She roused from her reverie.  “Oh! yes, the book.  It had no purpose to live for, you see.  I sent for it, cancelled the agreement.  They wrote to me twice about it, but I was firm; there was no reason why I should trouble.  I have everything I want,” and again her voice trailed into silence.

I looked about the strange, bare room, at the strange, slender figure, and I rose and folded her about with my arms; but she struggled in my embrace.  “No, no, do not touch me!” she cried sharply, in a tone of suffering.  My hands fell from her, and I knelt abashed at her side.  “Oh! please forgive me.  I cannot be touched.  I hate it.  You have been so good,” she said, with compunction, regarding me with a certain remorse.  I was not aggrieved at being repulsed.  As I resumed my seat, I said, “You have only one life to live; snatch at least what you can out of the years.  Take my wisdom.  You have the book yet?  Good.  Come back with me; we will get it published.  Open your heart, make one effort at living:  you can but fail.  Come away from the sound of the waves and the wind through the scrub-oaks; from this room and its memories.  Be what you might have been.”

For the first time she faintly smiled.  She shook her head.  “I told you I was like Aaron’s rod.  See for yourself.  The power of thought or interest in everything else has withered and wasted like my face and body.  My days are almost as irresponsible as a child’s now.  I have gone back to the carelessness of a little girl about the conditions of life.  It was once, and once only for me.  But you have given me relief, or rather I have given myself relief this afternoon.  And now, will you leave me?  I am so glad to have said it all over, and yet, since I have done it, I cannot bear to see you.”

The peculiarity of her voice and manner, of which I have spoken, that made all her words sweet and gentle, however unconventional they might be, left me unoffended.

“Perhaps you are right;” I said, “yet I wish you would try my way.”  She did not make any reply, and I left her standing with downcast eyes by the door.

Mrs. Libby still sat sewing by the window when I returned.  “Have a pleasant time?” she asked, a gleam of curiosity in her cold eyes.  “Seems to me you didn’t stay long.”

“No, not very long.”

“See that queer room of hers?  Folks ain’t asked into it much.  They said she took the minister right in there when he called.  Kitchen table piled up with books, ’n papers, books ’round on the floor, ‘n’ a mattress a-layin’ in a corner.  Some of the boys peeked in one day when she was down to the beach, ‘n’ told all ’round how it looked.  And a white shoe onto the wall.  I expect it must be one o’ hers she used to wear.  It was before I moved over from South side, but Mrs. Hikes says she had the flightiest clothes when he was courtin’ her.  Her mother left her some money, I guess, any way, ‘n’ there wasn’t anything too rich, ner too good, ner too foreign for her to wear.  ‘N’ look at her now!  Well, it’s ’long toward tea-time.  You look tired.”