“No. Her complaint is just exhaustion—mental and nervous. She is too weak to think, and can’t even feed herself. I am afraid her daughter will be worn out waiting on her before long. She devotes herself to her mother with a great spirit and energy. She never seems tired, but it is hardly any wonder she should be in good spirits. It is the first time in her life, she says, that she has been allowed to be of any use to her mother. The woman is suffering no pain, and that makes a great difference. But more than anything, her mother has grown tender to her, and so grateful. And her father has grown kinder to her mother—a thing previously unknown. But what is this you tell me about going away? The library cannot be finished!”

“No, sir,” answered Richard. “The library is left in mid-ocean of decay. I don’t know why they have dismissed me. The only thing clear is that they want to be rid of me. What I have done I can’t imagine. There is a little girl of the family—”

Richard told how Vixen had behaved to him from the first and what had happened as a result.

“But,” he concluded, “I do not think it can be that. I should like to know what it is.”

“Then wait,” said Wingfold. “If we only wait long enough, every reason will come out. You know I believe we are meant to go on living forever, and I believe the business of eternity is to bring grand hidden things out into the light.—But I am deeply sorry you’re going.”

“I don’t see why you should be, sir,” answered Richard sincerely, his look and tone conveying nothing of the rudeness which seemed to be in his words.

“Because I like you, and feel sure we should understand each other if only we had time,” replied the parson. “It’s a wonderful thing to come upon one who knows what you mean. It’s just like heaven. I hope you don’t think I’m talking shop—I can’t help it.”

“I should never say you talked shop. I don’t think you would say I was talking shop if I went on about the beauties of a Grolier binding. You would know I was not talking from love of profit, but love of beauty.”

“Thank you. You are a fair man, and that is even more than an honest man. I don’t speak from love of religion. I don’t know that I do love religion.”

“I don’t understand you now.”

“I’m very fond of a well-bound book. I should like all my new books bound in levant morocco. But I don’t care about it. I could do well enough without any binding at all.”

“Of course you could, and so could I! Or any man that cared for the books themselves.”