to see you. You're wanted badly,
and that's the truth. Mr. Meredith's not at all well."

Marie bowed gravely. She went to Meredith's side, and looked at him with
a smile that was at once critical and encouraging. Nestorius holding on
to her skirts looked up to her face, and seeing the smile, smiled too.
He went further. He turned and smiled at Joseph as if to make things
pleasant all round.

Marie stooped over the sofa and her clever dusky fingers moved to the
cushions.

"You will be better in bed," she said; "I will get Mr. Gordon's room
made ready for you--yes?"

There are occasions when the mere presence of a woman supplies a
distinct want. She need not be clever, or very capable; she need have
no great learning or experience. She merely has to be a woman--the more
womanly the better. There are times when a man may actually be afraid
for the want of a woman, but that is usually for the want of one
particular woman. There may be a distinct sense of fear--a fear of life
and its possibilities--which is nothing else than a want--the want of a
certain voice, the desire to be touched by a certain hand, the carping
necessity (which takes the physical form of a pressure deep down in the
throat) for the sympathy of that one person whose presence is different
from the presence of other people. And failing that particular woman
another can, in a certain degree, by her mere womanliness, stay the
pressure of the want.

This was what Marie did for Jack Meredith, by coming into the room and
bending over him and touching his cushions with a sort of deftness and
savoir-faire. He did not define his feelings--he was too weak for that;
but he had been conscious, for the first time in his life, of a distinct
sense of fear when he read Maurice Gordon's letter. Of course he had
thought of the possibility of death many times during the last five
weeks; but he had no intention of dying. He set the fact plainly before
himself that with care he might recover, but that at any moment some
symptom could declare itself which would mean death.

Both he and Joseph had, without making mention of it to each other,
counted entirely on finding the Gordons at home. It was more than a
disappointment--very much more for Jack Meredith. But in real life we
do not analyse our feelings as do men in books--more especially books
of the mawko-religious tenor written by ladies. Jack Meredith only knew
that he felt suddenly afraid of dying when he read Maur