But he only glanced at the superscription and laid them down again. "I did not know," she panted, "that he was dead. I hoped he would be here. I knew that he must have lived a quiet life. I always thought of him as living here in the old way." "He was away from here for thirty years," said Murdoch. "He only came back to die." "He!" she said, "I never thought of that. It--seems very strange. I could not imagine his going from place to place--or living a busy life--or suffering much. He was so simple and so quiet." "I thought of him," she went on, "because he was a good man--a good man--and there was no one else in the world. As the end came I grew restless--I wanted to--to try----" But there her eyes closed and she forgot herself again. "What was it you wanted to try to do?" he asked gently. She roused herself, as before, with a start. "To try," she said,--"to try to do something for the girl." He did not understand what she meant until she had dragged herself up upon the pillow and leaned forward touching him with her hand; she had gathered all her strength for the effort. "I am an outcast," she said,--"an outcast!" The simple and bare words were so terrible that he could scarcely bear them, but he controlled himself by a strong effort. A faint color crept up on her cheek. "You don't understand," she said. "Yes," he answered slowly, "I think I do." She fell back upon her pillows. "I wont tell you the whole story," she said. "It is an ugly one, and she will be ready enough with it when her turn comes. She has understood all her life. She has never been a child. She seemed to fasten her eyes upon me from the hour of her birth, and I have felt them ever since. Keep her away," with a shudder. "Don't let her come in." A sudden passion of excitement seized upon her. "I don't know why I should care," she cried. "There is no reason why she should not live as I have lived--but she will not--she will not. I have reached the end and she knows it. She sits and looks on and says nothing, but her eyes force me to speak. They forced me to come here--to try--to make a last effort. If Stephen Murdoch had lived----" She stopped a moment. "You are a poor man," she said. "Yes," he answered. "I am a mechanic." "Then--you cannot--do it." She spoke helplessly, wildly. "There is nothing to be done. There is no one else. She will be all alone." Then he comprehended her meaning fully. "No," he said, "I am not so poor as that. I am not a poorer man than my father was, and I can do what he would have done had he lived. My mother will care for the girl, if that is what you wish." "What I wish!" she echoed. "I wish for nothing--but I must do something for her--before--before--before----" She broke off, but began again. "You are like your father. You make things seem simple. You speak as if you were undertaking nothing."