was fearful and she couldn’t stand it long. When she died, he turned everything over to the woman but enough to buy this place, and asked the courts for his freedom and came here. He was free and he could have married me, but he did not want me. He did not want any woman in that way. He had had his punishment. He was worn out with sorrow and disappointment. He didn’t love me, but, oh! Jamie! I did love him! I couldn’t help loving him. Whenever I look at his chair beside the fireplace, I see his white, silken hair, his noble forehead, his lean slender face fine as parchment, always gentle, always patient—I would have given my life to have comforted him! And just when I knew this couldn’t ever be, Lolly went, so suddenly and so needlessly.
“Jamie, I can’t understand it! There was no reason why she should have left home. Her grades were always good. Her school work was fine. She was offered positions here at the close of the war, when teachers were so scarce, when so many girls preferred the freedom of the shops and offices to the confinement of teaching. I can’t get away from the fact that she went because she didn’t want to stay at home. She didn’t want to be around me, and I can’t see why. I spent my days and I lay awake at night trying to think of things that would please her, but I couldn’t keep up with the procession. I can’t think that a lot of things the youngsters are doing are right. I can’t think that they won’t end in humiliation and pain and maybe death, and now death’s come to her just from a little foolish accident. She must have
