she.

Ruth Thrale appeared, waked by the cry. It had not added to her
uneasiness. "She was like this, all yesterday," said she. "All on the
jar. Dr. Nash hopes it will pass off." Ruth, of course, knew nothing of
the coming of the son's letter, and regarded her mother's state as only
a fluctuation. She had a quiet self-command that refused to be
panic-struck. In fact, she had held back from coming, long enough to
make sure that Granny Marrable had slept through the scream. That was
all right. Gwen urged her to go back to bed, and prevailed over her by
adopting a positive tone. She agreed to go when she had made "her
mother" swallow something to sustain life. Gwen asked if the champagne
had continued in favour. "She doesn't fancy it alone," said Ruth. "But I
put it in milk, and she takes it down without knowing it." Probably
nurses are the most fraudulent people in the world.

Old Maisie kept silence resolutely about the letter until Ruth had gone
back; which she only did unwillingly, as concession to a _force
majeure_. Then the old lady said:--"Is she gone? I would not have her
see her brother's letter. But I would be glad you should see it, my
dear." She was exploring feebly under her pillow and bolster, to find
it. Gwen understood. "It's not there," said she. "I have it here. Granny
Marrable got at it to show to me." She hoped the old lady was not going
to insist on having that letter re-read. It made the foulness of the
criminal world, unknown to her except as material for the legitimate
drama, a horrible reality, and bred misgivings that the things in the
newspapers were really true.

Old Maisie disappointed her. "Read me aloud what my son says," said she.
Then Gwen understood what Granny Marrable had meant when she said that,
of the two, her sister had understood it the better. For as she uttered
the letter's repulsive expressions, reluctantly enough, a side-glance
showed her old Maisie's listening face and closed eyes, nowise disturbed
at her son's rather telling description of his hunted life. At the
reference to the "newspaper scrap" she said:--"Yes, Phoebe read me that
with her glasses. He got away." Gwen felt that that strange past life,
in a land where almost every settler had the prison taint on him, had
left old Maisie abler to endure the flavour of the gaol-bird's speech
about himself. It was as though an Angel who had been in Hell might know
all its ways, and yet remain unsullied by the knowledge.

But