'It was very simple. If it hadn't been, I couldn't have understood it; for I was never a good hand at trying to reason things out. It was just that I wasn't ever to have anything I wanted. When I once knew and accepted that, I felt as if I'd slipped out into a great, wide, quiet sea.'
This was, to her own mind, so definitely the end of her narrative, that, after sitting a moment in silence, she half rose as if to go into the house and attend to some domestic task. But I put out my hand and held her apron's hem.
'You mean—' I stammered.
Really, she must tell me a little more!
A look of perplexity, almost of distress, came into her tranquil face, and she shook her head.
'I told you I was no hand at working things out,' she said. 'It's better just to know.'
It was crass in me; but I felt that something as precious as life itself depended on my grasping the full significance of this story.
Gently, but very resolutely, she stooped and released her apron from my clutch.
'I've some bread in the oven,' she said, and disappeared.