comb. Never
mind about my hair now. I know very well that there is not a single
human being at home who would not shut the door in my face. Some of them
do not understand, and never will, and I should never try to explain
my life to them. I have suffered for my mistakes and made myself an
outcast, and nobody has any compassion for an outcast. That is why I sit
and wonder about Stephen, and why I have sat all day and wondered about
you, and whether I ought to run away, for I could not stay here if you
felt about me as I know those people feel at home. I want you to love
me, Martha. Oh! yes, you prove it. You do everything for me, but way
down deep in your heart, how do you feel? Do you love me as you always
did?--LOVE, Martha, not just pity, or feeling sorry like Stephen, or
blaming me like the others? Yes, yes, yes, I know it, but I have wanted
you to tell me. I am so in the dark. There, there, don't cry! Just one
thing more. What did your brother mean when he said there were others
who would lift me out of my misery?"

Again the old servant, brushing away her tears, hesitated to reply. She
had sent for Stephen to answer this very question, and her mistress had
practically driven him from the room. How, then, was she to meet it?

"He meant Mr. Felix, and if you had only listened, my lady, he would
have--"

"Yes, I knew he did--although he did not dare say it," she cried with
sudden intensity, sinking deeper back in her pillow as if to protect
herself even from Martha. "I did not listen, for I never want to hear
his name again. He drove me to what I did. He let me leave his house
without so much as a word of regret, and not one line did he write
me the whole time I was at my father's. Two months, Martha!
TWO--WHOLE--MONTHS!" The words seemed to clog in her throat. "All
that time he hid himself in his club, abusing me to every man he met.
Somebody told me so. What was I to do? He had turned over to his father
every shilling he possessed and left me without a penny--or, worse
still, dependent on my father, and you know what that means! And then,
when I could stand it no longer and went home, he sailed for South
Africa on a shooting expedition."

Martha listened patiently. The outburst was not what she had expected,
but she knew the unburdening would help in the end. She slid one plump
hand under the tired head, and with the other stroked back the mass of
hair from the damp forehead--very gently, as she might have calm