“Do you know that yesterday I learned in one choking gulp the grinding truth of my mother’s poor tragedy of life, I learned too,” she said slowly, throwing out her arms softly, with a pathetic gesture of appeal, “all in one blinding second my own infinite love for her; but there was no time to tell, she died first. I am crushed with knowledge, I am spared nothing, and then—ah, sickness is degrading! Delilah’s shears are nothing to it! To think that here in my hands I hold the whole unsuppressed heart of a man!” “But, Gwen, I cannot grasp it—how came you by all this knowledge? Humphrey was too ill to write all that big bundle of sheets.” “He wrote, as he spoke, in delirium, part of it is absolutely maniacal, but my God! there is truth enough in it! I see Humphrey’s poor sick naked soul in every line!” She hid her face and moaned softly. “But, love, I don’t understand—how came you by those sheets?” “Brydon sent the letters. Poor boy, he wrote a little humble scrawl himself, that has a touch of pathos in it.” “I think Brydon was the more delirious of the two! What business has he meddling in matters too big for him!” “Oh, he’s young and very romantic, and—have you ever heard of that picture he painted of me?” “That sketch for your mother?” she said softly. Gwen winced. “No, oh no, one he came down and made of me the day I was married. It is not me at all, it is a beautiful sexful mother-woman, it was to that woman Humphrey wrote those things! I am the rival of my own picture.” Mrs. Fellowes jumped up and knelt, weeping bitterly, at Gwen’s knees. “Gwen, send for Humphrey, you are his first duty, he will come in spite of that miserable missionary who never had any business venturing his nose where no one wanted it—he will come to you at once!” For a second Gwen stared frozenly at her then she drew herself a little away. “But why, why should I?” she asked. “Can you not see, my God! can you not see that I am not ready for him?” The cold gray of her face turned to a vivid red, and she got up hastily and went to the window. CHAPTER XL. GWEN’S duty-forced efforts to comfort her father, were incessant, and rather tragic; he said very little and worked his usual number of hours conscientiously at his latest work, but the best part of him was away. His head bowed a little more every day, his step fell a little more heavily, his eye lost a fresh spark of life; he was following his wife in his patient, well-bred manner, with neither cry nor moan. Sudden fits of half compunctuous duty would now and again seize upon him, and remind him that he had a daughter who also knew sorrow, then he would pursue Gwen softly, and catch her, no matter how inconvenient it might be, and ply her with questions on embarrassing topics. Gwen was very gentle with him and used to do him small services with a curious shy anxiety that had a touch of motherliness in it.