[GIDEON'S FLEECE]
Millicent was reluctant to add any word of explanation. She sat with her eyes upon the fire, waiting, it seemed, until Pamela should see fit to go. But Pamela remained, and of the two women she was the stronger in will and character. She sat, with her eyes quietly resting upon Millicent's face; and in a little while Millicent began reluctantly to speak. As she spoke the disdainful droop of her lips became more pronounced, and her words were uttered in a note of petulance.
"He would stay to retrieve his failure. You remember?" she said.
"Yes," replied Pamela.
"I wrote to him again and again to come home, but he would not. I couldn't make him see that he wasn't really a match for the people he must compete with."
Pamela nodded her head.
"You wrote that to him?"
Millicent lifted her face to Pamela's.
"I put it, of course, with less frankness. I offered him, besides, the rest of my money, so that he might try again; but he refused to take a farthing more. It was unreasonable, don't you think? I could have got on without it, but he couldn't. I was very sorry for him."
"And you expressed your pity, too?" asked Pamela.