first she
knew about Howie.

"Now I'll tell you, lady," said the man to whom she had first spoken,
in the voice that deals with what has to be dealt with carefully, "you
just let me give you your money back, then you won't have the feeling
that you've been cheated." He put his hand in his pocket.

"I don't want my money back!" cried Laura. "I--want to see what you left
out!"

"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do," proposed the young man, taking his
cue from the older one. "I'll tell you just exactly what happened in the
part that was left out."

"I know exactly what happened," cut in Laura. "I--I want to _see_--what
happened."

It was a cry from so deep that they didn't know what to do.

"Won't you do it for me?" she begged of the young man, going up to him.
"What you left out--won't you show it for me--_now_?"

He just stood there staring at her.

"It means--! It--" But how could she tell them what it meant? She looked
from one to the other, as if to see what chance there was of their doing
it without knowing what it meant. When she couldn't keep sobs back, she
turned away.

Even in her room at the hotel she had to try to keep from crying. She
could hear the man moving around in the next room--so he, of course,
could hear her, too. It was all as it was in the pictures--people
crowded together, and all of it something that seemed life and really
wasn't. Even _that_--the one thing, the one moment--really wasn't life.
But it was all she had! If she let herself think of how little that all
was--it was an emptiness she was afraid of.

The people who had tried to comfort her used to talk of how much she had
had. She would wonder sometimes why they were talking on her side
instead of their own. For if you have had much--does that make it easy
to get along with nothing? Why couldn't they _see_ it? That because of
what Howie had been to her--and for ten years!--she just didn't know any
way of going on living without Howie!

Tonight made fresh all her wedding anniversaries--brought happiness to
life again. It almost took her in. And because she had been so near the
dear, warm things in which she had lived, when morning came she couldn't
get on the train that would take her back to that house to which Howie
would never come again. Once more it all seemed slipping from her. There
must be _something_. As a frightened child runs for home, she turned to
that place where--for at least a moment--it was as if Howie were ther