She broke off and Hannah spoke: "I was thinking to-night about you and whether you were not in danger," she said, with a certain air of wisdom which her somewhat hard experience of life had given her. "How that man looked at you as he sang those words! That wild passion of love which they expressed seemed a reality. I wondered if you could hear them unmoved--and a thought of danger for you made me feel unhappy." Christine did not answer her for a moment. A strange smile came to her lips as her eyes rested gently on the little teacher. Eyes and smile had both something of hopelessness in them, as if she despaired of making herself understood. "That was sweet of you, Hannah," she said presently, a look of simple affectionateness chasing away the other. "It is good to think that there was any one, in all that great crowd of people, who cared so much about me, but, my good little friend, never trouble yourself with that thought in connection with me again. My heart is dead--so dead that it seem weary waiting for the rest of me to die, and nothing but the resurrection morning that renews it all can ever give me back the heart I had before I was married. It did not die suddenly at one blow, but it died a lingering death of slow, slow pain. Think what it is! I am younger than you, and already joy and pleasure and hope are words that have no meaning for me. Oh, poor Hannah! I oughtn't to make you cry, and yet your tears are blessed things. When I could cry I was not so wretched." She leaned toward the girl and clasped her close, kissing the teardrops from each eye and soothing her, as if hers had been the sorrow.