Jane Foster's eyes filled with good-natured ready tears of sympathy.
"Won't you come up-stairs, ma'am?" she said. "Wouldn't you like to set in your own room perhaps?"
"No! No!" was the answer. "She was always there! She used to come into my bed in the morning. She used to watch me dress to go out. No! No!"
"I'll open the shutters in the library," said Jane.
"Oh! No! No! No! She would be sitting on the big sofa with her fairy story-book. She's everywhere—everywhere! How could I come! Why did I! But I couldn't keep away! I tried to stay in the mountains. But I couldn't. Something dragged me day and night. Nobody knows I am here!" She got up and looked about her again. "I have never been in here since I went out with HER," she said. "They would not let me come back. They said it would kill me. And now I have come—and everything is here—all the things we lived with—and SHE is millions and millions—and millions of miles away!"
"Who—who—was it?" Jane asked timidly in a low voice.
"It was my little girl," the poor young beauty said. "It was my little Andrea. Her portrait is in the library."
Jane began to tremble somewhat herself. "That—?" she began—and ended: "She is DEAD?"
Mrs. Haldon had dragged herself almost as if unconsciously to the stairs. She leaned against the newel post and her face dropped upon her hand.
"Oh! I don't KNOW!" she cried. "I cannot believe it. How COULD it be? She was playing in her nursery—laughing and playing—and she ran into the next room to show me a flower—and as she looked up at me—laughing, I tell you—laughing—she sank slowly down on her knees—and the flower fell out of her hand quietly—and everything went out of her face—everything was gone away from her, and there was never anything more—never!"