"No, no! Ah, please, don't jest about—that. I was very much in earnest—indeed, I was! And I thought then—that I really could—could— But I understand—lots of things now that I never understood before. It is really all for Betty that I am working now. I want to make her—what he would want her to be."
"Nonsense, my dear woman! As if you yourself were not the most—"
She stopped him with a gesture. Her eyes had grown very serious.
"I don't want you to talk that way, please. I would rather think—just of Betty."
"But what about—him?"
"I don't know." Her eyes grew fathomless. She turned them toward the window. "Of course I think and think and think. And of course I wonder—how it's all coming out. I'm sure I'm doing right now, and I think—I was doing right—then."
"When I went away—at the first. I can't see how I could have done anything else, as things were. Some way, all along, I've felt as if I were traveling a—a long road, and that on each side was a tall hedge. I can't look over it, nor through it. I can't even look ahead—very far. The road turns—so often. But there have never been any crossroads—there's never been any other way I could take, as I looked at it. Don't you see, Mr. Estey?"
"Yes, I think I see." The old baffled pain had come back to his eyes, but she did not seem to notice it. Her gaze had drifted back to the window.
"And so I feel that now I'm still on that road and that it's leading—somewhere; and some day I shall know. Until then, there isn't anything I can do—don't you see?—there isn't anything I can do but to keep—straight ahead. There really isn't, Mr. Estey."