he repeated stiffly. He was not quite sure that she
was asking in the right spirit, that she was not moved by such curiosity
as makes people study the photographs of murdered people in the Sunday
papers. "She is very beautiful...." But he should not have said that.
Now when he brought Ellen to Marion he would hear her say to herself, as
tourists do when they see a Leonardo da Vinci, "Well, that's not my idea
of beauty, I must say!" and he would stop loving her. But Ellen was
saying, "I thought she would be. You know, Richard, you are quite
uncommon-looking. But tell me, what is she like?" Of course he might
have known she was trying to get at the story. He had better tell her at
once, so that he was not vexed by these anglings. He dragged it out of
himself. "She was young, very young. My father was the squire of the
Essex village that is our home...." It was useless. He could not tell
her of that tragedy. How black a tragedy it was! How, it existing, he
could be so crass as to eat and drink and be merry with love? He turned
his face away from Ellen and wished her arm was not in his, yet felt
himself bound to go on with his story lest she might make a vulgar
reading of the facts and imagine that his mother had given herself to
his father without being married for sheer easiness. "They could not
marry because he had a wife. They loved each other very much. At least,
on her side it was love! On his ... on _his_...."

"Ah, hush!" she said. She gripped his arm and he felt that she was
trembling violently. "Dear, the way you're speaking of it ... somehow
it's making it happen all over again...."

This was strange. He looked down on her with sudden respect. For she was
using almost the same words that his mother had spoken often enough when
he had sat beside her bed on those nights when she could not sleep for
the argument of phantom passions in her room, and she opened her eyes
suddenly after having lain with them closed for a time, and found him
grieving for her. "Dear, you must not be so sorry for me. Hold my hand,
but do not feel too sorry for me. It only makes it worse for me. Truly,
I ask for my own sake, not for yours. Do you not see? When all the
ripples have gone from the pond I shall forget I ever threw that
stone...." Was it not strange that this girl, on whose mind the dew was
not yet dry, should speak the same wise words that had been found
fittest by a woman who had been educated by a tragic destiny? But of
cour