she returned, to find his eyes fixed on her, and he
watched her while she fetched a chair and sat down by the couch.

Then he asked very gently and kindly, "My dear, why did you do it?"

Philippa had answered this question when Isabella had asked it, and
answered it honestly--or so she had thought at the time, but she was
wiser now.

Looking at him bravely and without a tremor in her voice, for she was
determined to hold herself well in hand, "Because I loved you," she
said simply.

"Poor child! Poor child!"

He murmured the words almost inaudibly. Then after a moment's silence
he added, "I did not know--I did not know--I thought it was Phil.
There was so much I could not understand--I thought it was all part of
my weakness. Then, when we went to Bessmoor, the sight of it was so
familiar, and so many thoughts troubled me--but I had no doubt; and
then, in the afternoon when I was alone, I opened that drawer and
found--so many pictures--of--Phil. I will show you. Will you fetch
them?"

She did as he bade her, and came back to his side with a sheaf of
drawings.

"Look," he said, "I found all these. I suppose now that I did them in
the years that have gone by. But they puzzled me, because I thought
they must be my work, and there are so many--and yet--I could not
remember. Some are very like my little Phil. And the sight of them
seemed to stir my brain, and I wondered more and more. I thought that
you were Phil, and that they were of you--and yet---- Somehow there
was some one else I missed--a blank--so many blanks. I could not
understand, until to-day. Dear mother! What did she feel I wonder,
all those years? How dreadful for her! Did I know her?"

"I do not know. You did not often speak."

"I wonder what made me go there to-day," he continued thoughtfully. "I
was sitting waiting for you, when suddenly something seemed to tell me
to go into the churchyard--and just inside the gate I saw her
grave--and then I knew. It was just as if a veil had been torn from my
eyes--and still I could not understand. For mother was not old when I
saw her last. I was afraid I was mad, until Isabella explained. And I
thought and thought while I was waiting, and I knew you could not be
Phil, for although you are exactly like my memory of her--in face--she
would be much older. And there had been little things which puzzled
me--which are clear now--about you, I mean. Phil could never have been
content to stay