It was because she thought of him as set apart, as debarred by what had happened to him, from honest love-making, and protected by his own nature from anything less, that she had asked him to take charge of Helena.

He realized it now.

It had been the notion of a fanciful idealist, springing from certain sickroom ideas of sacrifice--renunciation--submission to the will of God--and so forth.
It was _not_ the will of God!--that he should live forsaken and die forlorn! He hurled defiance, even at Rachel, his dear dead friend, who had been so full of pity for him, and for whom he had felt the purest and most unselfish affection he had ever known--since his mother's death.
And now the presence of her child in his house seemed to represent a verdict, a sentence--of hers upon him, which he simply refused to accept as just or final.

If Rachel had only lived a little longer he would have had it out with her.

But in those last terrible days, how could he either argue--or refuse?
All the same, he would utterly do his duty by Helena.