"I leave him with you, in trust."
"Because you must," she answered, eyes flickering with bitter triumph. "But will you not take Haidee before ill comes to her?"
He was helpless before the smile that writhed upon her stiff lips. What did she mean by these gibes concerning Haidee and his dead mother, which she flung at him like javelins? How had she read those secrets of his soul that he had never revealed to any one, scarcely acknowledged to himself? Had she with her queer almost clairvoyant instinct known all along and mocked and disdained him in her heart from the first? If he thought of her tenderness to Bran and to himself when he lay ill, her comradeship, her valiant gaiety, he could not believe it. When he looked at her mocking disdainful eyes he could believe anything.
"No; I leave Haidee in trust with you too," he said, then had been obliged to kiss the children hurriedly, and go on his way, or lose the boat.
In spite of his original intention to do so he did not return to Jersey before sailing to America. After black nights of reflection he saw that there was nothing to be gained by facing Val again in the mood that possessed her. The moment they looked into each other's eyes cold reason would once more withdraw from them and the fury of wounded love take its place. It was better to let Time do its work upon their trouble. So he sailed for America without seeing her or the children again, though it hurt him deeply to do it. And his days and nights upon the ship were haunted by the face of the woman in grey. Never since the voyage on the Bavaric had he dreamed that dream, but now never a night came without it. Towards the last part of the voyage, when calm had come to him, he wrote her a letter in which he hid the love that still ached in him, but tried to revive a little the old understanding comradeship they had shared.
But there was too much of compassion in that letter, and Val was sick of his compassion. Women can get sick of compassion when it leaves no room for self-respect.
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She stayed on in Jersey not because he asked her but because she must. One would call it existing rather than living as far as she was concerned. She felt as though her brain were dead and she had only her body left, that body which, however glad she would be to lay it down, she must conserve and take care of for the sake of Bran. For Haidee, too, she had a kind of responsible mother-feeling, though Haidee never encouraged tenderness in any one. But the case of Bran was different; the child of two such nervous people could not be otherwise than nervously organised, though of fine build and stamina, and Val knew that under any care but hers he would probably grow up a weakling. No, she must not die! But she tried to let her mind do so for a while, so that she might suffer less. She essayed to turn herself into a kind of vegetable; read nothing, talked to no one but the children, indulged in no kind of mental occupation. Only she worked out in the open as much as possible, with her nervous incapable hands, and at least she got a beautiful flower garden together.
She never saw or spoke to any one but the children. When Haidee got back from school they would all work together in the garden or clean out the stable, or make bran mashes for the pony colic, or run the dogs, and watch the chickens and rabbits in the open, though enthusiasm for this last occupation was distinctly on the wane. The only things any of them cared for now were the bees and the flowers. They did not make money out of these, but then the fowls did not make money either, only pretended to until the grain bill came in.
Bran was always to be found in the vicinity of the beehives, and at first Val had been terrified, but later she came to believe him one of the "band of little brothers" whom bees do not sting. Haidee could take no liberties with the strange, wise insects, and had a holy fear of them, but they were Bran's passionate loves.