"Are you content, my beloved ?" she asked over and over; and Garth's joyous voice, with the ring of perpetual youth in it, always answered: "Perfectly content." And Jane smiled into the night, and in the depths of her calm eyes dawned a knowledge hitherto unknown, and in her tender smile trembled, with unspeakable sweetness, an understanding of the secret of a woman's truest bliss.

"He is mine and I am his.

And because he is mine, my beloved is safe; and because I am his, he is content." Thus she gave herself completely; gathering him into the shelter of her love; and her generous heart expanded to the greatness of the gift.
Then the mother in her awoke and realised how much of the maternal flows into the love of a true woman when she understands how largely the child-nature predominates in the man in love, and how the very strength of his need of her reduces to unaccustomed weakness the strong nature to which she has become essential.
Jane pressed her hands upon her breast.

"Garth," she whispered, "Garth, I UNDERSTAND.

My own poor boy, it was so hard to you to be sent away just then.