ear with her.

Except one person. Luclarion Grapp, at last, made up her mind.

Kenneth heard what Desire told him, as he heard all she ever had to
tell, with a gentle interest; comforted her when she said she could
not bear to go, with the suggestion that it might not be for very
long; and when she looked up in his face with a kind of strange,
pained wonder, and repeated,--

"But I cannot _bear_,--I tell you, I cannot _bear_ to go!" he
answered,--

"One can bear all that is right; and out of it the good will come
that we do not know. All times go by. I am sorry--very sorry--that
you must go; but there will be the coming back. We must all wait for
that."

She did not know what she looked for; she did not know what she
expected him to mean; she expected nothing; the thought of his
preventing it in any way never entered into her head; she knew, if
she _had_ thought, how he himself was waiting, working. She only
wanted him to _care_. Was this caring? Much? She could not tell.

"We never can come _back_," she said, impetuously. "There will be
all the time--everything--between."

He almost spoke to her of it, then; he almost told her that the
everything might be more, not less; that friendships gathered,
multiplied; that there would be one home, he hoped, in which, by and
by, she would often be; in which she would always be a dear and
welcome comer.

But she was so sad, so tried; his lips were held; in his pure,
honest kindness, he never dreamt of any harm that his silence might
do; it only seemed so selfish to tell her how bright it was with
him.

So he said, smiling,--

"And who knows what the 'everything' may be?" And he took both her
hands in his as he said good-by,--for his little stops were of
minutes on his way, always,--and held them fast, and looked warmly,
hopefully into her face.

It was all for her,--to give her hope and courage; but the light of
it was partly kindled by his own hope and gladness that lay behind;
and how could she know that, or read it right? It was at once too
much, and not enough, for her.

Five minutes after, Luclarion Grapp went by the parlor door with a
pile of freshly ironed linen in her arms, on her way up-stairs.

Desire lay upon the sofa, her face down upon the pillow; her arms
were thrown up, and her hands clasped upon the sofa-arm; her frame
shook with sobs.

Luclarion paused for the time of half a step; then she went on. She
said to herself in a whisper, as she wen