"I suppose so, as a boy. What does a child of twenty know of love? She was eighteen when we ran away. After about five years this malady developed, a sort of melancholia at first, then a kind of mental vacuity for all these many years."
"It's unfair; it's cruel!" she cried.
"So it is. There have been times when I have cursed God in fury, but after all it is not left us to choose our own tests. If Fate were only kind, we would not need to woo her. Perhaps I needed my hard years as you needed yours."
"I can't believe that, but I know what they have made of you—what I have reaped from them."
He laid his hand on hers for a second.
"Thank you, Jane. You've been a little flowering place for me, of repose and peace. Tell me about the work."
"It grows in plan, but not in execution. I lie abed until noon, these days, and I spend the time thinking about the book. I make notes; sometimes I write a chapter. But I feel that when my baby comes I shall suddenly enter a new world, I shall know such wonderful things to put in my book."
"Assuredly. You could not plumb the one greatest spiritual and physical experience without your eyes being unsealed to all the fundamental verities."
Jane rose, and turned a canvas, which leaned against the wall, into the light, where Martin could see it.
"Do you like this?" she asked.