ave to take risks----" She broke off, following
her thought further till it was far beyond his reach. "In fifteen
years you will be grown up. You will be able to take care of yourself.
What will you be then?"

"A doctor," he said firmly; "and I'll look after you, Christine, and
you'll live for ever and ever."

"A doctor--a doctor!" She seemed startled, almost frightened. "Yes,
of course. Your father would want it. He was always proud of his
profession, though he made fun. But it will mean more--waiting a
little longer."

She brooded, her hand covering her eyes, and he crept nearer to her,
pressing himself against her arm, trying to draw her back.

"Christine, who--who are you?"

"I don't know, Robert, I don't know----"

"I mean--why do you look after me? You're not my mother."

"Why, I love you."

"But you didn't at the beginning. You couldn't have done."

"Your father and I were friends. Yes, always--always--right through
everything--to the very end. When your mother came into our lives, I
loved her almost more. That will seem very strange to you one of these
days, but it was true. When she was dying she asked me to take care of
you both." She drew herself up, and pushed the untidy wisps of hair
out of her face, and with that gesture she seemed suddenly to grow
vigorous and young. "Why, Robert, it's better than if you were my own
son; it's as though in you I had a little of those two always with me."

"Christine, you won't ever leave me, will you?"

For now his fear had him by the throat. She didn't--she never had
belonged to him. It was his father and his mother, who were dead.

"Of course not--not so long as you need me. You mustn't worry. It's
because we're both tired and hungry. We'll get supper."

Her voice was its old self. But whilst she laid the cloth he stood
pressed against the window and looked out with blind eyes into the
darkness, so that she should not see his slow, hot tears. He was aware
of great and bitter loss. But he loved Christine more than he had ever
done. His love had ceased to be instinctive. It had become conscious
of itself and of her separateness. And it would never be quite free
again from pain.

III

1

Long before he could read words of three syllables, Robert had learnt the
Origin of Man, and had made a vivid, somewhat fanciful picture of that
personage's pathetic beginnings as a miasm floating on the earth's
surface, and of his accide