The house seems so big when you are--away--"
It had wrung Bronson's heart to see her smiling. Yet she had always
met the General with a smile and with the reminder of her need of him.
There had been never a complaint, never a rebuke--at these moments.
When he was himself, she strove with him against his devils. But to
strive when he was not himself, would be to send him away from her.
Her hands were clasped tightly, and her voice shook as she talked on
the way back to the husband who seemed so unworthy of the love she gave.
Yet she had not thought him unworthy. "If I can only save him," she
had said so many times. "Oh, Bronson, I mustn't let him go down and
down, with no one who loves him to hold him back."
In the years that had followed, Bronson had seen her grow worn and
weary, but never hopeless. He had seen her hair grow gray, he had seen
the light go out of her face so that she no longer smiled as she had
smiled in the picture.
But she had never given up the fight. Not even at the last moment.
"You will stay with him, Bronson, and help Derry."
And now this other woman had come to undo all the work that his beloved
mistress had done.
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