ew himself up, there where he was, standing by his hearth, and
waited for her.

She came in softly and shut the door behind her and stood there as if
she were afraid to come too near. Her face was all eyes; all eyes of
terror, as before a grief too great, a bereavement too awful for any
help or consolation. She spoke first.

"What is it, Ranny?" Her low voice went light like a tender hand that
was afraid to touch his wound.

"She's left me; that's all."

Her lips parted, but no words came; they parted to ease the heart that
fluttered with anguish in her breast. She moved a little nearer into the
room, not looking at him, but with her head bowed slightly as if her
shoulders bore Violet's shame. She stood a moment by the table, looking
at her own hand as it closed on the edge, the fingers working up and
down on the cloth. It might have been the hand of another person, for
all she was aware of its half-convulsive motion.

"Oh, Ranny, _dear_--" At last she breathed it out, the soul of her
compassion, and all her hushed sense of his bereavement.

"Did you know?"

She shook her head, slowly, closing in an extremity of negation the eyes
that would not look at him.

"No--No--" It was as if she had said, "Who _could_ have known it?" Yet
her voice had an uncertain sound.

"But you had an idea?"

"No," she said, taking courage from his incredible calmness. "I was
afraid; that was all." And then, as one utterly beaten by him and
defenseless, she broke down. "I tried so hard--so hard, so as it
shouldn't happen."

It was as if she had said, "I tried so hard--so hard to save her for
you; but she had to die."

"I know you did."

But it was only then, in the long pause of that moment, that he knew;
that he saw the whole full, rich meaning and intention of the things
that she had done for him.

And now, as if she were afraid lest he should see too much, as if
somehow his seeing it would sharpen the perilous edge she stood on,
would wind up to the pitch of agony her tense feeling of it all, Winny
suddenly became evasive. She found her subterfuge in stark matter of
fact.

"You haven't had any supper," she said.

"No more have you."

"I don't want anything."

"I'm sure _I_ don't. But you must. You'll be ill, Winny, if you don't."

White-faced and famished, they kept it up, both struck by the indecency
of eating in the house of sorrow. Then for his sake she gave in, and he
for hers.

"If you will, I will," she sa