Eugenia drew her friend's head down close beside her on her pillow. "Don't you see, dear Roma," she whispered, "how easy it is for me to be patient now that I am _so_ happy? There has not been any suffering too much for me; I am so selfish that I cannot even regret the anxiety you all went through about me, for think what it has brought me--as nothing else could have done--the full knowledge of Beauchamp's love. Never, since the dreadful day when first I doubted it, have I felt so assured of it as since this accident; never, since the passing away of my unreal, unreasonable dreams, has life looked so sweet to me as now, for though I know now that troubles, and disappointment, and failure _must_ come; though I dare say I shall often feel them bitterly and exaggeratedly, still I can never again feel hopeless or heartless--I can never feel that my life has no value or object." Roma kissed her silently, but did not speak. In a minute or two Eugenia spoke again-- "And if anything was wanting to make me still happier, to make me more grateful for this new return to life, it is what you have told me about yourself and Gerald," she said affectionately. "You are both so wise and good, you have both been so wise and good in what you have done for me, that I cannot tell you how happy I am in your happiness. Happiness actually in your grasp, with real root and foundation. You will not have to travel to it through vanished illusions as I did;" she sighed a little. "But I was hot-headed, and wilful, and selfish, and so I blinded myself. _You_ have always thought of others more than of yourself, Roma. You have been reasonable and patient all your life. You deserve to step straight into happiness." "No I don't, Eugenia. No one but I myself knows how little I deserve it," whispered Roma. But she said no more, and Eugenia accepted her words simply as the expression of her womanly humility. "Her engagement to Gerald has improved her in the only respect improvement in her--in my eyes at least--was possible," thought Eugenia. "It has softened her so wonderfully. No one could call her too self-confident or decided in manner now." But Roma in her own heart felt herself more changed than others suspected. "I prided myself on my high principle and superiority to low influences, jealousy and selfishness, and all such unworthy feelings. And I fancied, too, I had so much self-command, even in thought," she said to her lover, sadly, when, after Eugenia was fairly out of danger, she confessed to him the cruel storm of feeling, the anguish of self-reproach through which she had passed the day of the accident; "and see what I am in reality! Imagine the horrible, the repulsive selfishness of my feeling as I did at such a time, even for an instant."