In times of trouble and upheaval the sufferer is constantly exhorted by sympathetic friends to turn resolutely away from the sad past, and look ahead. Onward! they are told--press onward! Life lies not in the past, but in the future. Despair comes of looking back, courage with expectation. Poor Vanna recalled these axioms with a weary heart. That was just what she dared not do. What could the future hold for her? She sat very still, her hands clasped on her lap, her eyes shut against the glare. The sun seemed cruel to-day; the dance of golden light across the sands, the sight of those two light-stepping figures in the distance. She would help Jean, help others, who were in need. There was no lack of work in the world for hands which were willing and free. She could make other people happy; could live a noble, selfless life. Even so, and at the thought, the lips of three-and-twenty quivered, and the salt tears flowed. She wanted to be happy herself--longed to be happy. The selfless life sounded barren and cold; it roused no flicker of joy. "How shall I bear it?" asked Vanna of herself. "How can I live, looking on, always looking on, having no part? Even to-day with Jean--my darling Jean--and that strange man, I felt sore and angry and--_bad_! He thought me a cross, ungracious girl. His opinion does not matter, but other people will think so too if I behave in the same way; and that would be terrible. I could not exist if people did not care for me. In self-defence I must overcome. But how to do it?" Vanna leant her head on her hands and sent up a wordless prayer. In her own fashion she was deeply religious, but it was not the fashion of her day. Her aunt had been shocked and distressed by her heterodox sentiments, and had spent many hours in prayer for her niece's conversion, while Vanna, in her turn, had been fully as shocked at the old woman's conventional ideas. Aunt Mary had been the most tender and forgiving of mortals. Her memory, tenacious till death of the smallest kindness shown towards her, was absolutely incapable of retaining an injury. If any one offended, her own anxiety was to find for them a means of reform; to her charity there seemed literally no end. When a trusted servant repaid endless kindnesses by a flagrant theft, Aunt Mary was bowed down with penitence for occasional carelessness on her own part which might possibly have led the sinner into temptation. "I remember distinctly one Sunday night when I left my purse in the dining-room, and was too lazy to go downstairs to fetch it, and at other times I have left change lying about. It was wrong of me--terribly wrong. One never knows what need there may be--what _pressing_ need-- and to see the money lying there before her eyes!"