current. It is best to hold my peace. It is hard to do, but it can be,
and it must be done. I was nervous--rebellious. I quickly fled away from
that false woman and her loathsome caress. I sought rest and quiet in a
distant cushioned corner of the deserted hallway. I was angry--too angry
for tears. I buried my throbbing head in my hands and tried to forget my
miserable existence; it was such a failure. It was so unlike that which
I wished it to be, and yet I did not have the will-power to make it so.
I was in one of my morbid moods. Resolutions I knew to be useless. On
the morrow they would be broken. It was always, and I fear ever will be
"Mother and Daughter;" never "Daughter and Mother." She always takes the
lead, and I, always weak enough to follow. Was there no one to whom I
could turn? No one to yield me a few kindly words to strengthen me for
that constant, useless warfare against, yes, against my own mother?

As if in answer to my silent call, a footstep! My hands dropped into my
lap. A man stood near. I did not look up; I knew who he was. We need
hear but once the footfall of certain people and always after know
instantly if they are near. A voice: "Miss Gilder, do I intrude?"

Robert Fairfield is not a man of many words. He stood by me in an
attitude of _sympathetic silence_. He made to me an unspoken
appeal. In my heart there was a grateful answer. A sad, smileless face
was uplifted, and then my lips also gave answer. It was a brief story.
It was my daily life of home oppression. But it was not briefly told. It
ought not have been told at all; but I am human, so human. The time had
reached me when somebody _must know_, and the time had brought with
it into my sorrowful presence this same Robert Fairfield. I had barely
known him. An accidental introduction, a few dances at a ball, and
once--just once--a brief but serious talk at a summer-night concert. I
was nothing to him; he was every thing to me; I loved him, I love him.