d every one always
thought him such a nice, good gentleman. I don't know what cook will say
when she hears, I'm sure I don't.'

'It is indeed all very terrible and sad, Emily,' I said to her. I left
her then, and went up to the drawing-room.

Jane was sitting at the writing table, her pen in one hand, her forehead
resting on the other.

'My dear,' I said to her, 'Emily has been giving me some account of last
night. She tells me that Mr. Gideon was here.'

'She's quite right,' said Jane listlessly. 'I met him at Katherine's, and
he saw me home and came in for a little.'

I was silent for a moment. It seemed to me rather sad that Jane should
have this memory of her husband's last evening on this earth, for she
knew that Oliver had not liked her to see much of Mr. Gideon. I
understood why she had been loath to mention it to me.

'And had he gone,' I asked her softly, 'when ... It ... happened?'

Jane frowned, in the way the twins always frown when people put things
less bluntly and crudely than they think fit. For some reason they call
this, the regard for the ordinary niceties of life, by the foolish name
of 'Potterism.'

'When Oliver fell?' she corrected me, still in that quiet, listless,
almost indifferent tone. 'Oh, yes. He wasn't here long.'

'Well, well,' I said very gently, 'we must let bygones be bygones, and
not grieve over much. Grief,' I added, wanting so much that the child
should rise to the opportunity and take her trial in a large spirit, 'is
such a big, strong, beautiful thing. If we let it, it will take us by
the hands and lead us gently along by the waters of comfort. We mustn't
rebel or fight; we must look straight ahead with welcoming eyes. For
whatever life brings us we can _use_.'

Jane still sat very still at the writing table, her head on her hand, her
fingers pushing back her hair from her forehead. I thought she sighed a
little, a long sigh of acquiescence which touched me.

This seemed to me to be the moment to speak to her of what was in my
mind.

'And, my dear,' I said, 'there is another thing. We mustn't think that
Oliver has gone down into silence. You must help him to speak to you, a
little later, when you are fit and when _he_ has found his way to the
Door. You mustn't shut him out, my child.'

'Mother,' said Jane, 'you know I don't believe in any of that.'

'I only ask you to try,' I said earnestly. 'Don't bolt and bar the
Door.... _I_ shall try, my dear, for you, if you w