fers when he sees
me suffer. He runs away from me because he can do nothing to help me.
That is the worst of it all. I could bear the pain for myself, but for
the others, too! Oh, I wish there was some little back door of life out
of which one could slip, and no blame to anybody, in a case like this.
But there is nothing but the horrible front door, which means such agony
to everybody who is left, as well as the one that goes." Mrs. Ewing had
completely lost control of herself. She sobbed again and moaned.

James covered one of her cold hands with kisses. "Don't, don't," he
begged. "Don't, I love you."

Suddenly Mrs. Ewing came to the comprehension of what he said. She
looked at his bent head--James had a curly head like a boy's--and a
strange look came into her eyes, as if she were regarding him across an
immeasurable gulf. Nobody had ever seemed quite so far away in the world
as this boy with his cry of love to the woman old enough to be his
mother. It was not the fact of her superior age alone, it was her
disease, it was her sense of being done forever with anything like this
that gave her, as it were, a view of earth from outside, and yet she had
a sense of comfort. James was even weeping. She felt his tears on her
hand. It did her good that anybody could love her so little as to be
able to stay by and see her suffer, and weep for her, and not rush forth
in a rage of misery like Thomas Gordon. In a second, however, she had
command of herself. She drew her hand away. "Doctor Elliot," she said,
"you forget yourself."

"No, no, I don't," protested James. "It is not as if I--I were thinking
of you in that way. I am not. I know you could not possibly think of me
as a girl might. It is only because I love you. I have never seen
anybody like you."

"You must put me out of your head," said Mrs. Ewing. "I am old enough to
be your mother; I am ill unto death. You must not love me in any way."

"I cannot help it"

Mrs. Ewing hesitated. "I have a mind to tell you something," she said in
a low voice. "Can I rely upon you?"

"I would die before I told, if you said I was not to," cried James.

"It might almost come to that," said the woman gravely. "A very serious
matter is involved, otherwise there would not be this secrecy. I cannot
tell you what the matter is, but I can tell you something which will
cure you of loving me."

"I don't want to be cured," protested James, "and I have told you it is
a love like worship, i