was reconciled to the disturbance; the
rather, because it seemed that just such a
case as we had long been lying in wait for,
now presented itself.

I was then young; an enthusiast in my
profession, full of faith in science and in
one whom I will call Dr. Fearnwell, under
whom I had chiefly studied; without any
consciousness of other kind of faith.

I was ambitious; up to this time, iron-
nerved and hard-headed; possibly, I should
add, hard-hearted. Yet I don't know that
I was specially callous, careless, or cruel.
It was more because such culture as I had
had, was exclusively of the head, that I
knew nothing about having a heart, than
that I did not care to have one.

I believed myself to have, and I gloried
in having, unusual power of brain. As many
men I knew, boasted of the many hours
they could run, row, or ride, I boasted of
the many hours I could read hard and
work hard. I had never spared myself,
and, up to this time of which I write, had
never had any warning that it might be
wise to do so.

I dimly suspect, however, that this warning
was on its way, that even without the
shock of which I am going to tell, some
crash would have come.

I remember that when I was interrupted
to read the note which the porter brought
me, the perspiration was streaming from
my forehead. And yet the afternoon,
though warm, was not sultry. And I had
been employed in a way that called for
extreme delicacy and accuracy of investigation
and observation: not for physical
force.

"Won't you wash your hands, sir, first?
It's a woman and a child," was the
suggestion of the good-hearted porter.

Though with some muttered expletives
against the folly of such " fiddle-faddle," I
took the man's hint, and, also, buttoned
my coat over my shirt front, and pushed
my wristbands up out of sight.

The venetian-blinds were down in the
consulting-room, for the afternoon sun poured
against its windows. Thus, until my eyes
a little accustomed themselves to the
dimness of the room I could not well
distinguish its occupants.

After a few moments I saw the palest
woman, of the most corpse-like pallor, I
ever, before or since, beheld. She was
seated near a table, with a female child of
some two or three years old upon her knees.

She did not rise when I went in.
Possibly—probably—she could not. A
woman with a face like that, could hardly
stand up and hold so large a child. She
wore a widow's cap, its border brought so
close round her face as hardly to show an
indication of hair. Her eyebrows were
dark, at once decided and delicate; her
eyelashes were peculiarly long and full,
still darker than the brows, almost
startlingly conspicuous on the dead white
of a fair-skinned face. Not even on her
lips, was there, now, any tinge of other
colour.

The child upon her knees was a little
miracle of exquisite loveliness. But I
noticed little of this then.

At the first moment of being in this
woman's presence, I felt some slight
embarrassment. I had expected to see " a
common person." I felt that about this
woman there was something, in all senses,
uncommon.

My embarrassment was not lessened by
the steady earnestness with which she
fixed her deep dark eyes on mine, nor by
the first words she spoke, slowly moving
those white lips:

"You are very young; surely it is not
to you, the letter I brought was addressed!
You are very young."

The voice was the fit voice to come from
such a corpse-like face. It was not her
ordinary voice, any more than that was
her ordinary (or could have been any
living woman's ordinary) complexion.

I was still young enough to be annoyed
at looking "very young." I was
impatient of my own embarrassment under her
searching study of my face. I answered,
rather roughly:

"My time is valuable; let me know
what I can do for you—unless, indeed, you
think me 'too young' to do anything."

"It may be the better that you are so
young," she said. There had been no
relaxation in her study of me, and her voice
now was a little more like a natural voice
—like her natural voice, as I afterwards
learned to know it only too well; soft and
sweet; a slow and measured, but intense,
music. "Being so young, you must
remember something of your mother's love.
It is not likely your mother loved you as I
love this child of mine; still, no doubt,
she loved you; and you remembering her
love, may have some pity left in you for
all mothers. This child of mine is all I
have; my only hold on hope in this world,
or in another. Life does not seem long
enough to love her in; without her, one
day's life would seem impossible."