Well—she had known all that.... That was why she had done what she had done. She had staked all she had ... failed ... so she must pay.... Yet such a price for birds’ eggs! Birds’ eggs! Her mouth twisted sardonically. If it had happened to any one else—how Justin would have laughed ... how they would have talked it over! She could hear him, laying down the law about it.... She missed that most of all—that dear, absurd solemnity of his as he laid down the law to her.... She stood, remembering, hardening her eyes and her heart against the tears she despised. How she missed him ... how unspeakably she missed him.... What a fool she had been.... What was the use of scruples.... Why hadn’t she kept what she had?... She might have been married to him at that moment.... Even if he didn’t love her—half a loaf was better than no bread.... Who was she to have imagined herself his keeper?... He knew his own mind.... He had asked her to marry him.... _Ha, ha, the wooing o’t._ squeaked the violin. “Did you ever hear of such a thing? Well—I said to her, quite quietly, you know, but with dignity—I said to her: ‘I think, Ellen, the time has come to make a change.’ Simply that. It was quite enough. She apologized at once.” Laura murmured congratulations. She wished Aunt Adela would be merciful enough to stop talking, or at any rate needing answers.... It was so difficult to think of the right answers with that insistent tune ringing in one’s ears.... It wavered and sank to a sigh as she listened against her will— _Time and chance are but a tide; Ha, ha, the wooing o’t; Slighted love is sair to bide_—— It slackened and jarred as Gran’papa’s hand—she knew that pathetic, involuntary relaxation of his stiff fingers—mumbled the strings. But the half learnt words ran on in her head, perverted into absurd appositeness— _She may gae to—France for me!_ But it was Justin who had gone to France.... They were killing three hundred men a day in France—in the trenches ... where Justin was.... For long minutes her terrible phantasy made it all very clear to her, while the tune jangled on again to its happy ending— _Now they’re crouse and canty baith_—— and stopped. She waited for the last line, impatiently, as for release, as for the breaking of a spell; but there came no sound—only a sudden silence that was louder than any sound. She roused at it, pitifully chiding herself for the selfishness of her misery and, regardless of Aunt Adela, bundled the rest of her clothes into the wardrobe and hurried out of the room. Poor old Gran’papa ... to leave him so long alone.... A string or something must have snapped.... She must run down and see, and get him a new one ... the dresser drawers were so heavy for him to pull out....