"We love you very much, Ysobel," she said. "You know that?"

"I love you both, with all my heart," I answered. "Indeed I love you."

"We two have been more to each other than mere mother and son. We have
been sufficient for each other. But he began to love you that first day
when he watched you in the railway carriage. He says it was the far look
in your eyes which drew him."

"I began to love him, too," I said. And I was not at all ashamed or shy
in saying it.

"We three might have spent our lives together," she went on. "It would
have been a perfect thing. But--but--" She stood up as if she could not
remain seated. Involuntarily I stood up with her. She was trembling, and
she caught and held me in her arms. "He cannot stay, Ysobel," she ended.

I could scarcely hear my own voice when I echoed the words.

"He cannot--stay?"

"Oh! the time will come," she said, "when people who love each other
will not be separated, when on this very earth there will be no pain, no
grief, no age, no death--when all the world has learned the Law at
last. But we have not learned it yet. And here we stand! The greatest
specialists have told us. There is some fatal flaw in his heart. At any
moment, when he is talking to us, when he is at his work, when he is
asleep, he may--cease. It will just be ceasing. At any moment. He cannot
stay."