There was no response to this. The mention of Betty's name brought up so many pleasing scenes to Mary, that she sat living them over, unmindful of the long silence that fell between her and Jack. He sat with his hat pulled still farther over his eyes, in a revery as deep as hers. Betty's name recalled the picture that was often before him in these long, idle days. He was seeing her as he had seen her the first time, now over a year ago, when he made his memorable visit to Kentucky. She was standing at the end of the long locust avenue, all in white, between the stately white pillars, with her godmother's arm about her, as they awaited his approach. Slim and girlish and winsomely sweet she was, and when he looked into her wistful brown eyes, he felt in some strange way that he had come to the end of all pilgrimage. The world held nothing beyond worth seeking for. After a long time the swirl of the water past them was lost in the sound of a wagon, rattling noisily down the hill and across the ford. Then a long line of cattle passed down the same road, accompanied by the hoarse calls of their drivers on horseback. Mary looked up. "Jack," she said hesitatingly, "did you ever hear this verse? "'For should he come not by the road, and come not by the hill, And come not by the far sea-way, yet come he surely will. Close all the roads of all the world--_Love's road is open still_.' "Do you believe that is true?" "Not for me," he answered in a hoarse voice, so bitter, so resentful that it startled her, coming as it did after long silence. He gripped the arms of his chair again, as if in pain too great to endure, and then burst out vehemently, "_Every_ road is closed to me now! It wouldn't be so hard if there was any prospect of the end coming soon, but I may have to hang on this way for years--just a living death! Caged in this helpless hulk of a body, a drag on every one and a misery to myself! _Heavens!_ If I could only end it all!" "Oh, Jack!" begged Mary, starting up, tears in her eyes. "Don't talk that way! You're not a drag on anybody! We couldn't live without you! You've been so brave--just like Aldebaran in the Jester's Sword. '_So bravely did he bear his lot, it seemed a kingly spirit dwelt among us!_' Don't you know that just having you with us is more to us than anything else in the whole world?" She was fairly wringing her hands in her distress over this revelation of the overwhelming bitterness of Jack's soul. For months he had been so cheerful, hiding his real feelings under a playfulness of manner, that it was a shock to her to find that his cheerfulness was only assumed. Because he "had met his hurt so bravely and made no sign" she, like the Jester, thought "the struggle had grown easier with time, and that he really felt the gladness that he feigned." Like the Jester, too, she was "at her wit's end for a reply." She could think of no word of comfort.