"I do. I shall live on for Auna. There's one beautiful thing left for me—beautiful, and yet a living wound, that grows painfuller every day I live. And that's Auna—Auna growing more and more and more like Margery—bringing her back, even to the toss of her head and the twinkle of her eye. She laughs like her mother, William; she cries like her mother; she thinks like her mother. So my only good will be my first grief. The things still left to care about will torture me more than all the hate of the world can torture me. They'll keep memory awake—stinging, burning, till I scream to Auna to get out of my sight presently, and leave me with the foxes and the carrion crows."
Then Bullstone limped away. He soon grew calmer, as he was wont to do when alone with nobody to whet his thoughts upon.
During the later part of this day he ascended the moors with Auna and walked to the empty Warren House. They talked of those who had dwelt there, for that morning a letter had come from Mrs. Veale for Margery, giving her news of the Veale family—Benny and the children.
"You must answer it, Auna, and tell the woman that your mother passed away last winter," said Jacob. "If I was a younger man, I might go out to Canada myself and take you with me; but we'll stop here. You'll like Huntingdon, won't you?"
"Yes, father."
"Your mother's dead," he told her; "but we shan't be without a lot of treasures to remind us of her."
"All the things she specially cared about you'll have round you, father."
"I know them all," he answered, "because, so long as I felt hope that she might come back, I was specially careful for them and set them aside out of harm's way. She had a great liking for little things that she coupled with the thoughts of friends."
He spoke the truth, for many trifles that had sustained some faint fragrance of hope while Margery lived—trifles that her heart had valued and her hands had held—were now subject to a different reverence, set apart and sanctified for ever.
"We might take a few of her favourite flowers too," suggested Auna, "but I doubt they would live up there in winter. You can always come down and see them at the right time, father."