Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/65

53 bay window, Rayne on a stool at his feet, touching him with her dear beautiful hand from time to time, and I half lying on and over the edge of the terrace—not even then, with the certain quiet and sadness with us that was of a last evening together, could I realise that I was going away from the beauty and the life here with them, not to see either again for long, perhaps ever.

We began to talk a little,—of work, its length and weariness and the final rest when it was over: or rather Mr. Cholmeley spoke of it, and every now and then she or I asked him of the things he told or of other thoughts thereby.

Then she left us for a moment to go to speak to Mrs. Jacques about our breakfast, and I came up and sat in her place.

For a little there was silence, and I knew, somehow, that he wished to speak to me about my mother. I waited quite calmly. He was trembling. But at last the words came.

He had felt that he had not done all he might have done for her. He ought to have remembered that he was the only person she had in the world of whom she had a right to expect care and affection. But he had not thought of it in that way then. As he had told me, they had seen so little of one another, that she did not seem to him to be his sister, and so 'sister' had meant but a name that was not as near to him even as 'friend.' He was so full of other things then, his studies, his work; and she seemed happy and contented with her aunt. And then they both married, and she seemed happy and contented with her husband. He knew that he had done wrong. It was clearly his duty, both as a man and her brother, to have befriended her. Perhaps if he had done so, she might never … God only knew! He was so moved, that all I saw good to do was to quieten him.

I said, as I thought, that he had acted for the best, and that he could not be blamed. The questions that I would like to have asked him—what my mother had done, and when and why she had done it—were not, I saw, to be asked then. I was once almost afraid that