It was not true to say that during these months
he had grown to hate Brandon, but he had come, more and more, to despise
and condemn him. The effeminacy in his own nature had from the first both
shrunk from and been attracted by the masculinity in Brandon.
He could have loved that man, but as the situation had forbidden that, his
feeling now was very near to hate.
Then, as the weeks had gone by, Mrs. Brandon had made it clear enough to
him that Falk was all that she had left to her--not very much to her even
there, perhaps, but something to keep her starved heart from dying. And
now Falk was gone, gone in the most brutal, callous way. She had no one in
the world left to her but himself. The rush of tenderness and longing to
be good to her that now overwhelmed him was so strong and so sudden that
it was with the utmost difficulty that he had held himself from going to
the sofa beside her.
She looked so weak there, so helpless, so gentle.
"Amy," he said, "I will do anything in the world that is in my power."
She was trembling, partly with genuine emotion, partly with cold, partly
with the drama of the situation.
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