Page:Possession (1926).pdf/439

 since the world is as it is, did not matter. Of those who had really known her secret only three remained. . . Ellen and Hattie and Jean. César and Madame Gigon and Old Julia were dead. It did not, of course, occur to her to include The Everlasting, who had known all the while.

Jean too was happier now, for he had grown used to wandering about on crutches and had become accustomed to a new leg, made so admirably that he could still ride as much as he liked. It would have been impossible for him to have remained depressed; there was too much of Lily in him and, it must not be forgotten, he resembled Fergus greatly. The old friendship between him and Ellen waxed stronger than ever. It seemed to her at times that Fergus had returned or had never died at all. In the evenings while his mother sat talking quietly in the big soft drawing room with Monsieur de Cyon, Ellen joined him at the piano in playing with four hands the wildest songs out of the music halls. Rebecca in rare moments of good humor added to the gaiety with imitations of poor old Sarah Bernhardt or Mistinguette or Spinelly.

Rebecca had long since come to make herself at home in the big house. She was settled now in one of the rooms opening on the long gallery and she was perpetually with them, for it never occurred to Lily to offer objections to one more guest; but, having nothing to occupy her time, she grew irritable and restless. Her occupation had gone suddenly and there remained nothing to absorb her energy. Ellen remained stubborn and mysterious. She would not return to America where there was a fortune awaiting her.

"I have enough," she said. "I need not work myself to death. I am rich now. I am through with struggling. Whenever I see fit I can return."

But to Rebecca, it must have seemed that Ellen had slipped somehow out of her reach, beyond the control which she had once held over her. She would not even quarrel as they had once done