n't, father,' she whispered. 'You must try and forget.'

He leaned back, exhausted, and the pretty flowers fell at his feet.

'You know why they've let me out?' he said.

She kissed him, but did not answer.

'I'm so glad that we're together again,' she murmured.

'It's because I'm going to die.'

'No, you mustn't die. In a little while you'll get strong again. You
have many years before you, and you'll be very happy.'

He gave her a long, searching look; and when he spoke, his voice had a
hollowness in it that was strangely terrifying.

'Do you think I want to live?'

The pain seemed almost greater than Lucy could bear, and for a moment
she had to remain silent so that her voice might grow steady.

'You must live for my sake.'

'Don't you hate me?' he asked.

'No, I love you more than I ever did. I shall never cease to love you.'

'I suppose no one would marry you while I was in prison.'

His remark was so inconsequent that Lucy found nothing to say. He gave a
bitter, short laugh.

'I ought to have shot myself. Then people would have forgotten all about
it, and you might have had a chance. Why didn't you marry Bobbie?'

'I haven't wanted to marry.'

He was so tired that he could only speak a little at a time, and now he
closed his eyes. Lucy thought that he was dozing, and began to pick up
the fallen flowers. But he noticed what she was doing.

'Let me hold them,' he moaned, with the pleading quaver of a sick child.

As she gave them to him once more, he took her hands and began to caress
them.

'The only thing for me is to hurry up and finish with life. I'm in the
way. Nobody wants me, and I shall only be a burden. I didn't want them
to let me go. I wanted to die there quietly.'

Lucy sighed deeply. She hardly recognised her father in the bent, broken
man who was sitting beside her. He had aged very much and seemed now to
be an old man, but it was a premature aging, and there was a horror in
it as of a process contrary to nature. He was very thin, and his hands
trembled constantly. Most of his teeth had gone; his cheeks were sunken,
and he mumbled his words so that it was difficult to distinguish them.
There was no light in his eyes, and his short hair was quite white. Now
and again he was shaken with a racking cough, and this was followed by
an attack of such pain in his heart that it was anguish even to watch
it. The room was warm, but he shivered with cold and cowered over the
roaring fire.