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 alone with only furnishings for his library and his bedroom. There is a picture in his bedroom, probably his wife. I asked him once about her and he only said that she had been dead for many years and that he had lost, too, her child, whom he adored. But there was something more than that. Death isn’t insurmountable if it’s accompanied by hope, and the face of the woman who hangs in the Bee Master’s bedroom might very well stand for a typical portrayal of hope, of purity, of steadfast courage—almost any fine quality that any woman could have. He had lost her, he had fost her child; I feel sure he had lost his home and friends. I think he deliberately went to the end of his tether, and when he could go no farther he fell and left his case in the hands of the good Lord.”

So they talked on until dusk. When the remnants of his supper were packed in the small basket and Margaret Cameron went home, she invited Jamie to come over any time he was lonely, and she promised to help him with the morning work until she was sure that he had learned to do the watering right, because the lilies must not have enough water to rot the bulbs, and the roses must not start mildew, and the palms must be just dry enough, and the acacias just wet enough. Jamie felt, by the time she had finished enumerating the reasons as to why she should come, that there certainly was necessity for her presence when he began operations.

Then he went into the living room and, because his blood was full of poison and circulating slowly, he scratched a match and lighted the fire that was laid on the hearth.