Mr. Dale did not urge her to return; he knew her too well. He only said when he went away, holding her hands in his and looking at her, his gentle old face quivering with tears, "He is all yours now, my dear; death has given you what life could not. No matter where you are, nothing can change the perfect possession." There was a swift, glad light in the eyes she lifted to his for a moment, but she did not answer. At first she had been stunned and dazed; she had not realized what her sorrow was; an artificial courage came to her in the thought that John was free, and the terrible and merciful commonplace of packing and putting in order, hid her from herself. She had stayed behind in the small brown parsonage, with only Alfaretta for a companion, and Gifford's unspoken sympathy when he came every day to see her. Once she answered it. "I am glad it is John instead of me," she said, with an uplifted look; "the pain is not his." "And it is so much happier for him now," Gifford ventured to say,--"he must see so clearly; and the old grief is lost in joy." "No," Helen answered wearily; "you must not say those things to me. I cannot feel them. I am glad he has no pain,--in an eternal sleep there is at least no pain. But I must just wait my life out, Gifford. I cannot hope; I dare not. I could not go on living if I thought he were living somewhere, and needing me. No, it is ended. I have had my life." She listened in eager and pathetic silence to every detail of John's life since she had left him which Alfaretta or Gifford could give her. A little later, she asked them both to write out all that they remembered of those last days. She dared not trust the sacred memory only to her heart, lest the obliterating years should steal it from her. And then, by and by, she gathered up all her power of endurance, and quietly went back to Ashurst. That last night in the little low-browed parsonage not even Alfaretta was with her. Gifford left her on the threshold with a terrible fear in his heart, and he came to the door again very early in the morning; but she met him calmly, with perfect comprehension of the anxiety in his face. "You need not be afraid for me," she said. "I do not dare to be a coward." And then she walked to the station, without one look back at the house where she had known her greatest joy and greatest grief. * * * * * The summer had left spring far behind, when Gifford Woodhouse came to Ashurst. He could not stay in Lockhaven; the tragedy of John Ward had thrown a shadow upon him. The people did not forget that he was Mrs. Ward's friend, and they made no doubt, the bolder ones said, that Lawyer Woodhouse was an infidel, too. So he decided to take an office in Mercer. This would make it possible for him to come back to Ashurst every Saturday, and be with his aunts until Monday.