“Over her?”
“Why not?—Look at me!” He pointed to his gray hair and furrowed temples. “What do you think kept her so young? It was happiness! But now—“ he looked up at her with infinite tenderness. “I like her better so,” he said. “It’s what she would have wished.”
“Have wished?”
“That we should grow old together. Do you think she would have wanted to be left behind?”
I stood speechless, my gaze travelling from his worn grief-beaten features to the painted face above. It was not furrowed like his; but a veil of years seemed to have descended on it. The bright hair had lost its elasticity, the cheek its clearness, the brow its light: the whole woman had waned.
Grancy laid his hand on my arm. “You don’t like it?” he said sadly.
“Like it? I—I’ve lost her!” I burst out.
“And I’ve found her,” he answered.
“In that?” I cried with a reproachful gesture.
“Yes; in that.” He swung round on me almost defiantly. “The other had become a sham, a lie! This is the way she would have looked—does look, I mean. Claydon ought to know, oughtn’t he?”