But we are
all going sooner or later. No one is left behind for long. To my mind
there's a vast deal of comfort in that. It doesn't leave much time for
grousing when we simply can't help moving on."

She squeezed his hand. "I wonder where I'd be without you, Nick."

Nick's grin flashed magically across his face. "I'm only a man, kiddie,"
he observed, "and I seem to have been gassing somewhat immoderately.
However, them's my sentiments, and you can take 'em or leave 'em
according to fancy."

Thereafter for a space they talked of Violet, touching no tragic note,
recalling her as an absent friend. Olga dwelt fondly upon the thought of
her, scarcely realizing her loss. The new life she had entered had done
much to soften the blow when it should fall. Here in a strange land she
did not feel her friend's death as she would inevitably have felt it at
Weir. Circumstances combined with Nick's sheltering presence to lift the
weight which otherwise must have pressed heavily upon her. Moreover, the
longer she contemplated the matter, the more completely did she realize
that it had not come to her with the force of a sudden calamity. Deep
within her she had carried a nameless dread that had hung upon her like
an iron fetter. She had longed--yet trembled--to know the truth. Now
that burden seemed lifted from her, and she was conscious of relief.
Before, she had feared she knew not what; but now she feared no longer.
She was weary beyond measure, too weary for grief or wonder, though she
did ask Nick, faintly smiling, why they had kept the truth from her for
so long.

"I should have found it easier if I had known," she said.

But Nick shook his head with the wisdom of an old man. "You weren't
strong enough to know," he said.

She did not contest the point, reflecting that Nick, with all his
shrewdness, was but a man, as he himself admitted.

She asked him presently, somewhat haltingly, if he would give her the
details of her friend's death. "Max was there, I know. But he never
tells one anything. It was one of the reasons why I never got on with
him."

A hint of the old resentment was in her tone, and Nick smiled at it.
"Poor old Max! You always were down on him, weren't you? But there is
really nothing to tell, dear. She just went to sleep, and her heart
stopped. They said it was not altogether surprising, considering her
state of health."

"Who said?" questioned Olga.

"Sir Kersley Whitton and Max. Max sent for him, yo