"Ah," said Howard, "I am indeed grateful to you for speaking to me thus--you have lifted my spirit a little out of the mire. But I can't be rescued so easily. I shall have a burden to bear for some time yet--I see no end to it at present: and it is indeed my own foolish trifling with life that has brought it on me. But, dearest aunt, you can't help me just now. Let me be silent a little longer. I shall soon, I think, be able to speak, and then I will tell you all; and meanwhile it will be a comfort to me to think that you feel for me and about me as you do. I don't want to indulge in self-pity--I have not done that. There is nothing unjust in what has happened to me, nothing intolerable, no specific ill-will. I have just stumbled upon one of the big troubles of life, suddenly and unexpectedly, and I am not prepared for it by any practice or discipline. But I shall get through, don't be afraid--and presently I will tell you everything." He took his aunt's hand in his own, and kissed her on the cheek. "God bless you, dear boy!" she said; "I won't press you to speak; and you will know that I have you in mind now and always, with infinite hope and love." XX HIGHMINDEDNESS Howard on thinking over this conversation was somewhat bewildered as to what exactly was in his aunt's mind. He did not think that she understood his feeling for Maud, and he was sure that she did not realise what Maud's feelings about Freddy Guthrie were. He came to the conclusion eventually that Maud had told her about the beginnings of their friendship; that his aunt supposed that he had tried to win Maud's confidence, as he would have made friends with one of his young men; and that she imagined that he had found that Maud's feeling for him had developed in rather too confidential a line, as for a father-confessor. He thought that Mrs. Graves had seen that Maud had been disposed to adopt him as a kind of ethical director, and had thought that he had been bored at finding a girl's friendship so much more exacting than the friendship of a young man; and that she had been exhorting him to be more brotherly and simple in his relations with Maud, and to help her to the best of his ability. He imagined that Maud had told Mrs. Graves that he had been advising her, and that she had perhaps since told her of his chilly reception of her later confidences. That was the situation he had created; and he felt with what utter clumsiness he had handled it. His aunt, no doubt, thought that he had been disturbed at finding how much more emotional a girl's dependence upon an older man was than he had expected. But he felt that when he could tell her the whole story, she would see that he could not have acted otherwise. He had been so thrown off his balance by finding how deeply he cared for Maud, that he had been simply unable to respond to her advances. He ought to have had more control of himself. Mrs. Graves had not suspected that he could have grown to care for a girl,