“Said it was hysteria. But, hysteria or not, mother couldn’t sleep. And at last they had to take her away to a home.”
“Poor soul!” said Peer, taking the girl’s hand.
“And when she came back from there she was so changed, one would hardly have known her. And father gave way a little—more than he ever used to do—and said: ‘Well, well, I suppose you must go to church if you wish, but you mustn’t mind if I don’t go with you.’ And so one Sunday she took my hand and we went together, but as we reached the church door, and heard the organ playing inside, she turned back. ‘No—it’s too late now,’ she said. ‘It’s too late, Merle.’ And she has never been since.”
“And she has always been—strange—since then?”
Merle sighed. “The worst of it is she sees so many evil things compassing her about. She says the only thing to do is to laugh them away. But she can’t laugh herself. And so I have to. But when I go away from her—oh! I can’t bear to think of it.”
She hid her face against his shoulder, and he began stroking her hair.
“Tell me, Peer”—she looked up with her one-sided smile—“who is right—mother or father?”
“Have you been trying to puzzle that out?”
“Yes. But it’s so hopeless—so impossible to come to any sort of certainty. What do you think? Tell me what you think, Peer.”
They sat there alone in the golden autumn day, her head pressed against his shoulder. Why should he play the superior person and try to put her off with vague phrases?