"I'm not going to struggle any more. If you go away I'll follow you wherever you go. I may as well try to give up keeping you out of it. It's like keeping myself out of it."
Slowly she took her hat and coat off again.
"Well, then," she said, "I'd better stay, I suppose."
He suddenly sat down, his face white. She came across to him.
She put her hand on his forehead.
"You'd better go to bed, Martin, dear. I'll bring your tea in."
He caught her hand. She knelt down, put her arms round him, and so they stayed, cheek to cheek, for a long time.
When he had gone to his room she sat in the arm-chair by the fire, her hands idly folded on her lap. She let happiness pour in upon her as water floods in upon a dried and sultry river-bed. She was passive, her tranquillity was rich and full, too full for any outward expression.
She was so happy that her heart was weighted down and seemed scarcely to beat. It was not, perhaps, the exultant happiness that she had expected this moment to bring her.
When, in after days, she looked back to that quiet half-hour by the fire she saw that it was then that she had passed from girlhood into womanhood. The first chapter of her life was, at that moment's laying of her hand on Martin's forehead, closed. The love for him that filled her so utterly was in great part maternal. It was to be her destiny to know the deep tranquil emotions of life rather than the passionate and transient. She was perhaps the more blessed in that.