'John didn't like it because Richard--' Rachel hesitated again. 'You thought he was jealous. He did that after one day when you weeded out a lot of his books and put them away in some corner. And it was after he had those New York electric men here that evening and you seemed not to want to have them in the library, that he bought that corner of ground over there and made his garden. Don't you understand?' Rachel dropped her face upon her hands, partly for relief from David's serious face, which forebore to rebuke her and yet of necessity did so, partly to close herself in with her own bewilderment. To reconstruct John's life meant to take a new view of her own also. David leaned suddenly toward her. 'If John had been jealous, wouldn't he have had reason, Rachel? I know you weren't--untrue to him. But still--' He felt the formulation of the thought with her. 'I haven't judged you harshly, Rachel,' he went on in a moment, 'but it is not right that a man's brother should know him better than his wife does. I had to make you know, even at the last.' Then, as if he were compelled to say the final hard thing, he added, 'Wasn't there something you had already thought you should do when everything was in your hands?' Rachel, startled and flushing, faced him again, in involuntary confession. 'I had always thought it would be right to carry out a plan of Richard Hughes's.' 'Yes, I know. I am sure that was only a momentary notion of his. He had a great habit of making notes of things. His will was made only a few days before he died, and that idea was probably earlier. I was an executor, you remember. But anyway, several years ago John made a large gift to the library of Richard's college, in Richard's name. He took no chances on being unfair. He should have told you,' he added, 'but John had a hard sort of pride to manage, and I suppose he never did.' 'No,' said Rachel, 'he never did.' She rose, with a sudden dropping of her hands at her sides, as if relinquishing something they had held, and moved vaguely toward the door. 'Don't you think,' pursued David, 'that he might be brought in here--or somewhere?' Rachel hesitated, her hand faltering on the door-frame. 'No,' she said at last, 'let him stay there now.' And she herself went out through the dim chill hall. She lingered a moment at the closed library door, and then went slowly on up to her own empty room. OF WATER AND THE SPIRIT[8] BY MARGARET PRESCOTT MONTAGUE 'I WANT to tell you--I _must_ tell you all about it.'