d of him. Christine had taken Francey's
arm, and they talked together in undertones like people who have secret
things to say to one another. How small Christine was! She seemed to
have shrunk into a handful of a woman as though the sun had withered
her. She walked timidly, with bowed head, feeling her way. Her voice
lifted for a moment into the old clearness.

"His father was a wonderful man--a wonderful, good man. Unhappy. Very
unfortunate. Not meant for this world. His mother was my dear friend.
If they had lived--those two---- I did what I could--I think they
will be satisfied--it makes me happy----"

She murmured wearily. And Francey bent her head to listen. Robert
loved her for the tenderness of that gesture. Yet it was bitter, too,
that they should talk of his father. He wanted to go up to them and
tell the truth brutally to Christine's face. He would have liked to
have told them the one dream which he carried over from his sleep. But
it would have been useless. Christine would only smile with a cruel,
loving wisdom.

"You don't understand. You were only a child. Your father was so
unhappy----"

The myth had become an invulnerable reality and had grown golden in the
twilight of her coming blindness. James Stonehouse had been a good
man, a faithful friend, and broken-hearted husband. If those two had
lived everything would have been different. She threw her hallowed
picture of them on the screen of the dripping dusk so that they seemed
to live. Robert saw them too. That was his mother walking at
Christine's side, and then his father---- In a sort of shattering
vision Robert saw him, a man of promise, black-browed with the riddle
of his failure, a man of many hungers, seduced by rootless passions,
lured to miserable shipwreck because he could not keep to any course,
because he could not give up worthlessness for worth.

Himself----

He staggered before the brief hallucination. The moisture broke out on
his white face. It wasn't enough to hate his father. He had to be
fought down day by day. He was always there, waiting to pounce out.
He lay on his face, pretending to be dead----

It was gone. He shook himself free as from the touch of an evil,
insinuating hand out of the dark. This love was his strength. If
Francey were like his mother, then she was also good. It was these rag
and bobtail friends that poisoned everything. They would have to be
shaken off. Francey was a ch