Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/226

 selfish because I worked for the boys. I had to. They needed it."

"Tell me about your home," he said.

She sighed, then drew herself a little away from him, as though she were suddenly determined to be independent, to owe no man anything.

"Mother died when I was very young," she said. "I only remember her as some one who was always tired, but very very kind. But she liked the boys better. I remember I used to be silly and feel hurt because she liked them better. But the day before she died she told me to look after them, and I was so proud, and promised. And I have tried."

"Were they younger than you?"

"Yes. One was three years younger and the other five. I think they cared for me, but never as much as I did for them."

She stopped as though she were listening. The fog was now terribly thick and was in their eyes, their nostrils, their mouths. They could see nothing at all, and when he jumped to his feet and called again, "Dunbar! Dunbar! Dunbar!" he knew that he vanished from her sight. He could feel from the way that she caught his hand and held it when he sat down again how, for a moment, she had lost him.

"It's always that way, isn't it?" she went on, and he could tell from an undertone in her voice that