"It's because you thought me hard, obstinate narrow-minded? Oh, I understand that so well! My self-righteousness must have seemed so petty! A girl who could sacrifice a man's future to her own moral vanity--for it _was_ a form of vanity; you showed me that plainly enough--how you must have despised me! But I am not that girl now--indeed I'm not. I'm not impulsive--I think things out. I've thought this out. I know Alan loves me--I know _how_ he loves me--and I believe I can help him--oh, not in the ways I had fancied before--but just merely by loving him." She paused, but Mrs. Quentin made no sign. "I see it all so differently now. I see what an influence love itself may be--how my believing in him, loving him, accepting him just as he is, might help him more than any theories, any arguments. I might have seen this long ago in looking at _you_--as he often told me--in seeing how you'd kept yourself apart from--from--Mr. Quentin's work and his--been always the beautiful side of life to them--kept their faith alive in spite of themselves--not by interfering, preaching, reforming, but by--just loving them and being there--" She looked at Mrs. Quentin with a simple nobleness. "It isn't as if I cared for the money, you know; if I cared for that, I should be afraid--" "You will care for it in time," Mrs. Quentin said suddenly. Miss Fenno drew back, releasing her hand. "In time?" "Yes; when there's nothing else left." She stared a moment at the pictures. "My poor child," she broke out, "I've heard all you say so often before!" "You've heard it?" "Yes--from myself. I felt as you do, I argued as you do, I acted as I mean to prevent your doing, when I married Alan's father." The long empty gallery seemed to reverberate with the girl's startled exclamation--"Oh, Mrs. Quentin--" "Hush; let me speak. Do you suppose I'd do this if you were the kind of pink-and-white idiot he ought to have married? It's because I see you're alive, as I was, tingling with beliefs, ambitions, energies, as I was--that I can't see you walled up alive, as I was, without stretching out a hand to save you!" She sat gazing rigidly forward, her eyes on the pictures, speaking in the low precipitate tone of one who tries to press the meaning of a lifetime into a few breathless sentences.