As for jealousy, one doesn't love
people more because they are wonderful. One is glad of them and one longs
to share them. It's one of my dearest hopes that you may come to care for
Imogen as I do--and as Jack does."
Rose listened, her head bent forward, her eyes, ambiguous in their
half-ironic, half-tender, meaning, on her friend; but she only said, "_I_
shall remain in love with you, Mary." She didn't say again, though she was
thinking it, that Jack was very foolish.
II
"Darling, darling Mother:
"I know too well what you have been feeling since the cable reached you;
and first of all I want to help you to bear it by telling you at once that
you could not have reached him in time. You must not reproach yourself for
that.
"I am shattered by this long day. Father died early this morning, but I
must hold what strength I have, firmly, for you, and tell you all that you
will want to hear. He would have wished that; you know how he felt about a
selfish yielding to grief.
"He seemed quite well until the beginning of this week--five days ago--but
he was never strong; the long struggle that life must always mean to those
who face life as he did, wore on him more and more; for others' sakes he
often assumed a buoyancy of manner that, I am sure,--one feels these things
by intuition of those one loves--often hid suffering and intense weariness.
It was just a case of the sword wearing out the scabbard.
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