or child!--it _will_ pass."

He opened the door, and Margaret entered. Then he closed it from the
outside, and made his escape. He felt like a traitor; yet he had had to
say it--he had had to say it!

But the next moment he was taking himself to task as he walked violently
homeward across the plaza. "Don't you want it to pass, you great idiot,
that sorrow of hers? How much good can a woman do sitting all her life
upon a tomb? she can't even be ornamental there, in my humble opinion.
No; it's a thorough waste, a thorough waste!" He entered his old house,
still revolving these reflections; he came bursting in upon Ma.

"Ma," he announced, as the little old lady in her neat widow's cap
looked up in surprise--he spoke with emphasis, as he was still
suffering sharply from having had, as it were, to denounce Garda--"I am
convinced, Ma, that it would have been infinitely better for you,
infinitely, if you had married again."

"Mercy on us, Reginald!" said astonished little Ma.

Margaret entered Garda's room with a noiseless step, the Moores had
thought it better that she should go alone. The blinds had been closed,
but a gleam of the sunset entered between the slats, and made a line of
gold across the floor; the motionless figure on the lounge had been
covered (by Penelope) with that most desolate of all draperies, a plain
black shawl. Though Margaret had entered so quietly, Garda seemed to
know who it was; she was lying with her face turned away, but she spoke
instantly--"Margaret?" And Margaret came and took her in her arms.

"Margaret, I cannot bear it," Garda said, calmly; "I have tried, but it
is impossible. And if _you_ cannot tell me how to--you the only one I
really believe, I shall not try any more. It is decided."

"Time will tell you how, Garda," Margaret answered, putting her hand
upon the girl's head as it lay against her breast. "Time, I think, is
the only thing that can help us--women, I mean--when we suffer so."

"But it's nineteen months already," Garda went on, in the same
desperately calm tone. "And to-day I've suffered just as much as I did
in the beginning--exactly as much."

"Yes--the coming home. It will be different now."

"But now's _now_," said Garda, sitting up, and looking at her friend,
her face hardened, her lovely lips set in her pain.

"I mean soon, dear."

"I won't believe it unless you swear it to me," Garda went on. She got
up and stood looking at Margaret. "If you will swear it