"What could you expect, my dear? It was just after the War, and, though
she loved your father, she never in her heart of hearts forgave him his
blue uniform. There was no reason in her--she was all one fluttering
impulse, and to live peaceably in this world one must have at least a
grain of leaven in the lump of one's emotion." He chuckled as he ended
and fixed his mild gaze upon the lamp. Being very old, he had come to
realise that of the two masks possible to the world's stage, the comic,
even if the less spectacular, is also the less commonplace.

"So she died of an overdose of medicine," said Laura; "I have never been
told and yet I have always known that she died by her own hand.
Something in my blood has taught me."

Uncle Percival shook his head. "No--no, she only made a change," he
corrected. "She was a little white moth who drifted to another
sphere--because she had wanted so much, my child, that this earth would
have been bankrupt had it attempted to satisfy her."

"She wanted what?" demanded Laura, her eyes glowing.

The old man turned upon her a glance in which she saw the wistful
curiosity which belongs to age. "At the moment you remind me of her," he
returned, "and yet you seem so strong where she was only weak."

"What did she want? What did she want?" persisted Laura.

"Well, first of all she wanted your father--every minute of him, every
thought, every heart-beat. He couldn't give it to her, my dear. No man
could. I tell you I have lived to a great age, and I have known great