e, with all the ordinary things around. Some
manuscript--lying loosely about, and looking as if he had thrown down
his pen in disgust, and pushed it away from him in the middle of a
sentence--was on the table, and an open book in his other hand; but
neither the book nor the manuscript occupied him; he was sitting
leaning his head in his hands, gazing blankly out through the window,
as it appeared, at the cedar, which flung its serene shadow over the
lawn outside. He jumped up at the sound of his brother's voice, but
seemed to recall himself with a little difficulty even for that, and
did not look much surprised to see him. In short, Frank read in
Gerald's eyes that he would not at that moment have been surprised to
see any one, and that, in his own consciousness, the emergency was
great enough to justify any unlooked-for appearance, though it might
be from heaven or from the grave.

"I am glad you have come," he said, after they had greeted each other,
his mouth relaxing ever so slightly into the ghost of his old smile;
"you and I always understood each other, and it appears I want
interpretation now. And one interpretation supposes many," he said
with a gleam, half of pathos half of amusement, lighting up his face
for a moment; "there is no such thing as accepting a simple version
even of one man's thoughts. You have come at a very fit time,
Frank--that is, for me."

"I am glad you think so," said the other brother; and then there was a
pause, neither liking to enter upon the grand subject which stood
between them.

"Have you seen Louisa?" said Gerald. He spoke like a man who was ill,
in a preoccupied interrupted way. Like a sick man, he was occupied
with himself, with the train of thought which was always going on in
his mind whatever he might be doing, whether he was working or
resting, alone or in company. For months back he had carried it with
him everywhere. The cedar-tree outside, upon which his thoughtful eyes
fell as he looked straight before him out of the library window, was
all garlanded with the reasonings and questionings of this painful
spring. To Frank's eyes, Gerald's attention was fixed upon the
fluttering of a certain twig at the extremity of one of those broad
solemn immovable branches. Gerald, however, saw not the twig, but one
of his hardest difficulties which was twined and twined in the most
inextricable way round that little sombre cluster of spikes; and so
kept looking out, not at the cedar