ace. He listened to her very
gravely, and answered yes, that he was one of the officers, and could
tell her whatever she wanted to know; but when she told him what she
wanted, he too shook his head. "I do not say it cannot be done," he said.
"There are some cases in which it has been successful, but very few. It
has often been attempted. There is no law against it. Those who do it do
it at their own risk. They suffer much, and almost always they fail."

"No, oh no! You said there were some who succeeded. No one can be more
anxious than I. I will give--anything--everything I have in the world!"

He gave her a smile, which was very grave nevertheless, and full of pity.
"You forget," he said, "that you have nothing to give; and if you had,
that there is no one here to whom it would be of any value."

Though she was no longer old and weak, yet she was still a woman, and she
began to weep, in the terrible failure and contrariety of all things; but
yet she would not yield. She cried: "There must be some one here who
would do it for love. I have had people who loved me in my time. I must
have some here who have not forgotten me. Ah! I know what you would say.
I lived so long I forgot them all, and why should they remember me?"

Here she was touched on the arm, and looking round, saw close to her the
face of one whom, it was very true, she had forgotten. She remembered him
but dimly after she had looked long at him. A little group had gathered
about her, with grieved looks, to see her distress. He who had touched
her was the spokesman of them all.

"There is nothing I would not do," he said, "for you and for love."
And then they all sighed, surrounding her, and added, "But it is
impossible--impossible!"

She stood and gazed at them, recognizing by degrees faces that she knew,
and seeing in all that look of grief and sympathy which makes all human
souls brothers. Impossible was not a word that had been often said to be
in her life; and to come out of a world in which everything could be
changed, everything communicated in the twinkling of an eye, and find a
dead blank before her and around her, through which not a word could go,
was more terrible than can be said in words. She looked piteously upon
them, with that anguish of helplessness which goes to every heart, and
cried, "What is impossible? To send a word--only a word--to set right
what is wrong? Oh, I understand," she said, lifting up her hands. "I
understand that to