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Clive was still smiling but now she saw that he lifted his eyebrows and opened his eyes widely. ‘Did you really think that I felt it natural—our being separated—after having spent all our lives together?’ he asked.

It was the first time he had asked such a question; he asked it now when five years had passed. Did he not know that they had been separated for more than five years? Time collapsed suddenly; Clive was suddenly near her again, so near that it was as though she held him against her heart. Had he really suffered too? The weight upon her heart seemed his suffering as well as her own.

‘But, darling child,’ she said, carefully, seeking her words;—‘it was the most natural thing in the world. It is what must happen, when a man marries and makes his home;—it is what must happen—to mothers.’

‘Not to a mother like you. Not when people have been as much to each other as you and I. For a time I hardly took it in; you seemed so sure of its being the right thing, and so contented. And then, little by little, it became more of a grief, a mystery.—And when Jeremy died ———’ Clive stopped.

‘When Jeremy died?’ she repeated. ‘Yes? What had that to do with it, Clive?’