"Yes, life has gone on.... I had you ... and I have lost you!...."
She was sobbing on his shoulder.
"Mamma!"
"Dear, it was bound to be! Didn't I consider ... that it would be so ... years and years ago?... When you were a little boy, I often used to think, 'I've got him now ... but one day I shall lose him irrevocably?' Now it has come. ... I must accept it with resignation...."
"But am I not living with you all? Have I ever been away ... except to college ... and sometimes on business?"
"Dear, it's not that. It's the losing each other, the losing each other ... out of each other's souls...."
"But it's not that."
"That's just what it is.... And it's bound to be so, dear.... Only, because I no longer feel any part of you in my soul, I no longer know anything about you.... I have known nothing about you for ages.... I see you going and coming—it's the patients, it's the children, occupying you ... in turns—but what do I know, what do I know about you?... It has become like that gradually ... and since ... since you got married, it has become irrevocable."
"Mamma...."
"I oughtn't to talk like this, dear. I mustn't. And I should be able to overcome this melancholy, if I knew ... that you were happy in yourself...."