at last
triumph, sealed by the sanction of his kind. They grew intoxicated over
it sometimes, in warm talks when their father was not there. He talked
very little: a few words now and then to show what he thought of Jeff, a
phrase or two where he unconsciously turned for them the page of the
past and explained obscurities in the text they couldn't possibly
elucidate alone--these they treasured and made much of, as the
antiquary interprets his stone language. He never knew what importance
they laid on every shred of evidence about Jeff. Perhaps if he had known
he would have given them clearer expositions. To him Jeff was the
dearest of sons that ever man begot, strangely pursued by a malign
destiny accomplished only through the very chivalry and softness of the
boy's nature. No hero, though; he would never have allowed his girls to
build on that. And in all this rehabilitation of Jeff, as the girls saw
it, there was one dark figure like the black-clad mourner at the grave
who seems to deny the tenet of immortality: his wife, who had not stood
by him and who was living here in Addington with her grandmother, had
insisted on living with grandmother, in fact, as a cloak for her
hardness. Sometimes they felt if they could sweep the black-clad figure
away from the grave of Jeff's hopes, Jeff, in glorious apotheosis, would
rise again.

"What a name for her--Esther!" Lydia ejaculated, with an intensity of
hatred Anne tried to waft away by a little qualifying murmur. "Esther!
Esthers are all gentle and humble and beautiful."

"She is a very pretty woman," said her father, with a wise gentleness of
his own. Lydia often saw him holding the balance for her intemperate
judgments, his grain of gold forever equalising her dross. "I think
she'd be called a beautiful woman. Jeff thought she was."

"Do you actually believe, Farvie," said Lydia, "that she hasn't been to
see him once in all these hideous years?"

"I know it," said he. "However, we mustn't blame her. She may be a timid
woman. We must stand by her and encourage her and make it easier for her
to meet him now. Jeff was very much in love with her. He'll understand
her better than we do."

"I don't understand her at all," said Lydia, "unless you're going to let
us say she's selfish and a traitor and----"

"No, no," said Anne. "We don't know her. We haven't even seen her. We
must do what Farvie says, and then what Jeff says. I feel as if Jeff had
thought things out a lot."