Christine did not fail to perceive the comic element in the case--strong enough, at all events, to serve as a relief to conversation, almost piquant when Grantley conscientiously related all manner of uninteresting things in order that Sibylla might be at liberty to take an interest in them. But this aspect did not carry matters very far or afford much real consolation. Substantially no progress was made. The failure endured, and seemed to Christine as complete as the devastation wrought in her own life. Nay, here there was an aggravation. In her home--she almost smiled to use the word now--there was no child. Here there was the boy. Her thoughts flew forward to the time when he would wonderingly surmise, painfully guess, at last grow into knowledge. And already the mind stirred in little Frank. His intelligence grew, his affection blossomed as the first buds of a flower. He was no more merely a passive object of love and care. He began to know more than that he was nursed and fed, more than that his right was to these ministrations. The idea of the reason dawned in him. He stretched forth his hand no longer for bounty only, but for the inspirer of bounty--for love. Strung to abnormal sensitiveness, Christine deluded herself with the fancy that already he felt the shadow over the house, that his young soul was already chilled by the clouds of anger, and vainly cried for the sunshine of sympathy. If she did not truly see, yet she foresaw truly. Seeing and foreseeing, then, she asked where was the hope. And on this, with a bound, her thoughts were back to her own sorrow, and back to poor lonely old John in London, all by himself, with nobody to talk to, nobody to congratulate him on the success of his business, nobody to open his heart to, alone with his grievance against her, alone with the thought that, notwithstanding his grievance, he had taken Frank Caylesham's money, and grew prosperous again by the aid of it.