She was always speaking of
her work. "If I leave my work," she would say, "even for one week,
everything gets so behind-hand that I despair of ever being able to
make up the arrear. The worst of it is that no one can take up my work
where I leave off." And as she grew worse this idea developed until it
became a kind of craze. At last, speculating on the strength of our
friendship, I told her her life belonged to her husband and children,
and that she had no right to squander it in this fashion. I urged that
with ordinary forbearance she might live for twenty years, but at the
present rate of force-expenditure she could not hope to live long. I
spoke brutally, but she smiled, knowing how much I loved her; and,
looking back, it seems to me she must have known she could not be
saved, and preferred to give the last summer of her life entirely to
her flowers. It was pathetic to see her, poor moribund one, sitting
through the long noons alone, the sun beating in upon her through the
fiery glass, tending her flowers. I remember how she used to come in
in the evenings exhausted, and lie down on the little sofa. Her
husband, with an anxious, quiet, kindly look in his eyes, used to draw
the skirt over her feet and sit down at her feet, tender, loving,
soliciting the right to clasp her hand, as if they had not been
married thirty years, but were only sweethearts.
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