Unkind?  No; for when it was told him that she must go away, he looked at her wonderingly, and then went out.  It was very rarely that he went out.  He came back with fifty pounds.

“When that is done,” he told her, “I can find more.”

When she went away, people said:  “He will he lonely.”

But he did not seem to be lonely.  They asked him once, and he said: 
“I always have Gibbon.”

And when she came back, they said:  “He will be glad.”

But her return seemed to make no difference to him.

He looked at her in his usual sightless manner, and asked her what she intended to do.

“I shall dust the books,” she said.

“Ah, I dare say they want it,” he remarked.

“I shall get a little teaching to do,” she continued.  “And I shall take care of you.”

“Ah,” he said vaguely.  He did not understand what she meant.  She had never been very near to him, and he had never been very near to her.  He had taken but little notice of her comings and goings; she had either never tried to win his interest or had failed:  probably the latter.  Now she was going to take care of him.

This was the home to which Bernardine had returned.  She came back with many resolutions to help to make his old age bright.  She looked back now, and saw how little she had given of herself to her aunt and her uncle.  Aunt Malvina was dead, and Bernardine did not regret her.  Uncle Zerviah was here still; she would be tender with him, and win his affection.  She thought she could not begin better than by looking after his books.  Each one was dusted carefully.  The dingy old shop was restored to cleanliness.  Bernardine became interested in her task.  “I will work up the business,” she thought.  She did not care in the least about the books; she never looked into them except to clean them; but she was thankful to have the occupation at hand:  something to help her over a difficult time.  For the most trying part of an illness is when we are ill no longer; when there is no excuse for being idle and listless; when, in fact, we could work if we would:  then is the moment for us to begin on anything which presents itself, until we have the courage and the inclination to go back to our own particular work:  that which we have longed to do, and about which we now care nothing.

So Bernardine dusted books and sometimes sold them.  All the time she thought of the Disagreeable Man.  She missed him in her life.  She had never loved before, and she loved him.  The forlorn figure rose before her, and her eyes filled with tears.  Sometimes the tears fell on the books, and spotted them.

Still, on the whole she was bright; but she found things difficult.  She had lost her old enthusiasms, and nothing yet had taken their place.  She went back to the circle of her acquaintances, and found that she had slipped away from touch with them.  Whilst she had been ill, they had been busily at work on matters social and educational and political.