"Yet as I watched the merriment with a most bitter scorn of my suffering, and a fancy how Philip might well paint a love dancing on a coffin for his next picture, I yet felt glad to know that I had not been the one who was false to that dreadful night of vows and prayers. If he had died, _I_ would have been faithful. My need of love would have been as great; I might have longed for protection, for even bread; but I would have had no other husband. I was glad, for it is well to be faithful. A new love may bring new sweetness and content, but constancy has its own sweet rewards, and the widowed heart would seek no strange hand if it did but know what remains to those who are true. "This was years ago as you count time; but until to-night I have lingered around my home--my old home that was changed and beautified for another mistress. I have nothing to tell you of their life, that does not seem to men to be pleasant. They have been prosperous. They have known many joys and few sorrows. They have travelled. He is famous and he is also rich. Is that not enough? And Nellie, too, has been content. Esther has not allowed the child to miss me; and although other children claim equal love from her father, they have never robbed her. Is not this best? your questioning eyes ask me. Perhaps it is. I have often taken my jealous heart to task; and remembering how solitary Philip's home would have been, how much he has gained in these new loves, I have tried to say it _was_ the best. But he was not bound to me only for life--for my life. Our love reached out toward the other world and swore eternal fidelity, and I--_I_ have not been freed from him.