy: she told me all about it before we left England. I can't forget what she said—what she said about—about father being the cause of mother's death; that's what she meant—I know that's what she meant.... I can't get it out of my head. I never thought of it like that until she told me; but when she spoke as she did, then I knew all at once that—that—that there was something wrong somewhere about mother's death, and that I oughtn't to forget it, being her son—and—and she was fond of me—and——"
He broke off. Knutty had risen, and put her hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Kjaere," she said in a strained voice, "I did not know things were as bad as this with you. My poor boy."
She slipped her arm through the boy's arm and led him away from the courtyard, down past the cowhouse and the hay-barns and through the white gate.
Old Kari was grubbing about, singing her favourite refrain to call the cows back:—