"Yes; but sorrow is not child's-play, and pain and death are not child's-play. It is only a question of working at it hard enough, old woman. You are bound to become interested in it in time, and that is the only way to get rid of yourself;--though it is strange teaching, perhaps, to come from self-centred me. They say we women of this generation have sacrificed a good deal of our birthright; don't let us throw away the grand compensation, the power to light our candles when the sun goes down. Do you remember Werther's description of the country lass whose sweetheart forsakes her, taking with him all the interest in her life? We at least have other interests, Lucy, and we can, if we try hard enough, turn the key on the suite of enchanted rooms, and live in the rest of the house." "The rest of my house is a poky hole!" Mona sighed sympathetically. "No matter," she said resolutely; "we must just set to work, and make it something better than a poky hole." Further conversation was prevented for the time by the entrance of the luncheon-tray. "Well, is it to be Richmond?" said Mona, when the meal was over. Lucy blushed. "I have a great mind to go to hospital, after all," she said. "I don't think it is quite so hot as it was." "No, I think there is a suspicion of a breeze. _Au revoir_! Come back soon." I wish I could honestly say that Mona profited as much by Lucy's example as Lucy had by Mona's preaching; but I am forced to record that she did not open a book, nor return to her little laboratory, for the rest of the day. For a long time she sat in her rocking-chair with a frown on her brow. "I wonder if he has only been playing with her," she said--"the cad!" Then another thought crossed the outskirts of her mind. At first it scarcely entered the limits of her consciousness; but, like the black dog in _Faust_, it went on and on, in ominous, ever-narrowing circles, and she was forced to recognise that she must grapple with it sooner or later. Then she put up her hands to cover her face, although there was no one there to see, and the question sounded in her very ears--"What if _he_ has only been playing with _me_?" What then, Mona? Lock the door on the suite of enchanted rooms, and live in the rest of the house! But she never thought of her advice to Lucy. She threw herself on the couch, and lay there for a little while in an agony of shame. After all her lofty utterances, had she given herself away to a man who had not even asked for her? Why had he not spoken just one word, to save her from this torture? By some curious chain of associations the words flashed into her mind-- "Denn, was man schwarz auf weiss besitzt, Kann man getrost nach Hause tragen." She laughed a little breathlessly, and drew her hand across her damp forehead. "I am a fool and a coward," she said; "I will ask Dr Alice Bateson to give me a tonic. What do mere words matter, after all, between people like him and me?"