She had the key to him now. But the sands were running out in fate’s hour glass. She couldn’t bear to look at his thin gray face as the light fell on it, nor at his strange eyes fixed on the padlocked gate of the cottage opposite. Of a sudden the watch slipped from her shaking hands, and fell lightly in a little brake of thistles by the end of the bench on which they sat.
Cautiously and carefully he picked it out. “Take care on it, Mother,” he said softly as he put it again in her hands. “I wish we’d a little boy as could have had it. However, we’ve not. There was once a George Hollis who was an artist; I showed you that picture of his, “The Glade above Corfield,” the other day; Jim said it was a good one. John Torrington one time was his pupil. Don’t suppose he was any relation but it’s the same name.”
Melia put the watch in the pretty leather bag he had insisted on buying for her. And then she said with a horrible clutch in her throat: “Bill, promise! You’ll come back ... won’t you?”
His eyes didn’t move.
“I’ll be that lonely.”
He sighed softly like a child who is very tired. “I’ll do what I can, Mother.” The voice was gentleness itself. “I can’t do more.”
She didn’t know ... she didn’t realize ... what ... she ... was....