What time passed after this I cannot say. I was roused by the fall of a
log, and mechanically rose to put it back. Then I returned to my place in
the chair very close to the screen.
"Now you understand," she whispered, across the packed shadows.
"Yes, I understand--now. Thank you."
"I--I only hear them." She bowed her head in her hands. "I have no right,
you know--no other right. I have neither borne nor lost--neither borne nor
lost!"
"Be very glad then," said I, for my soul was torn open within me.
"Forgive me!"
She was still, and I went back to my sorrow and my joy.
"It was because I loved them so," she said at last, brokenly. "_That_ was
why it was, even from the first--even before I knew that they--they were
all I should ever have. And I loved them so!"
She stretched out her arms to the shadows and the shadows within the
shadow.
"They came because I loved them--because I needed them. I--I must have
made them come. Was that wrong, think you?"
"No--no."
"I--I grant you that the toys and--and all that sort of thing were
nonsense, but--but I used to so hate empty rooms myself when I was
little." She pointed to the gallery. "And the passages all empty. ... And
how could I ever bear the garden door shut? Suppose----"
"Don't! For pity's sake, don't!" I cried. The twilight had brought a cold
rain with gusty squalls that plucked at the leaded windows.
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