“Beyond all doubt. His life was bound up in hers. When he lost her, he lost his best. He tells me he will never marry again, and has asked me to be his companion.”
There was a tone of impatience in her voice, which Tournier, however, noticed not, but passed from his former eagerness of manner into a sort of dreamy abstraction, as if talking to himself.
“And yet the man seems happy—is happy; goes about as cheerful as the day; laughs and jokes, and enjoys his life. I cannot comprehend it!”
Alice was indeed in “Wonderland.”
He seemed lost in thought.
At length he changed back to his eager manner again.
“And now, Miss Cosin, comes the question: I want you, of your great kindness, to answer, and to lead up to which I have given you so
much trouble. Pardon, pardon an unhappy man. Tell me, what is the secret of your brother’s power to bear his trouble, and even triumph over it. I want, myself, to learn it.”
“I can only say,” replied Alice, with all simplicity, but looking with her clear blue eyes into his face, “I know God helped him, as no one else could, and was very kind to him, as He is to all who want Him.”
She was only just in time, for, as she finished, her brother came back again.