"Your perception? We come into the world with different perceptions; but do not let us drift into argument, not this evening, Owen."
"Quite so, let us not drift into argument…. I am sorry you charged me with being disappointed that you didn't remain in the convent; you see I didn't know of the wonderful work you were doing here. Your kindness is more than a nun's kindness." But he feared his casual words might provoke her, and hastened to ask her about Sister Winifred, at length persuading her into the admission that Sister Winifred used to whip the children.
"I'm sure she liked whipping them. Women who shut themselves out from life develop cruelty. I can quite understand how she would like to hear them cry."
"Tell me more about the nuns."
"No, Owen, I wouldn't speak ill of the nuns. Don't press me to speak ill of them. You don't know, Owen, what might have become of me had it not been for the convent. I don't know what might have become of me. I might have drifted away and nothing have ever been heard of me again." A dark look gathered in her face, "vanishing like the shadow of a black wing over a sunny surface," Owen said to himself, "Now what has frightened her? Not her love of me, for that love she always looked on as legitimate." He remembered how she used to cling to that view, while admitting it to be contrary to the teaching of the Church. Did she still cling to this belief? "Probably, for we do hot change our instinctive beliefs," he said, and longed to question her; but not daring, and, thinking a lighter topic of conversation desirable, he told her he would like to teach Eliza how to make coffee.
"There is only one way of making coffee" he said, and he had learned the secret from a friend, who had always the best coffee. He had known him as a bachelor, he had known him as a married man, and afterwards as a divorced man, but in these different circumstances the coffee remained the same. So he said, "My good friend how is it that your cooks make equally good coffee?" And the friend answered that it was himself who had taught every cook how to make coffee; it was only a question of boiling water. And, still talking of the making of coffee, they wandered into the garden and stood watching the little boys all arow, their heads tucked in for Eliza's son to jump over them, and they were laughing, enjoying their play, inspired, no doubt, by the dusk and the mystery of yon great moon rising out of the end of the grey valley.
"I'm afraid Jack will hurt the others, or tire them; they really must go to bed. You'll excuse me, Owen, I shall be back with you in about half an hour?"
He strolled through the wicket about the piece of waste ground, thinking of the change that had come over her when he spoke of her return from Rome. Possibly she had met Ulick in Rome and had fled from him, or some other man. But he was not in the least curious to inquire out her secret, sufficient it was for him to know that her mood had passed. How suddenly it had passed! And how fortunate his mention of the yacht! Her attention had suddenly been distracted, now she was as charming as before… gone to look after those little boys, to see that their beds were comfortable, and that their night-shirts had buttons on them. Every day in London their living was earned in tiresome lessons to pupils who had no gift for singing, but had to be encouraged for the sake of their money, which was spent on this hillside.
"Such is the mysterious way of life. Our rewards are never those we anticipate, but we are rewarded."
The money he had spent on her had brought her to this hillside to attend on six cripples, destitute little boys. After all what better reward could he have hoped for? But a great part of his love of her had been lost. Never again would he take her hand or kiss her again. So his heart filled with a natural sadness and a great tenderness, and he stood watching the smoke rising from the cottagers' chimneys straight into the evening air. She had told him that one of her little boys had come from that village, and to hear how the child had been adopted he must scramble down this rough path. The moment was propitious for a chat with the cottagers, whom he would find sitting at their doors, the men smoking their pipes, the women knitting or gossiping, "the characteristic end of every day since the beginning of the world," he said, "and it will be pleasant to read her portrait in these humble minds."