And there it is now, there it always will be for me, food for me to live on.  I thought she had died.  But she has never been so living for me.  She’s part of me now, for always.  And just because I see the meaning of her life, why, there’s the meaning of mine as clear as morning.  How can poor Father crave those ‘messages’ from her!  Everything is a message from her.  We’ve lived with her.  We have her in our hearts.  It’s all brightness when I think of her.  And I see by that brightness what’s in my heart, and that’s Austin ...  Austin!” On the name, her voice rose, expanded, soared, wonderfully rang in the ensuing silence....

Arnold said slowly, without opening his eyes:  “Yes, yes, I see.  I see how it is all right with you and Austin.  He’s big enough for you, all of you.  And Felix—­he’s not so bad either—­but he has, after all, a yellow streak.  Poor Felix!”

This brought up to Sylvia the recollection of the day, so short a time ago when she had sat on the ground thus, much as she now sat next to Arnold, and had felt Judith’s body rigid and tense.  There was nothing rigid about Arnold.  He was relaxed in an exhausted passivity, a beaten man.  Let what would, befall.  He seemed beyond feeling.  She knew that probably never again, so life goes, could they speak together thus, like disembodied spirits, freed for once from the blinding, entangling tragic web of self-consciousness.  She wondered again if he would find it in his heart to speak to her of Judith.  She remembered something else she had meant to ask him, if she could ever find words for her question; and she found that, in that hour of high seriousness, they came quite without effort.  “Arnold, when I was in Paris, I met Professor Saunders.  I ran across him by accident.  He told me some dreadful things.  I thought they couldn’t all be true.  But I wondered—­”

Arnold opened his eyes and turned them on her.  She saw again, as she had so many times, the honesty of them.  They were bloodshot, yellowed, set deep in dark hollows; but it was a good gaze they gave.  “Oh, don’t take poor old Saunders too seriously.  He went all to pieces in the end.  He had a lot to say about Madrina, I suppose.  I shouldn’t pay much attention to it.  Madrina’s not such a bad lot as he makes her out.  Madrina’s all right if you don’t want anything out of her.  She’s the way she is, that’s all.  It’s not fair to blame her.  We’re all like that,” he ended with a pregnant, explanatory phrase which fell with an immense significance on Sylvia’s ear.  “Madrina’s all right when she’s got what she wants.”

The girl pondered in silence on this characterization.  After a time Arnold roused himself to say again:  “I mean she wouldn’t go out of her way to hurt anybody, for anything.  She’s not the kind that enjoys seeing other folks squirm.  Only she wants things the way she wants them.  Don’t let anything old Saunders said worry you.  I suppose he laid all my worthlessness at Madrina’s