"After awhile—not now," he said, "but after your presence is less necessary to him, you must let me aid you to place him in an establishment where he will have every care——"
"An asylum?"
The doctor nodded.
"I will never leave him, so help me God in heaven! Never, never, Mark, my darling, for I, and only I, brought him to this pass!" She cried these words aloud, her hand upraised to heaven.
CHAPTER XLIII.
MONEY, HEAPS OF MONEY.
Mark Claghorn, standing by the window of that room at Stormpoint which was especially set aside as his own, but which, in its luxurious fittings, bore rather the traces of the all-swaying hand of the mistress of the mansion, gazed moodily out toward the tomb, speculating, perhaps, as to the present occupation of the soul that had once been caged in the bones that crumbled there.
To whom entered Mrs. Joe, who silently contemplated him awhile, and then, approaching, touched his shoulder. He turned and smiled, an act becoming rare with him. "Mark," she said, "I am getting old."
"You look as young as my sister might," he said.