When I was little I always
saw mamma silent and sad, and papa active and on the go, and bright and
talking at the top of his voice. I half believe he frightened mamma! And
then my father was constantly away, whereas mamma hardly ever went out.
When a servant took me to the house on Thursdays, I was taken up to say
good morning to her, and I invariably found her lying on a sofa in her
room, with the blinds down and almost dark. She just touched me with her
lips and asked me one or two questions, and then I was taken away again
because I tired her."

"Was she ill, then?"

"Mamma always has been ill. I suppose you know, Therese, that three
months ago--stay, it was just when I had taken my degree and went to
Germany--she was sent to an asylum? I believe my father had wanted her
to agree to undergo careful treatment of the kind long before, but she
would not."

Therese was silent for a few minutes.

"You have not been very happy," she said presently.

"Oh, it was only after I grew up that I felt unhappy. When I was a
little chap I never thought of how sad it is to have no real father or
mother. The last four or five years it has hurt me, but when he came to
see me once at school, papa told me he would take me with him as soon as
I had taken my degree and grown up. Last October, after my examination,
he wrote and told me to be patient a little longer, and that he was
hurrying on with the winding up of his business and coming back to
France. That gave me a hope which has brightened these last few months,
and will also make you understand why I am so pleased this morning at my
fathers coming. It seems to me that a new life is going to begin."

Day was breaking now: a dirty December day, with the light filtering
through heavy grey clouds that drifted along the ground, hid the
horizon, clung to the low hills, and then suddenly dispersed in long
wisps driven by a keen breeze, that got up in gusts, and drove clouds of
dust along the hard frozen ground.

"I have not been very happy either," said Therese, "for I lost my father
when I was tiny: I don't even remember him; and mamma must be dead as
well."

The ambiguous turning of the child's phrase caught Charles Rambert's
interested attention.

"What does that mean, Therese? Don't you know if your mother is dead?"

"Yes, oh yes; grandmamma says so. But whenever I ask for particulars
grandmamma always changes the subject. I will echo what you said just
now: when you are l