e--if
Molly had visited there?"

"She remembered her last visit very well but her memories were of no
value. She was a sweet, pretty child, she said, and she often wondered
how she came to have such a homely mother. She evidently disliked Mrs.
Weston very much, and when I asked her if she had ever heard of Molly's
death she said no, but that she was not a bit surprised as she had
always predicted that the pretty, little, white thing would be worried
into an early grave. I noticed the word 'white' and asked her about it,
for the Molly I knew had a lovely colour. Her memory became confused
when I pressed her, but she seemed quite sure that the girl who came
that winter with her mother was a very pale girl--looked as if she might
have come south for her health."

"All of which goes to prove--"

"Yes--I know. Poor Molly! Poor little girl! I believe in my heart that
our mad marriage killed her. Without me constantly with her, the fear of
her mother, perhaps the doubt of me, the burden of the whole disastrous
secret was too much. And it was my fault, Willits--all my fault!" He
turned to the window to hide his working face. "Do you wonder," he added
softly, "that her poor little wraith comes back to trouble me?"

"Come, come, no need to be morbid! You made a mistake, but you have
paid. As for the doubt which troubles you--it is but the figment of a
tired brain. The mother could have had no possible reason for deceiving
you. You were no longer an ineligible student--and the girl loved you.
Besides, there was the legal tie. Would any woman condemn her daughter
to a false position for life? And without reason? The idea is
preposterous. Come now, admit it!"

"Oh, I admit it! My reasoning powers are still unimpaired. But reason
has nothing to do with that kind of mental torture. It is my soul that
has been sick; it is my soul that must be cured. And to come back to the
very point from which we started, I believe I shall find that cure
here--in Coombe."

"With Mrs. Sykes?" dryly.

"Certainly. Mrs. Sykes is part of the cure."

"And the other part?"

"Oh--just everything. I hardly know why I like the place. But I do. Why
analyse? I can sleep here. I wake in the morning like a man with the
right to live, and for the first time in a year, Willits, a long
torturing year, I am beginning to feel free of that oppression, that
haunting sense that somewhere Molly is alive, that she needs me and that
I cannot get to her. I had begu