to me I will try
to believe it, because _you_ know me, and _you_ speak the truth."

"Very well, then; listen: I am absolutely sure of it," Margaret
answered.

"Sure that I shall stop caring so much? stop feeling so dreadfully?"

"Yes, sure."

"But when will it begin?" the girl demanded, shaken with fresh sobs;
she leaned down as she spoke, pressing her hands on Margaret's shoulders
and looking at her insistently, as if she would draw from her by force a
comforting reply.

"To-morrow, perhaps," said Margaret, answering her almost as one answers
a suffering child.

"Well--you mustn't leave me."

"I won't leave you to-night at least."

This gave Garda some slight solace, she sat down and rested her head on
Margaret's shoulder. "He was buried in Venice--on that island, you know.
Margaret, I want to go down to East Angels to-morrow, mamma is there; do
you remember dear little mamma?"

But this quiet did not last long. Suddenly she sprang up again, and
began walking about the room, clinching her hands.

Margaret went to her.

"I told you I could not bear it," Garda cried, flinging her off. "You
said it would stop, and it hasn't stopped at all. It suffocates me, it's
a sort of dreadful agony in my throat that you don't know anything
about, you--_you_!" And she faced her friend like a creature at bay.
"When shall I begin to forget him?--tell me that. When?"

"But you do not wish to forget him, Garda."

"Yes, I do, I wish I might never think of him on earth again," said
Garda, fiercely, giving a stamp with her foot as one does in extremity
of physical pain. "Why should I suffer so? it's not right. If you don't
help me more than you've done (and I relied upon you so), I shall
certainly go to him--go to Lucian. _He'll_ be glad to see me, he thinks
more of me than you do--you who haven't helped me at all! But it will be
easy to end it, you will see; I've got something I shall take. I relied
upon you so--I relied upon you so!"

Margaret took her hands. "Give me another day, Garda," she said.

"Only one," answered Garda.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

One afternoon, six months later, Margaret, under her white umbrella,
opened the gate of the rose garden at East Angels. She came through the
crape-myrtle avenue, at the end of its long vista, on the bench under
the great rose-tree, she saw Garda; the crane, outlined in profile
against the camellia bushes, kept watch over his mistress stiffly;
another companion, in bear