Again he looked at Philippa.
"Then," continued Isabella, speaking slowly and distinctly, "Jim's girl came to stay here, and quite by chance she came into your room, and you thought she was Phil—and gradually your memory has come back."
"And to-day—I have seen my mother's grave—and read her message. It was a message, wasn't it, Isabella?" He spoke wistfully, almost like a child.
"Yes; I think she meant it to be a message for you."
"Dear mother! I have thought that Phil was with me—I did not know; but when I read the dates—it made me remember, and I could not understand. She has gone—and Phil has gone—and I am here alone."
"No, not alone, dear Francis."
He thought for a while. "But, have I not seen Bill? Who lives here now? And Goodie?—surely Goodie is real——"
"Yes; Goodie and Robert Gale have been with you all through, but it is Bill's son who lives here, now."
And so with long pauses, that his shocked mind might grasp it, he told him the whole sad truth.
And still Philippa neither moved nor spoke. Almost as if in a trance she watched these two, who seemed to belong to a world in which she had no part—grey-haired man and grey-haired woman clasping hands across a gulf of years.