He did not answer and she continued with deeper feeling: 

“Life is so uncertain to all of us and of course to me!  I want to see you wedded to her, see her brought here as mistress of this house, and live to hear the laughter of your children.”  She finished with solemn emotion:  “It has been my prayer, Rowan.”

She became silent with her recollections of her own early life for a moment and then resumed: 

“Nothing ever makes up for the loss of such years—­the first years of happy marriage.  If we have had these, no matter what happens afterward, we have not lived for nothing.  It becomes easier for us to be kind and good afterward, to take an interest in life, to believe in our fellow-creatures, and in God.”

He sprang up.

“Mother, I cannot speak with you about this now.”  He turned quickly and stood with his back to her, looking out of doors; and he spoke over his shoulder and his voice was broken:  “You have had one disappointment this morning:  it is enough.  But do not think of my marrying—­of my ever marrying.  Dent must take my place at the head of the house.  It is all over with me!  But I cannot speak with you about this now,” and he started quickly to leave the parlors.  She rose and put her arm around his waist, walking beside him.

“You do not mind my speaking to, you about this, Rowan?” she said, sore at having touched some trouble which she felt that he had long been hiding from her, and with full respect for the privacies of his life.

“No, no, no!” he cried, choking with emotion.  “Ah, mother, mother!”—­and he gently disengaged himself from her arms.

She watched him as he rode out of sight.  Then she returned and sat in the chair which he had, quitted, folding her hands in her lap.

For her it was one of the moments when we are reminded that our lives are not in our keeping, and that whatsoever is to befall us originates in sources beyond our power.  Our wills may indeed reach the length of our arms or as far as our voices can penetrate space; but without us and within us moves one universe that saves us or ruins us only for its own purposes; and we are no more free amid its laws than the leaves of the forest are free to decide their own shapes and season of unfolding, to order the showers by which they are to be nourished and the storms which shall scatter them at last.

Above every other she had cherished the wish for a marriage between Rowan and Isabel Conyers; now for reasons unknown to her it seemed that this desire was never to be realized.  She did not know the meaning of what Rowan had just said to her; but she did not doubt there was meaning behind it, grave meaning.  Her next most serious concern would have been that in time Dent likewise should choose a wife wisely; now he had announced to her his intention to wed prematurely and most foolishly; she could not altogether shake off the conviction that he would do what he had said he should.