She murmured assent, and sighed as if in grateful relief. Joyce comforted her as best he could and left her reluctantly. When he got home, he wrote the letter, a bald statement of facts to which he appended his signature and the address of his lodgings. He sealed it, directed it, in his nervous, characteristic handwriting and hurried out to post it at once. It was a most disagreeable duty over, for to communicate with his cousin went sorely against the grain. A pleasanter duty awaited him, as soon as he could settle down to his evening’s work, the correction of the first batch of proofs from the publishers. In the course of time, Yvonne recovered her spirits and was on the mend again. Signs of returning strength showed themselves in her left arm, which, together with the throat on that side, had been affected by the disease. Her speaking voice also began to regain some of its old sweetness, though the surgeons confirmed their statement that the singing voice was irrevocably gone. “Do say they are wrong,” said Yvonne casting a pleading look at Joyce. “Perhaps they are,” said he; “let us hope.” “Then I may not need Everard’s money, after all.” “You will for a couple of years, at least,” he said kindly. “But you may be able to pay it back afterwards.” This consoled her, and she began to build great schemes. On another occasion she said to him irrelevantly:-- “Do you think I ought to write to Everard?” She had raised him by this time to the position of father confessor. A certain feminine weakness in Joyce’s nature, developing gradually, through his intercourse with her, into a finer sensitiveness, made it easy for her to give him her confidence, to speak with him much as she used to speak with Geraldine. And yet, he being a man, his utterances on such questions, had for her all their masculine weight. “It is a matter entirely of your own inclination,” he replied oracularly. “But I don’t know what my inclination is,” said Yvonne. “Everard once told me that it was a much harder thing to know what one’s duty was than to do it when you know what it is.” “He was plagiarising from George Eliot,” said Joyce, not ill-pleased at a malicious hit at the Bishop. And then, teasingly to Yvonne: “And I’m sure they both put it a little more grammatically.” “I won’t talk grammar,” cried Yvonne. “I always hated it. It is silly stuff. You understood perfectly what I meant, did n’t you?” “Perfectly,” said Joyce. “Then what’s the good of grammar?” cried Yvonne, triumphantly. “But you make me forget what I was going to say. It was something quite clever. Oh yes! Substitute ‘inclination’ for ‘duty,’ and you have my difficulty. Now do tell me what I am to do.” “Well, wait until you hear from Everard, and then write him a nice long letter,” said Joyce. “That’s just what I wanted to do,” said she; “you are so good to me.”