t."

He gazed at her long with a dull, unintelligent, unseeing expression.
When he spoke he was like a man who tries to get his wits together after
delirium or unconsciousness. "Do you think I am--strong enough?"

"I _know_ you are."

He lumbered to his feet, staggering heavily to the chimney-piece, where
he, too, laid his hands upon the mantel-board, which was just on a level
with his height, bowing his forehead upon them. As he did so she moved
away. Seeing his broad shoulders heave, and fearing she heard something
smothered--was it a groan or a sob?--she slipped out of the room,
closing the door behind her.

But when, some twenty minutes later, he himself came forth, his head
bent, perhaps to hide his red eyes and his convulsed visage, he found
her at the door of the dining-room, with a cup of tea in her hand.
"Drink this," she said, with gentle command.

He declined it with a shake of his head and an impatient wave of the
hand.

"Yes, do," she insisted. "It's nice and hot. I'll have one, too."

Obediently he went into the dining-room. He drank the tea standing and
in silence, in two or three gulps, while she, standing likewise, made a
feint of pouring a cup for herself. He left without a good-night, beyond
a hard, speechless wringing of her hand on his way to the door.

Two things seemed strange to Chip after that evening--the one, that the
fight with Old Piper was ended; and the other, that in the matter of
Edith's marriage, once the immediate shock had spent its strength, he
bowed to the accomplished fact with a docility he himself could not
understand. As for the fight with Old Piper, there was no longer a
reason for waging it. In the new situation Old Piper had lost its
appeal, from sheer inadequacy to meet the new need. The fact of the
marriage he contrived to keep at a distance. He could do this the more
easily because it was so monstrous. It was so monstrous that the mind
refused to take it in, and he made no attempt to force himself. He asked
neither whom she had married nor why she had married, nor anything else
about her. It was a measure of safety. As long as he didn't know he was
able to create a pretended fool's paradise of ignorance which, in his
state of mind, was none the less a fool's paradise for being a pretense.
Even a fool's paradise was a protection. If it hadn't been for the
children, he might not have heard so much as the man's name.

The children called him "papa Lacon." Chip was o