A timid hand on his shoulder startled him to the raising of his tear-stained face. The little old lady stood beside him.
“Ah, don’t!” she said softly—“don’t! Believe me, it will be all right. Your old wife won’t live more than a year—I know it. Take courage.”
“Don’t!” he said in his turn; “it’s a wicked thing I’ve done. Forgive me! If only we could have been friends. I can’t bear to think I shall make you unhappy.”
“My dear boy,” she said, “we are friends. I am your housekeeper. In a year at latest you will see the last of my white hairs. Be brave.”
He could not understand the pang her words gave him.
And now began, for these two, a strange life. In those Temple rooms—ideal nest for young lovers—Mrs Wood, the white-haired, kept house with firm and capable little hands. Comfort, which Michael’s lazy nature loved but could not achieve, reigned peacefully. The old lady kept much to her own rooms, but whenever he needed talk she was there. And she could talk. She had read much, reflected much. In her mind his own ideas found mating germs, and bore fruit of
