"I'm trying to understand, my dear," she said. "Let's see if I've got it right. You say you mean to take your own money and go up to Cambridge in the autumn. I suppose you'll stay there the usual time, and then continue your studies at a hospital or some place; that's what they do, don't they? Some day you hope to become a doctor, or if that fails to find some other paid work, in order to be free to live away from me. You mean to break up our home, if you can, and to take me to London as a peace offering to your conscience, and when I'm there you hope to have the time to run in and see me occasionally. I'm right, aren't I; it would be only occasionally? For between your work and Elizabeth your time would be pretty well taken up."
Joan made a sound of protest.
"No, don't interrupt me," said her mother quietly; "I'm trying to show you that I understand. Well, now, what does it all mean? It seems to me that it means just this: I've lost your father, I've lost your sister, and now I'm to lose you. Well, Joan, I'm not an old woman yet, so I can't plead age as an excuse for my timidity, and what would be my awful loneliness; but Milly's death has shaken me very much, and I'm afraid, yes, afraid to live in a strange place by myself. You may think I'm a coward; well, perhaps I am, but the fact remains that what friends I have are in Seabourne, and I don't feel that I can begin all over again now. Then there's the money; if you take your money out of the home, little as it is, I shall find it difficult to make ends meet. I'm not a good manager—I never have been—and without you"—her voice trembled—"without you, my dear, I don't see how I should get on at all. But what's the good of talking; your mind's made up. Joan," she said with sudden violence, "do you know how much you are to me? What parting from you will mean?"
"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Joan desperately, "you won't be parting from me really; you'd have to let me go if I were a son, or if I married—well, that's all I'm asking, just to be treated like that."
Mrs Ogden smiled. "Yes, but you're Joan and not a son, and you're not married yet, you see, and that makes all the difference."
"Then you won't come to London?"
"No, Joan, I won't leave this house. I have very sacred memories here and I won't leave them."
"Oh, Mother, please try to see my side! I can't give up what's all the world to me; I can't go on living in Seabourne and never doing anything worth while all the rest of my life; you've no right to ask it of me!"
"I don't ask it of you; I've some pride. Take your money and go whenever you like; go to Elizabeth. I shall stay on here alone."
"Mother, I can't go while you feel like this about it, and if I take my money and I'm not here to manage you can't stay on in this house; it's impossible, when every penny counts, as it does with us. Won't you think it over, for my sake? Won't you promise to think it over for, say, three months? I needn't go to London until some time in August. Mother, please! Mother, you must know that I love you, that I've always loved you dearly ever since I was a little girl, only now I want my own life; I want work, I want——"