"She loved you," Zerviah said. "She was telling me so the very morning when you came."
Then, with a tenderness which was almost foreign to him, Zerviah told Robert Allitsen how Bernardine had opened her heart to him. She had never loved any one before: but she had loved the Disagreeable Man.
"I did not love him because I was sorry for him," she had said. "I loved him for himself."
Those were her very words.
"Thank you," said the Disagreeable Man. "And God bless you for telling me."
Then he added:
"There were some few loose sheets of paper on the counter. She had begun her book. May I have them?"
Zerviah placed them in his hand.
"And this photograph," the old man said kindly. "I will spare it for you."
The picture of the little thin eager face was folded up with the papers.