Moses was now within a day or two of the time of his sailing, and yet the distance between him and Mara seemed greater than ever. It is astonishing, when two people are once started on a wrong understanding with each other, how near they may live, how intimate they may be, how many things they may have in common, how many words they may speak, how closely they may seem to simulate intimacy, confidence, friendship, while yet there lies a gulf between them that neither crosses,--a reserve that neither explores. Like most shy girls, Mara became more shy the more really she understood the nature of her own feelings. The conversation with Sally had opened her eyes to the secret of her own heart, and she had a guilty feeling as if what she had discovered must be discovered by every one else. Yes, it was clear she loved Moses in a way that made him, she thought, more necessary to her happiness than she could ever be to his,--in a way that made it impossible to think of him as wholly and for life devoted to another, without a constant inner conflict. In vain had been all her little stratagems practiced upon herself the whole summer long, to prove to herself that she was glad that the choice had fallen upon Sally. She saw clearly enough now that she was not glad,--that there was no woman or girl living, however dear, who could come for life between him and her, without casting on her heart the shuddering sorrow of a dim eclipse. But now the truth was plain to herself, her whole force was directed toward the keeping of her secret. "I may suffer," she thought, "but I will have strength not to be silly and weak. Nobody shall know,--nobody shall dream it,--and in the long, long time that he is away, I shall have strength given me to overcome." So Mara put on her most cheerful and matter-of-fact kind of face, and plunged into the making of shirts and knitting of stockings, and talked of the coming voyage with such a total absence of any concern, that Moses began to think, after all, there could be no depth to her feelings, or that the deeper ones were all absorbed by some one else. "You really seem to enjoy the prospect of my going away," said he to her, one morning, as she was energetically busying herself with her preparations. "Well, of course; you know your career must begin. You must make your fortune; and it is pleasant to think how favorably everything is shaping for you." "One likes, however, to be a little regretted," said Moses, in a tone of pique. "A little regretted!" Mara's heart beat at these words, but her hypocrisy was well practiced. She put down the rebellious throb, and assuming a look of open, sisterly friendliness, said, quite naturally, "Why, we shall all miss you, of course." "Of course," said Moses,--"one would be glad to be missed some other way than _of course_."