be kind if you'll stay; it's a relief to be out of the room with a good
excuse!" She even laughed a little as she said this; she went on to lead
the talk away from what was so intensely in our minds, and presently I
heard her and my wife speaking of other things. The power to do this is
from some heroic quality in women's minds that we do not credit them
with; we think it their volatility, and I dare say I thought myself much
better, or at least more serious in my make, because I could not follow
them, and did not lose one of those hoarse gasps of the sufferer
overhead. Occasionally there came a stifling cry that made me jump,
inwardly if not outwardly, but those women had their drama to play, and
they played it to the end.

Miss Bentley came hospitably to the door with us, and waited there till
she thought we could not see her turn and run swiftly up-stairs.

"Why _did_ you stay, my dear?" I groaned. "I felt as if I were
personally smothering Mrs. Bentley every moment we were there."

"I _had_ to do it. She wished it, and, as she said, it was a relief to
have us there, though she was wishing us at the ends of the earth all
the time. But what a ghastly life!"

"Yes; and can you wonder that the poor woman doesn't want to give her
up, to lose the help and comfort she gets from her? It's a wicked thing
for that girl to think of marrying."

"What are you talking about, Basil? It's a wicked thing for her _not_ to
think of it! She is wearing her life out, _tearing_ it out, and she
isn't doing her mother a bit of good. Her mother would be just as well,
and better, with a good strong nurse, who could lift her this way and
that, and change her about, without feeling her heart-strings wrung at
every gasp, as that poor child must. Oh, I _wish_ Glendenning was man
enough to make her run off with him, and get married, in spite of
everything. But, of course, that's impossible--for a clergyman! And her
sacrifice began so long ago that it's become part of her life, and
she'll simply have to keep on."

VIII.

When her attack passed off, Mrs. Bentley sent and begged my wife to come
again and see her. She went without me, while I was in town, but she was
so circumstantial in her report of her visit, when I came home, that I
never felt quite sure I had not been present. What most interested us
both was the extreme independence which the mother and daughter showed
beyond a certain point, and the daughter's great frankness in expre