me. It makes me very uncomfortable, Mrs.
Thorne."

But Mrs. Thorne only smiled. She lifted her hand, and laid it on
Margaret's arm. "My dear," she said, simply (and it was rare for Mrs.
Thorne to be simple; even now, though deeply in earnest, she had had the
old appearance of selecting with care what she was about to say), "I
don't know why any more than you do! I only know that it is so; it has
been so from the beginning. I think I understand you," she added.

"Oh no," said the younger woman, turning away.

"At any rate, I understand your steadfastness, Margaret. You have
steadfastness in the supreme degree. Many women haven't any, and they
are much the happiest. But you, Margaret, are different. And it is your
steadfastness that attracts me so--for my poor child's sake I mean. Yes,
for hers I must say a little more--I must. If you could only see your
way to letting her remain under your care as long as she is so
young--you see I mean longer than the few months you spoke of just
now,--it would make my dying easier. For it's going to be very hard for
me to die. Perhaps you think I'm not going to. But I know that I am. All
at once my courage has left me. It never did before, and so I know it is
a sign."

Margaret sat listening, she looked deeply troubled. "You wish to intrust
to me a great responsibility," she began.

"And it seems to you very selfish. Of course I know that it is selfish.
But it is desperation, Margaret; it is my feeling about Garda. Let me
tell you one thing, I am relying a little upon your having suffered
yourself. If you had not, I should never have asked you, because people
who haven't suffered, women especially, are so hard. But I saw that you
had suffered, I saw it in the expression of your face before I had heard
a word of your history."

"What do you know of my history?" asked Margaret, the guarded reserve
which was so often there again taking possession of her voice and eyes.

"In actual fact, very little. Only what Mrs. Rutherford told Betty
Carew."

"What did she tell her?"

"That her nephew, your husband, was travelling abroad--that was all. But
when I learned that the travelling had lasted seven years, and that
nothing was said of his return or of your joining him, of course I knew
that inclination, his or yours, was at the bottom of it. And I imagined
pain somewhere, and probably for you. Because you are good; and it is
the good who suffer."

"In reality you know nothing about