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He made no answer, since they both knew that it was not necessary to mention why he had returned this time. Something made him understand that she had not changed, that surely in all this place of eroded dreams she was least changeable. And yet he knew as well that his spirits were rising as if in obedience to an old call, and he was about to press her with reasonings, expostulations she had heard often enough before, and which would pour from his lips in a flood. But she turned her eyes away and went on.

'I don't know, and I have admitted to you that there is no reason which would operate logically. But perhaps what holds me here is knowing that if I went my mother would die. She would starve, as completely—God knows it is precious little that I do or can do for her, and yet it is only my being here that keeps her soul alive. They have been estranged so long that they are really dead to each other, and yet if they were left alone together they would both, she, at least, would die the bodily death as well.'