"No; I seemed to see him, asleep, among his books."
"His books were his friends ... you told me....
"Yes, dear. His life was with them."
"And he wasn't a young man, your Uncle Robin?"
"Eight and sixty years of age."
"Is it so ill, heart, to go quickly, quietly, with your friends about you, on an autumn afternoon?"
"No, dear, not ill. Very rightly ... I think. But there is something.... Something is gone from the world, like a fine tree from a garden.... And he was awful' dear to me, my Uncle Robin.... It will be a hard thing to go home, and he not there to come and ask: 'Are you all right, laddie? You're no sick?' Claire-Anne, I'll be thinking long...."
She sat with him in silence in the garden, and after a little while got up and went without a word.... And he sat in the garden thinking to himself, had he been lax to Uncle Robin in any way? He might have written oftener. It wasn't fair to have kept the old man worried and he an apprentice at sea. Yes, he could have written, could have written oftener. And thought more. And there were books he might have brought the old man—books from 'Frisco and New York and Naples. The book-stores were so far from the quays, and he had put it off. And he could have so easily.... When one is young, one is so thoughtless.... A message from somewhere ran into his consciousness like a ripple of code-flags: 'It doesn't matter, dear laddie. Don't be taking on. Don't be blaming yourself. You were the dear lad ... and I'm happy....'
Ah, yes, but a great tree was gone from the garden. An actuality had been converted into thought and emotion, and thought and emotion may be all that endure, and an actuality be unreal ... but an actuality is so warm ... so reassuring....
He rose and went toward the house, and as he walked he met her....