Hagar, with her odd, pensive, enigmatical face, drove the strain back to the limbo whence it came. She and Lily talked of the girls so long ago at Eglantine, of Sylvie and Francie and all the rest, the living and the dead, and the scattered fates. Neither had ever been back to the school, but she could tell Lily of Mrs. LeGrand's health and prosperity. "You don't like her," said Lily. "I was so ill and homesick, I didn't have energy one way or the other, but she was very smooth, I remember that, ... and we were all to marry, and only to marry--marry money and social position--especially social position." They talked of the teachers. "I liked Miss Gage," said Hagar, "and Mrs. Lane was a gentle, sweet woman. Do you remember M. Morel?" "Yes, and Mr. Laydon." Lily started. "Oh, Hagar, I had forgotten that! But perhaps there was nothing in it--" Hagar laughed. "If you meant that at eighteen I sincerely thought I loved Mr. Laydon--and that he, as sincerely, I do believe, thought that he loved me--yes, there was that in it! But we found out with fair promptness that it was false fire.--I have not seen nor heard of him for many years. He taught at Eglantine for a while, and then he went, I believe, to some Western school.... Lily, Lily! I have had a long life!" "I have had as long a one in years," said Lily. "But yours has been the fuller. You have a wonderful life." "We all have wonderful lives," answered Hagar. "One is rich after this fashion, one after that." The bell rang. In another moment Denny Gayde came into the big room. The six years since the Nassau month had wrought little outer change. He was still somewhat thin and worn, with a face at once keen and quiet, a little stern, with eyes that saw away, away--He was more light than heat, but there was warmth, too, and it glowed and deepened all around "Onward!" When he said the name of his paper, it was as though he caressed it. He was like a lighthouse-keeper whose whole being had become bent, on a wreck-strewn shore, to tending and heightening the light, to sending the rays streaming across the reefs. CHAPTER XXXI JOHN FAY "Denny," said Hagar, "ask Mary Magazine to give you a coffee-cup." Denny came back with it and she filled it from the silver urn. "Rose went to Brooklyn to-night?" "Yes.--I was to have spoken down on Omega Street, but at the last moment Harding came in and I sent him instead. 'Onward!' 's got the strongest kind of stuff this week, and there are some finishing touches--I'm going back to the office in an hour or two. Rose said that she asked you for that poem, and that you said you would give it, and she thought you might have it ready. I've got a telling place for it--"