Not know it! There was a little quiver about Dolly's mouth which might have told a tale to the woman who had lived so long, if her understanding of her niece's nature had been as thorough as that possessed by Mrs. Werner. Not know it! Had she lain awake through the long, long winter nights, and the scarcely less dreary spring mornings, reconciling herself to the idea of that long, lonely journey, thinking thoughts that lay between herself and her God, without coming to a full comprehension of the fact that not even sorrow is more solemn and awful than mortal sickness. She knew all about it. "But I never could bear the sight of sad faces," she said to Mrs. Werner, "and if you frighten aunt and make Archie think there is something very much amiss with me, you will render all our lives miserable." Mrs. Werner sighed. It was against her preconceived ideas that a woman should smile and laugh and be still the very sunshine of her home all the time a fatal disease was working its will upon her, and yet she felt in her heart Dolly's was the soundest philosophy, if only she could be induced to take care of herself to lengthen out the time before---- No, she could not even mentally finish the sentence. If Dolly would not make an effort to save her own life, some one should fight against death in her behalf. "It is wrong of you," she said, "knowing how precious you are to us all; you should use every effort to get well again. You ought to have first-rate advice. You ought to have change of air. You ought to have everything nourishing and tempting in the way of food. I shall take charge of you myself now. You belong to me as much as to your husband. I am sure no man ever loved a woman more than I have loved you." "Come here, Lenny," was the answer. "Come close beside me, dear--here in the sunshine, and let us settle all this at once, never to speak of it again. For myself, for my own very individual self's sake," she went on, taking Mrs. Werner's hand in hers, and stroking it absently, "I am not certain that if I could, I should care to live, unless, indeed, I were able to find some waters of Lethe in which I might plunge and forget all the misery, all the humiliation of the past. There are some people who cannot forget. I am one of them. There are some who cannot remember and be quite happy; that is my case. There are some who think life not much worth having unless they can be very happy in it; I fear I hold some such heretical doctrine." She stopped and kissed Mrs. Werner, smiling all the time the bright smile of old. "So much for myself," she said, "but for Archie's sake, for Lenore's, for yours, not least for the sake of my poor aunt who has grown so to love me, just when it would have been well for her to have done nothing of the kind, I would stay if I could--I would spend money and time and thought, to get strong again.