"He might have been," said the young Countess with grave gentleness, "but you would not have him. So that he must come to us."

"But that—all that was long ago," she whispered, thinking that she spoke aloud, her eyes lost in the boy's.

"Here they grow slowly, being nearly soulless when they come," said the Countess. "He would have been your oldest son, had he stayed with you."

"'Here!' In God's name, where am I?" she cried. "Am I dead, then, at last? But I had not thought—I had hoped for peace. I had counted on rest."

"Rest?" the Countess echoed her, "and why should you look for that, my guest? What, in all the worlds of God, rests? You are a strange people, beyond the Dunes.... But you are not dead. No dead come here."

She took her by the hand, the boy clinging to the other, and walked with her to the great fire. Here they sat down to tapestry work, green and blue and russet weavings, and the woman folded her hands in her lap and watched them moodily. At last she spoke.

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Here they sat down to tapestry work, green and blue and russet weavings.