Charmion came to my room in her white dressing-gown, with her long hair hanging plaited down her back. Remembering the icy hands I had held in mine, I had lit the gas fire, and she cowered gratefully over its warmth. "Kind of you, dear! Warmth is comforting. Well, Evelyn, so the time has come. I have waited, screwing up my courage; but the hour has been decided for us." "Not unless you choose," I cried hastily. "I would far rather never hear--" She checked me with a wan smile. "I _do_ choose. When it is over, it will be a relief. I want you to know. You will understand better, and I shall not pain you so much, dear, kind Evelyn, by my harsh ways. So all this time you have believed that I was a happy widow?" The expression jarred. She saw the shrinking in my eyes, and smiled again, in the same wan, hopeless fashion. "Oh, I _mean_ it. Death comes like a sword, but in the end it is merciful, for it brings peace. The one who is left suffers many pangs, but in time--in time, learns to be thankful for all that the beloved is spared. It is the living troubles which sear the heart. I have envied the widows who could look up and say, `It is well with him. We shall meet again.' With me it has been all bitterness, all rebellion." I sat silent, not daring to interrupt, and after a moment's pause she began again, speaking in a still, level tone, with hardly any variety of expression. "I am an orphan like you, Evelyn. Both my parents died before I was fourteen, and I was sent over to America to live with a grandmother aunt. I was an heiress, unfortunately--you know my views about riches!--and by my father's will I came into my money at eighteen. My aunt was a wise woman, and even to her intimate friends she never gave a hint of my fortune. She was a wealthy woman herself, and had no daughter, only one son, so it seemed natural that she should give me a good time, dress me prettily, and take me about. She had a horror of fortune-hunters, and wanted me to be loved for myself, and be as happily married as she had been before me. When I came out she brought me over to London for a season, and I was presented; but that was my one and only visit to England in fifteen years. I was glad to go back to New York, for my real friends were there. We had grown up together, and had the associations of years. In England I had only acquaintances. Well! So it went on, the happiest of lives, till I was twenty-four. Several men wanted to marry me, but I never met anyone whom it was possible to think of as a husband until--" "Your husband?"