“I can’t say anything,” James faltered after a second, “but you know—­”

“Yes, I know,” Gordon said.  “You are as sorry as any one can be who is not, so to speak, the hero, or rather the coward, of the tragedy.  Yes, I know.  I’m obliged to you, Elliot, but all of us have to face death, whether it is our own or the death of another dearer than ourselves, alone.  A soul is a horribly lonely thing in the worst places of life.”

“Have you told Clemency?”

“No, I have put it off until the last minute.  What good can it do?  She knows that Clara is very ill, but she does not know, she has never known, the character of the illness.  Sometimes I have a curious feeling that instinct has asserted itself, and that Clemency, fond as she is of my wife, has not exactly the affection which she would have had for her own mother.”

“I don’t think she knows any difference at all,” James said.  “I think the poor little girl will about break her heart.”

“I did not mean to underestimate Clemency’s affection,” said Gordon, “but what I say is true.  The girl herself will never know it, and, you may not believe it, but she will not suffer as she would suffer if Clara were her own mother.  These ties of the blood are queer things, nothing can quite take their place.  If Clemency had died first Clara would have been indignant at the suggestion, but she herself would not have mourned as she would mourn for her own daughter.  I must touch up the horses a bit.  I want to get home.  I may not be able to go out again to-night.  Last night I was up until dawn with Clara.”  Gordon touched the horses with a slight flicker of the whip.  He held the lines taut as they sprang forward.  His face was set ahead.  James glancing at him had a realization of the awful loneliness of the other man by his side.  He seemed to comprehend the vastness of the isolation of a grief which concerns one, and one only, more than any other.  Gordon had the expression of a wanderer upon a desert or a frozen waste.  Illimitable distances of solitude seemed reflected in his gloomy eyes.

James did not attempt to talk to him.  It seemed like mockery, this effort to approach with sympathy this set-apart man, who was unapproachable.

That night Gordon’s wife was much worse.  Gordon came down to James’s room about two o’clock.  James had been awake for some time listening to the sounds of suffering overhead, and he had lit his lamp and dressed, thinking that he might be needed.  Gordon stood in the doorway almost reeling.  He made an effort before he spoke.

“Come into my office, will you?” he said.

James at once followed him.  Going through the hall the sounds of agony became more distinct.  When they entered the office Gordon fairly slammed the door, then he turned to Elliot with a savage expression.  “Hear that,” he said, as if he were accusing the other man.  “Hear that, I say!  The last hypodermic has not taken effect yet, and her heart is weak.  If I give her more—­”