The anguish in that last ejaculation pierced the listener’s heart as it had been pierced by her wild cry of sorrow last night. He followed her along the brink of the pool, put his arm round her shrunken form protectingly, and tried to comfort her as best he might, knowing so little of her grief. ‘Muriel,’ he said gently, and her name so spoken seemed to have a softening influence upon her, ‘I am almost a stranger to this place and to you, but I would gladly be your friend if I could. Tell me if there is anything I can do to comfort you. Are you happy in your home, with your poor old grandmother? or would you rather be somewhere else?’ He wanted to find out if she was suffering from any sense of ill-usage, if she felt herself a prisoner and an alien in her father’s house. ‘No,’ she said, resolutely, ‘I must stay here. He will come and fetch me.’ ‘But you speak sometimes as if you knew him to be dead. Is it not foolish, vain, to hope for that which cannot happen?’ ‘He is not dead. People have told me so on purpose to break my heart, I think. Haven’t I told you that I see him very often?’ ‘Then why are you so unhappy?’ ‘Because he will not stay with me—because he does not come to fetch me away, as he promised, in a little more than a year—because he comes and goes like a spirit. Perhaps they are right, and he is really dead.’ ‘Would it not be better to make up your mind to that, and to leave off watching for him, and roaming about the house at night?’ ‘Who told you that?’ she asked, quickly. ‘Never mind who told me. You see I know how foolish you are. Wouldn’t it be wiser to try and go back to the common business of life, to bind up all that loose hair neatly, like a lady, and to try to be a comfort to your father and mother.’ At that last word an angry cry broke from the pale lips. ‘Mother!’ echoed Muriel, ‘I have no mother. That woman yonder,’ pointing towards the house, ‘is my worst enemy. Mother! My mother!’ with a bitter laugh. ‘Ask her what she has done with my child?’ That question came upon Maurice Clissold like a revelation. Here was a sadder story than he had dreamt of, a story which no word of Martin’s had hinted at, a story of shame as well as of sorrow, perchance. He remained silent, troubled and perplexed by this new turn of affairs. His office of consoler, his attempt to smooth the tangled threads of a disordered brain, came to an end all at once. The woman turned from him impatiently, muttering to herself as she went away. He followed her along the sinuous footpath, and across the garden, and watched her as she entered by a low half-glass door at the back of the house. He passed this door afterwards, and stole a glance through the glass into a large low room, where there was a fire burning—a room which he divined to be the grandmother’s chamber.