Page:Possession (1926).pdf/348

 for anything. And Ellen herself. . . she had become slippery somehow, happier than in the old days, but also more remote, more independent, more "complete" as Lily had said. She had no need of any one.

There were days too when Hattie felt the absence of Mr. Wyck. Of all those who had at one time or another depended upon her. . . old Julia, Fergus, Ellen, Wyck and all the others. . . none remained save her husband. And somehow she had come to lose him too. Here in the city, living in his farm papers and in his memories, he had escaped her in a way she failed to understand. He slept more and more so that there were times when she was worried lest he might really be ill. Robert and The Everlasting were aloof and independent; they were no help whatever. But Mr. Wyck had come to her, wanting desperately all the little attentions which she gave so lavishly. And now he was gone, almost secretly and without gratitude. It hurt her because she could not understand why he had run away.

At times it seemed that with on oneno one [sic] to lean upon her, the very foundations of her existence had melted away; there were moments when, for the first time in all her troubled and vigorous life, she feared that the world into which she had come might at last defeat her. 

CARCELY a week after the landing of Ellen and Rebecca, Thérèse Callendar landed in New York, almost willingly and with a sense of relief. In the solid house on Murray Hill, the usual army of charwomen arrived and put the place in order against her coming, but on her arrival she closed most of the rooms and chose to live between her and the library. She was, oddly enough, confused and a little weary. She had been, all her life, a match and more for the shrewdest of