been able to help doing that. There was no harm in it; she had made him happier—he had said so himself . . . But Jim wouldn't understand: he would be angry with her for having gone, perhaps. He wouldn't see that she couldn't have done anything else. No, she couldn't bear to tell him: besides, it seemed somehow like treachery to Alec . . . . Oh! it must be awful to know beforehand like that! . . . The doctor should never have told him. It was horrible, cruel . . . . In the past how she had been to blame—she saw that now: thoughtless, selfish, altogether beneath him.
It was like a chapter in a novel. His loving her silently all these years, and telling her about it on his deathbed. At the thought of it she thrilled with subtle pride: it illuminated the whole ordinariness of her life. The next moment the train of her own thoughts shamed her. Poor, poor Alec. . . . And to reinforce her pity, she recalled the tragic setting of the scene.
That woman—his landlady—could she have heard anything, she wondered with a twinge of dread? No, the door was shut, and his voice had been very low.
The horse turned on to the main road, and pricking his ears, quickened his pace.
She would remember him always. Every day, she would think of him, as he had asked her to do—she would never forget to do that. And, if she were in trouble, or difficulty, she would turn her thoughts towards him, just as he had told her he used to do. She would try to become better—more religious—for his sake. She would read her Bible each morning, as she knew had been his habit. These little things were all she could do now. Her attitude in the future she would make worthy of his in the past . . . He would become the secret guiding-star of her life: it would be her hidden chapter of romance. . . .
The
