"But you said he was an invalid?" she said aloud.
"Yes, I regret to say," answered Mr. De Guenther. "You see, it was found that the shock to the nerves, acting on an already over-keyed mind and body, together with some spinal blow concerning which the doctors are still in doubt, had affected Allan's powers of locomotion." (Mr. De Guenther certainly did like long words!) "He has been unable to walk since. And, which is sadder, his state of mind and body has become steadily worse. He can scarcely move at all now, and his mental attitude can only be described as painfully morbid—yes, I may say very painfully morbid. Sometimes he does not speak at all for days together, even to his mother, or his attendant."
"Oh, poor boy!" said Phyllis. "How long has he been this way?"
"Seven years this fall," the answer came consideringly. "Is it not, love?"
"Yes," said his wife, "seven years."
"Oh!" said the Liberry Teacher, with a quick catch of sympathy at her heart.
Just as long as she had been working for her living in the big, dusty library. Supposing—oh, supposing she'd had to live all that time in such suffering as this poor Allan had endured and his mother had had to witness! She felt suddenly as if the grimy, restless Children's Room, with its clatter of turbulent little outland voices, were a safe, sunny paradise in comparison.
Mr. De Guenther did not speak. He visibly braced himself and was visibly ill-at-ease.
"I have told most of the story, Isabel, love," said he at last. "Would you not prefer to tell the rest? It is at your instance that I have undertaken this commission for Mrs. Harrington, you will remember."
It struck Phyllis that he didn't think it was quite a dignified commission, at that.