laid his supper for him. It was much too early for her to have
laid it. She had spread muslin over the bread and cheese. And then she
had sat down quietly in her chair by the window and waited. (How long
had she waited there? Many years perhaps. It had been very lonely for
her.) Her head was thrown back a little, and her closed eyes lifted to
the light that came over the stable roofs. The grey hair hung in wisps
about the transparent face--very still, as though the air had died too.
She had changed profoundly, indefinably. She looked younger, and there
was a new serenity about the faintly opened mouth. Her hands lay
peacefully on the little shabby bag. Her little feet in the ill-fitting
shoes just reached the ground. In a way it was all so familiar. And yet
he felt that if he touched her he would find out that this was not
Christine at all. This was something that had belonged to her--as
poignant, as heart-rending as a dress that she had worn.

"Robert, isn't there anything--to do?"

"No."

They had nothing to say to one another. They had made a strange
trio--lonely and outcast by necessity--but now a link had snapped and it
was all over. They stood apart, each by himself. Ricardo, crouching
against the window-sill, pressed his hand to his side as though he were
hurt and bleeding to death. He said, almost inaudibly:

"I've no one. Nobody will ever listen. She believed in me. She was
sure that one day--I would go out--and tell the truth. She knew I
wasn't--a cowardly--beaten, old man."

Robert could not touch her whilst Ricardo stood there crying. Her repose
was too dominating. And if he touched her something terrible and
incalculable might happen. He felt as though he were standing on the
edge of a precipice, and that suddenly he might let go and pitch over.

It had come true at last--his boy's nightmare that had grown up with
him--that only waited for darkness to show itself. Christine had left
him. She was dead, and it seemed that he had no one in the world. For
Francey, loving him as she did, had failed him. But Christine had never
failed him. Never at any time had she asked, "Are you a good little boy,
Robert?" It would never have occurred to her. She was so sure. She had
loved him and, believed in him unfalteringly, and, in her quiet way, died
for him.

Ricardo drew himself up. He plucked at Robert's sleeve. A change had
come over him in the last minutes. His sunken brow