Her soft hands would stroke the forehead of her first-born, or of her eldest daughter, or of any of the offspring of the two, the product of their love, and she would tell them that she was glad they were so good, but, gentle and thoughtful as she was, there was something lacking.

She seemed in another world.
I talked to Jean.

I tried to be a philosopher, to tell her of the children and of the broadness of life, and that she must drift into it again.

She was kind and courteous as of old with me, but it was somehow not the same.

And she grew weaker day by day, and would lie for hours, the children told me, in the room where Grant and she had been together all those years.
How can I tell of it! Jean, who had become my sister, who was part of Grant Harlson, drifted away before my eyes! It was harder, almost, for us than the fierce fight with death of the one who had been the mainstay of us all.