When the tray was brought she took it up-stairs herself. Francis was lying on the sofa and did not look up as she entered.
"I have brought you some soup," she said; "I think you must need it."
He raised himself and thanked her courteously, and took the cup from her hands. Philippa felt encouraged, for she had been half afraid lest he should repulse her. She stood quietly beside him while he drank, and then moved to set the tray on a table.
Having done so she returned, to find his eyes fixed on her, and he watched her while she fetched a chair and sat down by the couch.
Then he asked very gently and kindly, "My dear, why did you do it?"
Philippa had answered this question when Isabella had asked it, and answered it honestly--or so she had thought at the time, but she was wiser now.
Looking at him bravely and without a tremor in her voice, for she was determined to hold herself well in hand, "Because I loved you," she said simply.
"Poor child! Poor child!"
He murmured the words almost inaudibly. Then after a moment's silence he added, "I did not know--I did not know--I thought it was Phil. There was so much I could not understand--I thought it was all part of my weakness. Then, when we went to Bessmoor, the sight of it was so familiar, and so many thoughts troubled me--but I had no doubt; and then, in the afternoon when I was alone, I opened that drawer and found--so many pictures--of--Phil. I will show you. Will you fetch them?"
She did as he bade her, and came back to his side with a sheaf of drawings.
"Look," he said, "I found all these. I suppose now that I did them in the years that have gone by. But they puzzled me, because I thought they must be my work, and there are so many--and yet--I could not remember. Some are very like my little Phil. And the sight of them seemed to stir my brain, and I wondered more and more. I thought that you were Phil, and that they were of you--and yet---- Somehow there was some one else I missed--a blank--so many blanks. I could not understand, until to-day. Dear mother! What did she feel I wonder, all those years? How dreadful for her! Did I know her?"
"I do not know. You did not often speak."
"I wonder what made me go there to-day," he continued thoughtfully. "I was sitting waiting for you, when suddenly something seemed to tell me to go into the churchyard--and just inside the gate I saw her grave--and then I knew. It was just as if a veil had been torn from my eyes--and still I could not understand. For mother was not old when I saw her last. I was afraid I was mad, until Isabella explained. And I thought and thought while I was waiting, and I knew you could not be Phil, for although you are exactly like my memory of her--in face--she would be much older. And there had been little things which puzzled me--which are clear now--about you, I mean. Phil could never have been content to stay indoors all day as you have--she was always a restless fairy thing--I never remember her still for long--and you are always working. Phil never did. Oh, I can find many little differences now.