Osmond was sitting in his playhouse under the tree. He did not expect Rose to come, but he had things to think about, and in the playhouse he never felt alone. He was studying his own life as it had been and as it was. The past looked to him all submission and a still endurance. He marveled that a man could live so long and not look man's lot in the face. A thousand passions had been born in him at once, and they seemed almost equally good to him because they were all so strong. He sat there drunk with the lust of power and reviewing his desires as, one by one, they came and smiled upon him.
First he desired a woman, the one woman, Rose, not now romantically through the mist of dreams, but as the wild man wants his mate. Was that love? he asked himself, in this dispassionate scrutiny, and decided that, as men chose to name it, it was love. They crowned it with garlands, they sang about it and drank to it, but that was only to make it sweeter.
He remembered again the passion of protection he had felt for her, the desire to slay whatever crossed her path. That was hate, he knew, and it seemed to him good. All these things were the forces that made up life, and life was a battle.
And then, as he did intermittently after every wave of thought, he remembered that Peter was in love with Rose, he recalled the gay certainty of the boy when he had said he could make her happy, and he saw her in Peter's arms. And this was jealousy.
At once he rose to his feet and listened. A step was coming nearer, heavy and halting, pausing for frequent rests. The familiar sound of it and the appeal of a presence not yet known made him knit his brows and peer forward through the dark. When the step ceased again, for an interval, he cried out, "Grannie!"
He ran to her and put his arm about her, and so they came onward to the chair which had been a throne for Rose. When she had sunken into it, he began to scold her gently. She had not been so far from home for many a day. She had chosen night and a rough path. Why did she do it?
"I had to see you, dear," said grannie. "Maybe I didn't consider how hard it would be, but when I started out, I wasn't thinking much about my aches and pains. I had to see you. So I just dressed me and came."