“But, love, I don’t understand—how came you by those sheets?”
“Brydon sent the letters. Poor boy, he wrote a little humble scrawl himself, that has a touch of pathos in it.”
“I think Brydon was the more delirious of the two! What business has he meddling in matters too big for him!”
“Oh, he’s young and very romantic, and—have you ever heard of that picture he painted of me?”
“That sketch for your mother?” she said softly.
Gwen winced.
“No, oh no, one he came down and made of me the day I was married. It is not me at all, it is a beautiful sexful mother-woman, it was to that woman Humphrey wrote those things! I am the rival of my own picture.”
Mrs. Fellowes jumped up and knelt, weeping bitterly, at Gwen’s knees.
“Gwen, send for Humphrey, you are his first duty, he will come in spite of that miserable missionary who never had any business venturing his nose where no one wanted it—he will come to you at once!”
For a second Gwen stared frozenly at her then she drew herself a little away.