ly, during these last years,
increased their influence over him. He was not aware of it, but as he
was growing now older and weaker--he had had trouble with his heart--he
inevitably depended more upon them. The old lady began to count upon
her triumph. Then came Martin's return.

She had forgotten Martin. It is true that she had written to him every
week during his long absence, but her letters had been all part of the
"dear old lady" habit which was put on by her just as an actress
prepares herself, nightly, for a character in which she knows she is
the greatest possible success. "Thank you very much, Mrs. Smith ... No,
we've not heard from Martin now for three weeks. Careless boy! I always
write myself every week so that he may have at any rate one little word
from home ..."

She had never felt that she had any real share in his life; he had
always belonged to his father; nor was she a woman who cared about
children. Martin had long ago become to her simply an opportunity for
further decoration. Since his return it had been quite another affair.
In one moment she had seen her power over her husband shrivel and
disappear. Martin was home again. Martin must be here, Martin must be
there; Martin must see this, Martin must do this. She had seen before
in earlier days the force of her husband's passion when it was roused.
There was something now in his reception of their son that terrified
her. She had at once perceived that Amy was as deeply moved as she. The
girl, plain, awkward, silent, morose, had always adored her father, but
she had never known how to approach him. She was not clever, she had
not been able to enter into his life although she would have done
anything that he desired of her. What she had suffered during those
early years when, as a little ugly girl, she had watched her brother,
accepted, received into the Brotherhood, praised for his wisdom, his
intimacy with God, his marvellous saintly promise, praised for these
things when she had known all his weaknesses, how he had slipped away
to a music-hall when he was only fourteen and smoked and drank there,
how he had laughed at Mr. Thurston's dropping of his "h's" or at Miss
Avies' prayer meetings! No one ever knew what in those years she had
thought of her brother. Then, after Martin had flung it all away and
escaped abroad, she had begun, slowly, painfully, but with dogged
persistence, to make herself indispensable to her father; Martin she
had put out o