It appeared to Colville that this very sensible and judicial lady found an intellectual pleasure in the analysis of the case, which modified the intensity of her maternal feeling in regard to it, and that, like many people who talk well, she liked to hear herself talk in the presence of another appreciative listener. He did not offer to interrupt her, and she went on. "No, sir, I am not disappointed in her choice. I think her chances of happiness would have been greater, in the abstract, with one nearer her own age; but that is a difference which other things affect so much that it did not alarm me greatly. Some people are younger at your age than at hers. No, sir, that is not the point." Mrs. Graham fetched a sigh, as if she found it easier to say what was not the point than to say what was, and her clear gaze grew troubled. But she apparently girded herself for the struggle. "As far as you are concerned, Mr. Colville, I have not a word to say. Your conduct throughout has been most high-minded and considerate and delicate." It is hard for any man to deny merits attributed to him, especially if he has been ascribing to himself the opposite demerits. But Colville summoned his dispersed forces to protest against this. "Oh, no, no," he cried. "Anything but that. My conduct has been selfish and shameful. If you could understand all--" "I think I do understand all--at least far more, I regret to say, than my daughter has been willing to tell me. And I am more than satisfied with you. I thank you and honour you." "Oh no; don't say that," pleaded Colville. "I really can't stand it." "And when I came here it was with the full intention of approving and confirming Imogene's decision. But I was met at once by a painful and surprising state of things. You are aware that you have been very sick?" "Dimly," said Colville. "I found you very sick, and I found my daughter frantic at the error which she had discovered in herself--discovered too late, as she felt." Mrs. Graham hesitated, and then added abruptly, "She had found out that she did not love you." "Didn't love me?" repeated Colville feebly. "She had been conscious of the truth before, but she had stifled her misgivings insanely, and, as I feel, almost wickedly, pushing on, and saying to herself that when you were married, then there would be no escape, and she _must_ love you." "Poor girl! poor child! I see, I see." "But the accident that was almost your death saved her from that miserable folly and iniquity. Yes," she continued, in answer to the protest in his face, "folly and iniquity. I found her half crazed at your bedside. She was fully aware of your danger, but while she was feeling all the remorse that she ought to feel--that any one could feel--she was more and more convinced that she never had loved you and never should. I can give you no idea of her state of mind." "Oh, you needn't! you needn't! Poor, poor child!"