penalties
could linger.

"You're the best friend that he's got--the best friend any man could
have--and I want you to care for him, to look after him, to watch over
him. I know," she went on hurriedly, "that you always have done that,
but I want you to feel now that you're doing it a little for my sake as
well as your own. I want you to be the one link that I've still got with
him."

"But Roddy asked him----" began Christopher.

"Oh yes! I know--Roddy was splendid. But of course that can't be. We
can't meet, at any rate for years. Besides, that time is so utterly done
with. There's only Roddy now for me in all the world. But I know,
better, I expect, than you think, how weak Francis is, how much he
depends upon what the people whom he cares for say to him--and so I want
you----"

"But of course," Christopher said. "He knows that he can count on me
whatever happens--he's always known that."

He stopped and waited for her to continue; he saw that she had more to
say.

"It's so strange," she said, staring, her eyes deep and black seeing
into sacred places that were known only to her, "how grandmother's
death has cleared, amazingly, the air. The motive for almost everything
has gone. I didn't see--I hadn't the least idea--how all my thoughts and
actions and wishes and impulses came from my sense of opposition to her.
Francis saw that--knowing that we both hated her--and that was why I was
so difficult with Roddy, because I thought that grandmother had arranged
the marriage and had him under her thumb--I had no idea of the kind of
person Roddy was."

"Nor had I--nor had anyone," said Christopher.

"That whole affair with Francis was in idea--always--more than in fact.
I knew, and I believe that he knew, that it was simply a piece of wild
rebellion on my part; and on his--well, he's like that, romantic,
rebellious, responding in a minute to everything, but wanting, really,
all the time to be safe and proper. That day we met in his rooms, we
both knew, at heart, that something was missing--something one had to
have if one was going to break away altogether. He was always a rebel by
force of circumstances, never by real inclination."

She put her hand on Christopher's knee and drew very close to him.
"Chris dear, I'm terrified now when I think of how near I was to
absolute, complete disaster. If it hadn't been for Roddy's accident and
for Lizzie ... Lizzie's been to all of us everything in the world.

"Do you reme