"And doesn't it rouse the devil in you when she does! Never mind! I'm pleased to see it. It's a healthy sign under the circumstances. You'll need a good supply of that pride to see you through the next month, and I guess there's no fear of its running out." Then her face sobered, and her voice took a serious tone. "Cassandra! you must try to be fair to Teresa. She's young and crude, and opinionated, but this has been a great big test, and she's been rather--_fine_. I never admired anything more than her composure that day on the cliff. It wasn't because she didn't feel. The slight must have been all the worse, just because she is so complacent and sure of herself. She went through torture with her lips shut. She's even more to be pitied than you, Cassandra, for she _was_ happy, and she believed so firmly that she was going to be happy ever after, and now--at the best--it can never be the same--" Cassandra interposed with a sharp-cut question. "What do you mean by `the best'?" "From her point of view,--that he should eventually marry her, and make the best of what remains. It's pretty hard on a girl of twenty-four to know that her lover has to nerve himself up to take her like a disagreeable tonic which may eventually do him good. I could not have stood it; I'm quite sure _you_ couldn't, but Teresa can. The bull-dog quality in her won't let go; she can sit tight and wait, and it's the waiters who win. She will go through a bad time, but in the end--" Grizel met Cassandra's flashing eyes, and said gently, "Dear! if you had the choice, wouldn't you rather think of him in the future with a home and children, happy again, if not just in the same way, rather than as a lonely man, eating his heart out for what he couldn't have?" "No!" cried Cassandra defiantly. "No! I want him to remember. I _want_ him to think. I'd rather anything happened than that he should forget..." Then Grizel laughed, a soft, tender little laugh, and looking back on that scene in the days which followed, Cassandra knew that more than for any words of comfort, she was grateful for that laugh. There was in it the tenderness which a nurse bestows upon the railings of pain-racked sufferers, and with it a beautiful incredulity which refused to believe mere words, and set her faith on the force within, content to wait until it should resume the mastery. The task of a comforter is only less difficult than that of the sufferer himself. He has need of infinite tenderness, infinite tolerance, above all, of infinite patience. Not in one hour, or one week, or one month will his solace work its effect; again and again must he open his heart, and pour forth all that is his of wisdom, and strength and inspiration, only to find himself thrown back to the very position from which he started. "Oh, Grizel!" cried Cassandra sharply. "Why did you come? Why did you interrupt us? And oh, what are we to do? What shall we do?" CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. THE SUMMONS.