The Lesson

Nonetheless, my love, I hold out my hand only to you as the train departs!

By what notion Loring had preserved that sense of herself which was her husband’s, we cannot say. Perhaps that was what was in the box, for certainly it was nothing she knew of. Yet, the sense remained, she was the same person, and in the same way, as though he were still beholding her and keeping her to the idea of her that he had always had.

They used to say to each other, when one would leave the house, the one staying would say:

Nonetheless, my love, I hold out my hand only to you as the train departs!

And the other would smile and go.