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can’t have anyone near her. It was worse before you came.”

I persuaded him to come into my room and sit down and drink a glass of cordial.

“Sometimes she has locked me out for days together,” he said. “It seems strange—a woman of such generous friendships. It’s as if she had used up that part of herself. It’s a great strain on me when she shuts herself up like that. I’m afraid she’ll harm herself in some way.”

“But people don’t do things like that,” I said hopelessly.

He smiled and straightened his shoulders. “Ah, but she isn’t people! She’s Molly Driscoll, and there was never anybody else like her. She can’t endure, but she has enough desperate courage for a regiment.”