"I believe she is. In her last letter she hoped to live to welcome us both home——"
"Will that hope be gratified, Major Tristram?"
"I fear not," he answered unsteadily.
She was silent, looking wistfully ahead into the white sunlight.
"Ever since that day I saw her picture and heard her story I have been interested in your mother," she said at last. "She is the sort of woman whom one wants to be happy—whose happiness one would like to shelter to the end."
"One can't protect another's happiness," he said. "I've learned that much."
"I also," she said gravely.
He straightened up. His blue eyes rested on her face with a treacherous, smouldering trouble.
"I can't help feeling that you're—you're suffering," he said. "It's the only thing I'm quick at guessing at—if it's only physical—please go in and—and rest——"
She shook her head. There was a tenderness in her faint smile which a woman may feel for some big, clumsy, loving boy.