He found her in the long room kneeling before the open escritoire.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting ready," she said.
He sat down in the great chair and watched her. She carried handfuls of yellowed papers and bundles of letters, and heaped them on the bed of red coal in the grate. She tore the morocco binding off old diaries and burned the manuscript leaves.
"What are you doing?" he reiterated, starting up like one shaking off a dream.
"She always said she'd rather things were burned than pulled about by careless hands, by strangers."
"I remember." He sat down. This did not look like evasion, for Val shared his own strong sentiment for family things. "I remember, too," he said, with dull regret, "she used to tell me 'the whole history of a family is locked up in that escritoire.'"
"It takes a long time to burn."
She stirred the slow-smouldering papers to a blaze.
"It took a hundred years to make," he said; "and many hundred agonies—and joys," he added, watching her dim smile—"yes, and joys."