Mary thought, “Oh, Philip! If you’d only forget all the things that don’t matter and just live, you’d be so much happier!” She wanted him to be happy more than anything in the world. She would, she knew, do anything at all to make him happy.
Presently she said, “She came to see me this afternoon, Philip ... your mother. That’s why I’m here now. She said horrible things ... that weren’t true at all. She said ... she said ... that I’d been living with you all along, and she’d just found out about it. She said that I came here to meet you in the stable. She’s hated me always ... just because I’ve always been fond of you. She said I’d tried to steal you from her.”
For a moment he simply sat very still, staring at her. She felt his hand grow cold and relax its grasp. At last he whispered, “She said that? She said such things to you?”
“Yes ... I ran away from her in the end. It was the only thing I could do.”
Then all at once he fell on his knees and laid his head in her lap. She heard him saying, “There’s nothing I can say, Mary. I didn’t think she’d do a thing like that ... and now I know, I know what kind of a woman she is. Oh, I’m so tired, Mary ... you don’t know how tired I am!”
She began to stroke his dark hair, and the sudden thought came to her with horror that in her desire for vengeance upon Emma Downes, it was not Emma she had hurt, but Philip.
He said, “You don’t know what it is, Mary,—for months now ... for years even, I’ve been finding out bit by bit ... to have something gone that you’ve always believed in, to have some one you loved destroyed bit by bit, in spite of anything you can do. I tried and tried, but it was no good. And now ... I can’t hold out any more. I can’t do it ... I hate her ... but I can never let her know it. I can never hurt her ... because she really loves me, and it’s true what she says ... that she did everything for me. She fed and clothed me herself with her own hands.”
Again Mary wanted to cry out, “She doesn’t love you. She doesn’t love any one but herself!” and again she kept silent.
“And now it’s true ... what she said ... you’ve stolen me away from her, Mary. She’s made it so. I’m through now ... I can’t go on trying any more.”
Still stroking his head, she thought, “He’s like a little boy. He’s never grown up at all.” And she said, “I was so angry, Philip, that I came here. I didn’t care what happened; I only thought, ‘If she thinks that’s the truth, it might as well be, because she’ll tell about it as the truth.’ I didn’t care any longer for anything but myself and you.”