But the time
came when she saw honour and manhood slowly but surely
dying in him, and on her heart there fell the terrible
weight of a powerless despair. Her health had never been
robust and she quickly sank into invalidism.
The specialist who came from Winnipeg diagnosed her case
as chronic anaemia and prescribed port wine, which she
refused with a queer little wavering cry and a sudden
rush of tears. But she put up a good fight nevertheless.
She wanted to live so much, for the sake of Mary, her
beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter.
Mrs. Barner did not live to see the whole work of
degeneration, for the end came in the early spring, swift
and sudden and kind.
The doctor's grief for his wife was sincere. He always
referred to her as "my poor Mildred," and never spoke of
her except when comparatively sober.
Mary Barner took up the burden of caring for her father
without question, for she loved him with a great and
pitying love, to which he responded in his best moments.
In the winter she went with him on his drives night and
day, for the fear of what might happen was always in her
heart. She was his housekeeper, his office-girl, his
bookkeeper; she endured all things, loneliness, poverty,
disgrace, without complaining or bitterness.
One day shortly after Mrs. Barner's death big John
Robertson from "the hills" drove furiously down the street
to the doctor's house, and rushed into the office without
ringing the bell.
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