Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/313

Rh not encourage you in filling the child's head with nonsense."

Chelubai protested sorrowfully, and then he protested angrily, but I was not to be moved. Bottiger, who assailed me later in the day, found me no less inexorable. Unhappy myself, I ought to have been touched by their unhappiness; but I was not; I rather hugged the thought of it to myself, and drew from it a cold comfort. And I was indeed growing unhappy; each day I was missing her more and more. I could not bear my rooms after twilight began to fall, and I hated coming back to their emptiness at night. I had never realized that she filled so much of my life. I began to learn, too, and late enough, that my fondness for her was a good deal more than brotherly. Assuredly, I was beginning to hunger for her as no brother hungers for the companionship of a sister. Once more I cursed myself for a blind idiot.

On the fifth morning I came to breakfast to find a letter from her lying beside my plate, and my heart leaped at the sight. I tore it open, and my heart sank to see that there was no address. It ran:

"I am disgusted with myself that I went away in such a horrible temper without thanking you for all you did for me. But I only seemed ungrateful, I was not, really. I do recognize that