And after the first
night he was different. He has hardly spoken a word, except when he sent
for me this evening, and he eats nothing.... And yet, somehow, I do not
think that this will be the end. I feel that he will go on living.....

"I did not realize how much he still hoped about Preston. And on Monday,
when Preston so unexpectedly came home, he was happier than I have known
him for years. It was strange and sad that he could not see, as I saw,
that whatever will power my brother had had was gone. He could not read
it in the face of his own son, who was so quick to detect it in all
others! And then came the tragedy. Oh, John, do you think we shall ever
find that girl again?--I know you are trying but we mustn't rest until
we do. Do you think we ever shall? I shall never forgive myself for not
following her out of the door, but, I thought she had gone to you and
Mr. Bentley."

Hodder laid the letter down, and took it up again. He knew that Alison
felt, as he felt, that they never would find Kate Marcy.... He read on.

"My father wished to speak to me about the money. He has plans for much
of it, it appears, even now. Oh. John, he will never understand. I want
so much to see you, to talk to you--there are times when I am actually
afraid to be alone, and without you. If it be weakness to confess that
I need your reassurance, your strength and comfort constantly, then I am
weak. I once thought I could stand alone, that I had solved all problems
for myself, but I know now how foolish I was. I have been face to face
with such dreadful, unimagined things, and in my ignorance I did not
conceive that life held such terrors. And when I look at my father, the
thought of immortality turns me faint. After you have come here this
afternoon there can be no longer any reason why we should not meet, and
all the world know it. I will go with you to Mr. Bentley's.

"Of course I need not tell you that I refused to inherit anything. But
I believe I should have consented if I possibly could have done so. It
seemed so cruel--I can think of no other word--to have, to refuse at
such a moment. Perhaps I have been cruel to him all my life--I don't
know. As I look back upon everything, all our relations, I cannot see
how I could have been different. He wouldn't let me. I still believe to
have stayed with him would have been a foolish and useless sacrifice...
But he looked at me so queerly, as though he, too, had had a glimmering
of what w