"Are you going away?" she asked, much concerned.
"No, but—but Uncle Nick doesn't—doesn't want me to speak to you—and you make me sad."
"How do I make you sad, Bertie?"
"Talking about—about things," he said vaguely. "If I don't think and don't talk, then—then it's better. Uncle Nick says so and—and I—it is so."
"Very well, Bertie," returned Mrs. Lowell quietly. "All I want is what is best for you."
He looked at her sweet face with the affection in the eyes. She was wearing a white dress and the blossoms were a roseate glow against it. He struggled against all that he blindly felt she represented: all he had lost, all that would have kept the present and the future from being blank. His face suffused with color, his eyes with tears.
"I can't bear it!" he said suddenly, with more force than she had supposed was in him, and rising with an energy of movement that sent his chair over with a crash, he fled into the house.
Mrs. Lowell bent her head over the flowers for minutes, and, when she raised it, there was dew upon them. She looked off a moment in thought, then rose, went into the house and upstairs to the Gayne room. The door was ajar. She could hear the boy sobbing. Entering, she saw him stretched on his cot, and she approached, drawing a chair beside it.
Seating herself, she put a hand on his tightly doubled arm and looked at the averted, dark head, its face buried in the pillow.