She sat down and began to read aloud, in a curiously unsympathetic voice which grated abominably upon her unwilling listener: 

“’Ask yourself, my Love, whether you are not very cruel to have so entrammelled me, so destroyed my freedom.  Will you confess this in the letter you must write immediately and do all you can to console me in it—­make it rich as a draught of poppies to intoxicate me—­write the softest words and kiss them, that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been.  For myself, I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form; I want a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair.  I almost wish we were butterflies and lived but three summer days—­three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.’

“Ain’t that wonderful, Roger?  Wants to get drunk on poppies and kiss the writin’ and thinks after that he’ll be made into a butterfly.  Your pa couldn’t have been far from bein’ a butterfly when he bought this book.  There ain’t no sense in it.  And this—­why, it’s your pa’s writin’, Roger!  I ain’t seen it for years.”

Miss Mattie leaned forward in her chair and brought the letter to Constance close to the light.  She read it through, calmly, without haste or excitement.  Roger’s hands gripped the arms of his chair and his face turned ashen.  His whole body was tense.

[Sidenote:  A Moment’s Pain]

Then, as swiftly as it had come, the moment passed.  Miss Mattie took off her spectacles and leaned back in her chair with great weariness evident in every line of her figure.

[Sidenote:  Crazy as a Loon]

“Roger,” she said, sadly, “there’s no use in tryin’ to conceal it from you any longer.  Your pa was crazy—­as crazy as a loon.  What with buyin’ books so steady and readin’ of ’em so continual, his mind got unhinged.  I’ve always suspected it, and now I know.

“Your pa gets this book, and reads all this stuff that’s been written about ‘Fanny,’ and he don’t see no reason why he shouldn’t duplicate it and maybe get it printed.  I knew he set great store by books, but it comes to me as a shock that he was allowin’ to write ’em.  Some of the time he sees he’s crazy himself.  Didn’t you see, there where he says, ’I hope you do not blame me because I went mad’?  ‘Mad’ is the refined word for crazy.

“Then he goes on about eatin’ husks and bein’ starved.  That’s what I told him when he insisted on havin’ oatmeal cooked for his breakfast every mornin’.  I told him humans couldn’t expect to live on horse-feed, but, la sakes!  He never paid no attention to me.  I could set and talk by the hour just as I’m talkin’ to you and he wasn’t listenin’ any more’n you be.”

“I am listening, Mother,” he assured her, in a forced voice.  He could not say with what joyful relief.