“There was nobody like him, Deb, and he was my all—­”

“No, no, Mary—­”

“You don’t know, Debbie—­oh, nobody knows!” And wrapping her head in her arms again, Mary abandoned herself to her despair.

Deb got off the bed, lit dressing-table candles, and poured water and eau de Cologne into a wash-basin.  She returned with a fragrant sponge, with which she stroked what she could reach of her sister’s face.

“Come now,” said she briskly, “you must have a little pride, dear.  You mustn’t give way like this—­for a man who did not—­and you know he did not—­”

Mary broke in with sudden passion, lifting her distorted countenance to the cruel light.

“He did!” she affirmed.  “You have no business to sneer and say he didn’t—­he did!”

It was not for nothing that the heart-hungry girl had brooded for months over a few acts and words, magnifying them through the spectacles that Nature and her needs had provided.  Deb put her pitying arms round her sister’s shoulders.

“But, my dear, I know—­we all know—­”

“How could you know when you were not at home?  Nobody knows—­nobody but him and me.”  Feeling Deb’s continued scepticism in the silence of her caresses, Mary burst out recklessly:  “Would he have kissed me if he had not?”

Deb’s arm was withdrawn.  She twisted half round to look in Mary’s face.  Mary covered it with her pretty hands, weeping bitterly.

“Is that—­did he do that?” asked Deb, in a low tone.

“That night—­that last night—­oh, I ought not to have spoken of it!—­ when we were at our little grave.  It was that precious child that drew us together.  You think he had gone away and forgotten, but I know he had not; he would have come back—­he promised to.  He gave me his dear photograph.  I have not shown it to anybody, but here it is—­”

And still sobbing, and with tears running down her cheeks, she reached to a drawer by the bedside, and dragged out this further testimony to her claim—­it was wrapped in layers of tissue-paper, like her father’s valentine—­and displayed it with a touching pride.  Before handing it to Deb, she gazed at it with grotesquely distorted face, kissed it, pressed it to her bosom, kissed it again, and moaned over it, rocking to and fro; then, when she had pushed it from her, flung herself into her former attitude of complete abandonment to grief.

Very calmly Deb carried the picture to the dressing-table, and held it behind a candle.  There he was, big, strong, healthy, manly, with that clear brow, that square chin, that steady, good mouth; and he looked her straight in the eyes.  Was it possible that a countenance could so deceive?  No more tears from Deb for his untimely fate.  Had it been his face in the flesh, it could not possibly have gazed in that undaunted way at hers; her expression would have withered him.

She returned to the morning-room—­drawing-room also when no guests were in the house—­to report to her father.