ut said very little. Her soft hands would
stroke the forehead of her first-born, or of her eldest daughter, or of
any of the offspring of the two, the product of their love, and she
would tell them that she was glad they were so good, but, gentle and
thoughtful as she was, there was something lacking. She seemed in
another world.

I talked to Jean. I tried to be a philosopher, to tell her of the
children and of the broadness of life, and that she must drift into it
again. She was kind and courteous as of old with me, but it was
somehow not the same. And she grew weaker day by day, and would lie
for hours, the children told me, in the room where Grant and she had
been together all those years.

How can I tell of it! Jean, who had become my sister, who was part of
Grant Harlson, drifted away before my eyes! It was harder, almost, for
us than the fierce fight with death of the one who had been the
mainstay of us all. Somehow, we knew she was going to leave us, and
the grief of the children was something terrible. She listened to them
and was kind to them, wildly affectionate at times, but she lapsed ever
into the same strange apathy. We had the best physicians again. I
talked with one of them. "What shall we do?" I asked.

He was a great man, a successful one, a man above the rut, and he
answered simply:

"I cannot advise. The mind governs the body beyond us sometimes,--very
often, I imagine. She does not want to live. That is all I can say.
Drugs are not in the treatment of the case."

She grew thinner and thinner and more listless, and finally, one day,
the Ape came to my office and said his mother had not left her room for
a day or two. I went with him to the home which had been almost as my
own.

I was admitted to Jean's room as a matter of course. I was one of the
household. She was lying upon a great sofa, one Grant had liked. I
asked her to tell me what to do.

She was calm and quiet as she answered. "There is nothing," she said.
Then suddenly she seemed to be the Jean I had known one time. She
raised herself up: "Alf, you were very close to us. Cannot you see?"
She began another sentence, then stopped suddenly, and only smiled at
me and said I was the nest friend ever two people had in all this
world. She still spoke of two people. As if Grant were with us still!

How can one tell of the fading of a lily. No one ever told of it all.
One day they sent for me, and when I came the sw