Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/195

, it was in a state of much feebleness that he at length resumed the ordinary tenor of his way. Jane had of course stayed at home to nurse him; a fortnight, a month passed, and Michael still kept her from work. Then it happened that, on Joseph’s looking in one evening, the old man said quietly, “I think I’d rather Jane stayed at home in future. We’ve had a long talk about it this afternoon.”

Joseph glanced at his daughter, who met the look very gravely. He had a feeling that the girl was of a sudden grown older; when she spoke it was in brief phrases, and with but little of her natural spontaneity; noiseless as always in her movements, she walked with a staider gait, held herself less girlishly, and on saying goodnight she let her cheek rest for a moment against her father’s, a thing she had never yet done.

The explanation of it all came a few minutes after Jane’s retirement. Michael, warned by his illness how unstable was the tenure on which he henceforth held his life, had resolved to have an end of mystery and explain to his son all that he had already