w hope that had filled her
heart for a time had to be finally abandoned, what of that? What
mattered a single life? She had the larger hope; there was another and
greater future for her to think about; and she could cherish the thought
that she at least had done nothing to imperil or diminish the work to
which so many of her friends had given their lives.

But silence is hard to bear. Ever since the scene with her father, a
certain undeclared estrangement had prevailed between these two; and no
reference whatsoever had been made to George Brand. Her lover had sent
her no message--no word of encouragement, of assurance, or sympathy.
Even Calabressa had gone. There remained to her only the portrait that
Calabressa had given her; and in the solitude of her own room many a
time she sat and gazed at the beautiful face with some dim, wondering
belief that she was looking at her other self, and that she could read
in the features some portion of her own experiences, her own joys and
sorrows. For surely those soft, dark, liquid eyes must have loved and
been beloved? And had they too filled with gladness when a certain step
had been heard coming near? and they looked up with trust and pride and
tenderness, and filled with tears again in absence, when only the memory
of loving words remained? She recalled many a time what Calabressa had
said to her--"My child, may Heaven keep you as true and brave as your
mother was, and send you more happiness." Her mother, then, had not been
happy? But she was brave, Calabressa had said: when she loved a man,
would she not show herself worthy of her love?

This was all very well; but in spite of her reasoning and her forced
courage, and her self-possession in the presence of others, Natalie had
got into the habit of crying in the quietude of her own room, to the
great distress of the little Anneli, who had surprised her once or
twice. And the rosy-cheeked German maid guessed pretty accurately what
had happened; and wondered very much at the conduct of English lovers,
who allowed their sweethearts to pine and fret in solitude without
sending them letters or coming to see them. But on this particular
afternoon Anneli opened the door, in answer to a summons, and found
outside a club commissionaire whom she had seen once or twice before;
and when he gave her a letter, addressed in a handwriting which she
recognized, and ask for an answer, she was as much agitated as if it had
come from her own swe