Whatever hopes Clytie might have entertained as to Jack's future were cut short by the change in her circumstances. All she could do was to contribute towards his training in the sphere in which the high gods, assisted by Kent and Treherne had placed him. Besides, he had manifested no particular intellectual bent. His gifts were rather those of action; books wearied him, except such as dealt with wild exploit and adventure. And she shrank now from the idea of his entering the army--a feminine distaste, easily understandable. So she had perforce to concur in the scheme whereby he should remain another year at the school and then be apprenticed to a respectable trade. Kent comforted her with his assurances. If the boy had the fire of success in him, he would rise out of the common ranks. Life was all before him with its endless fortuities. With devoted friends watching and guiding him, it would be a poor world if he did not arrive at ultimate good. And Clytie in her turn comforted the boy, trying to soften and mould his nature with her womanly influence. It was his last term at the school. He had won for himself the golden opinions of the authorities. The semi-animal little arab of four years ago had developed into a bright, self-reliant lad of generous impulses, subject, it is true, to fits of ungovernable passion, but quick to forgive, repent, and do penance. Suddenly Clytie received a telegram that Jack was very ill. She left her work and started immediately for the school. There she found that diphtheria had broken out among the boys, and Jack's was the most critical case. Day and night she nursed him. But it was of no avail. The boy died, and Clytie returned to London with a cheerless sense of loss. Mrs. Burmester, who came to see her after the funeral, whimpered a little, and hoped that Clytie would recommend her to any of her friends who happened to be in need of a charwoman. And then Clytie looked at the mother, thought of the father. After all, if the laws of heredity had anything to do with the controlling of human destinies, were it not better for Jack to be dead? When the woman had gone she went and stood before the replica of her famous picture which she had painted for Kent, and shook her head sadly. “What I have painted there,” she said to Kent, “the cruelty and animalism that seemed to have gone out of his face latterly, would always have remained. Human nature is a palimpsest, dear. What is written is written forever, though it seem obliterated, and may be called up to the surface at any moment. I call Jack happy, being dead.”