"No, I'm not in pain now."
He spoke in a dazed way, like a child that is repeating words it does not understand. Had he forgotten that he had known her? Or had he reached the depths from which all memories appear as frail as the bloom on a tree? She did not know. She would never know probably. She had lost even the wish to know. Whether he had loved her or not made no difference. It made no difference whether or not he remembered. In that instant beside the poorhouse wall, the old Jason had been submerged and lost in this new Jason who was a stranger. Not in thirty years but in a single minute, she had lost him. Stripped of associations, stripped of sentiment, this new Jason was protected only by the intolerable pathos of life. How futile, how unnecessary, it had all been,—her love, her suffering, her bitterness.
He opened his eyes and looked at her.
"This isn't Five Oaks?"
"No, it is Old Farm."
"Old Farm? That is the Oakley place. Am I going to stay here?"
"Until you are better."
"Until I am better," he repeated.
"Are you comfortable now?"
He closed his eyes again. "Yes, it feels good."