It was now only twenty-four hours since the strange accident had happened, and she had not yet adjusted herself, even so far as to determine her fundamental emotion. It was grief, of course, but the kind or degree of that grief was still undefined. The hours since they had brought him home had been so full of the unfamiliar practical things which arise at such a time, of the sudden necessities and small perplexities which muddle and chafe sorrow, that there had been scarcely a moment for her to look consciously at the great fact. Even now, as she covered her eyes, to be the more alone with herself, she felt rather a welcoming of momentary inactivity, than the relaxation of grief. She realized, with a sort of pang of disapproval, that she did not need to relax from any tension of anguish. She did not know what she wished to say to herself in this communion. She was sorry, bitterly sorry; but what elements went into the making of that grief?--She could not yet tell. So she leaned with covered eyes, almost as if she were waiting for something outside of herself to give her a cue. As the minutes passed, however, the great simple fact that John was dead and that his place beside her would now be empty, engrossed all supplementary feelings, and her genuine regret had its way. She wept long, and ever more bitterly, absorbed, as one may be, in a mere physical expression of grief. The activity of sorrow overcame thought for the time, and left her no energy for analysis of feeling. Death alone seemed enough to weep over, and her tears still fell. At last, as if having reached a natural period, she rose and moved away to the window and sat down there, in a quiet reverie of sadness. She was sorry for the life cut off, shocked at the abruptness and completeness of the tragedy,--John himself, she was sure, the assertive, energizing John, would have hated this sudden subduing of himself, and she sympathized with such revolt,--sorry, sorry for it all. As she thought, she looked gravely out across the garden, the gay stretch to which John had given so much time. She had never understood his devotion to that garden. He had not been ready to spend money on things to give aesthetic pleasure in the house, although in practical matters he had been willing enough to make outlays, ever since his business had been secure. She thought of their new car, of the signs of prosperity in their living. 'Poor John!' she said at last with a deep sigh, when, aware of the nodding line of rare dahlias on which her eyes were resting, she thought of all the pains he had taken in the propagation and selection of them. She had come to recognize this lavishness of care and money as a sort of blind expression of the one aesthetic element in his nature, and had felt a quiet approval of it. 'Poor John!' she sighed again, and turned from the window to go.