When her moment had gone, she rose and walked down the aisle. It was very hard to go away tonight. There had been all the time the fear that what happened the night before would happen again--that she would not see Howie, after all. That made her so tense that she was exhausted now. And then "munitions"--and "scrap-heap." Perhaps it was because of all this that tonight her moment had been so brief. Only for an instant Howie's smile had brought her into life. It was gone now. It had passed. She was so worn that when, at the door, her brother Tom stepped up to her she was not much surprised or even angry. Tom had no business to be following her about. She had told him that she would have to manage it her own way--that he would have to let her alone. Now here he was again--to trouble her, to talk to her about being brave and sane--when he didn't _know_--when he didn't have any idea what he was talking about! But it didn't matter--not tonight. Let him do things--get the tickets--and all that. Even let him talk to her. That didn't matter either. But he talked very little. He seemed to think there was something wrong with her. He looked at her and said, "O, Laura!" reproachfully, but distressed. "I thought you weren't going to do this any more, Laura," he said gently, after they had walked a little way. "How did you know I was here?" she asked listlessly. "They sent me word you had left home. I traced you." "I don't see why you should trace me," she said, but not as if it mattered. "O, Laura!" he said again. "Well, I must say I don't think Mrs. Edmunds was much of a friend!" It was Mrs. Edmunds who had told Laura that there was this glimpse of her husband in "The Cross of Diamonds." She had hesitated about telling her, but had finally said it was so characteristic and beautiful a moment she felt Laura should see it. From the first Tom had opposed her seeing it, saying it would be nothing but torture to her. Torture it was, but it was as if that torture were all there was left of life. Tonight everything was as a world of shadows. She knew that her brother was taking her to his home instead of back to her own. He had wanted to do this before, but she had refused. There was nothing in her now that could refuse. She went with him as if she were merely moving in a picture and had no power of her own to get out of it. And that was the way it was through the next few weeks. Tom and his wife would talk to her about trying to interest herself in life. She made no resistance, she had no argument against this; but she had no power to do it. They didn't know--they didn't know how it had been with her and Howie.