She thought them hard, the women especially:  they thought her weak.  They were disappointed in her; she was now looking for the more human qualities in them, and she, too, was disappointed.

“You have changed,” they said to her:  “but then of course you have been ill, haven’t you?”

With these strong, active people, to be ill and useless is a reproach.  And Bernardine felt it as such.  But she had changed, and she herself perceived it in many ways.  It was not that she was necessarily better, but that she was different; probably more human, and probably less self-confident.  She had lived in a world of books, and she had burst through that bondage and come out into a wider and a freer land.

New sorts of interests came into her life.  What she had lost in strength, she had gained in tenderness.  Her very manner was gentler, her mode of speech less assertive.  At least, this was the criticism of those who had liked her but little before her illness.

“She has learnt,” they said amongst themselves.  And they were not scholars.  They knew.

These, two or three of them, drew her nearer to them.  She was alone there with the old man, and, though better, needed care.  They mothered her as well as they could, at first timidly, and then with that sweet despotism which is for us all an easy yoke to bear.  They were drawn to her as they had never been drawn before.  They felt that she was no longer analysing them, weighing them in her intellectual balance, and finding them wanting; so they were free with her now, and revealed to her qualities at which she had never guessed before.

As the days went on, Zerviah began to notice that things were somehow different.  He found some flowers near his table.  He was reading about Nero at the time; but he put aside his Gibbon, and fondled the flowers instead.  Bernardine did not know that.

One morning when she was out, he went into the shop and saw a great change there.  Some one had been busy at work.  The old man was pleased:  he loved his books, though of late he had neglected them.

“She never used to take any interest in them,” he said to himself.  “I wonder why she does now?”

He began to count upon seeing her.  When she came back from her outings, he was glad.  But she did not know.  If he had given any sign of welcome to her during those first difficult days, it would have been a great encouragement to her.

He watched her feeding the sparrows.  One day when she was not there, he went and did the same.  Another day when she had forgotten, he surprised her by reminding her.

“You have forgotten to feed the sparrows,” he said.  “They must be quite hungry.”

That seemed to break the ice a little.  The next morning when she was arranging some books in the old shop, he came in and watched her.

“It is a comfort to have you,” he said.  That was all he said, but Bernardine flushed with pleasure.