u without some reason which you would yourself say was
good and sufficient. She imagines she has such a reason; imagines it in
all sincerity. Time will show her that she has been in error, and she
will confess it. She has all her faculties, no doubt, but a trial such
as this leads her to see things in ways we cannot realise.'

'You forget that it is _not_ this shock that has so affected her.'

'Wilfrid, remember that her father's death is itself mysterious. She may
know more of what led to it than anyone else does. She may very well
have foreseen it; it may have distracted her, the cause, whatever it
was. She could not disclose anything--some secret, perhaps--that nearly
concerned her father; you know how strong were the ties between them.'

Perhaps it was inevitable that a suggestion of this kind should
ultimately offer itself. Wilfrid had not hit upon the idea, for he had
from the first accepted without reflection the reasons for Hood's
suicide which were accepted by everyone who spoke of the subject. Mrs.
Baxendale only delivered herself of the thought in fervour of
kindly-devised argument. She paused, reviewing it in her mind, but did
netlike to lay more stress upon it. Wilfrid, also thoughtful, kept
silence.

'Now, there's the gong,' Mrs. Baxendale continued, 'and I shall have to
go to the politicians. But I think I _have_ given you a grain of
comfort. Think of a prosy old woman inciting _you_ to endure for the
sake of the greatest prize you can aim at? Keep saying to yourself that
Emily cannot do wrong; if she did say a word or two she didn't
mean--well, well, we poor women! Go to bed early, and we'll talk again
after breakfast to-morrow.'

She gave him her hand, and hurried away. Even in his wretchedness,
Wilfrid could not but follow her with his eyes, and _feel_ something
like a blessing upon her strong and tender womanhood.

Fortunate fellow, who had laid behind him thus much of his earthly
journey without one day of grave suffering. Ah, something he should have
sacrificed to the envious gods, some lesser joy, that the essential
happiness of his life might be spared him. Wilfrid had yet to learn that
every sun which rises for us in untroubled sky is a portent of
inevitable gloom, that nature only prolongs our holiday to make the
journey-work of misery the harder to bear. He had enjoyed the way of his
will from childhood upwards; he had come to regard himself as exempt
from ill-fortune, even as he was exem