Burke paused, and drew a long sigh. The doctor, puffing slowly at his cigar, sedulously kept his face the other way. The doctor, in his fancy, had already peopled the old room with a joyous Helen and Dorothy Elizabeth; and he feared, should he turn, that his face would sing a veritable Hallelujah Chorus--to the consequent amazement of his host. "Mother had trials of her own--lots of them," resumed Burke, after a moment's silence. "She even had some not unlike mine, I believe, for I think I could read between the lines that dad was more than a bit careless at times in manner and speech compared to the polished ways of the men of her family and social circle. But mother neither whined nor ran away. She just smiled and kept bravely straight ahead; and by and by they were under her feet, where they belonged--all those things that plagued. But I--I both whined and ran away--because I didn't like the way my wife ate her soup and spread her bread. They seem so small now--all those little ways I hated--small beside the big things that really counted. Do you know? I believe if more people would stop making the little things big and the big things little, there'd be a whole heap more happiness lying around in this old world! And Helen--poor Helen! She tried-- I know she tried. Lots of times, when I was reading in the diaries what mother said about dad,--how she mustn't let him get discouraged or downhearted; how she must tell him she just knew he was going to succeed,--lots of times then I'd think of Helen. Helen used to talk that way to me at the first! I wonder now if Helen kept a diary! And I can't help wondering if, supposing I had been a little less apt to notice the annoyances, and a little more inclined to see the good-- Bah! There, there, old man, forgive me," he broke off, with a shrug. "I didn't mean to run on like this. I really didn't--for all the world like the heart-to-heart advice to the lovelorn in a daily news column!" "I'm glad you did, Burke." The doctor's carefully controlled voice expressed cheery interest; that was all. "And now what do you propose to do?" "Do? How? What do you mean?" "Why, about--your wife, of course." "Nothing. There's nothing I can do. And that's the pity of it. She will go on, of course, to the end of her life, thinking me a cad and a coward." "But if you could be--er--brought together again," suggested the doctor in a voice so coldly impersonal it was almost indifferent. "Oh, yes, of course--perhaps. But that's not likely. I don't know where she is, remember; and she's not likely to come back of her own accord, after all this time. Besides, if she did, who's to guarantee that a few old diaries have changed me from an unbearably selfish brute to a livably patient and pleasant person to have about the house? Not but what I'd jump at the chance to try, but-- Well, we'll wait till I get it," he finished dryly, with a lightness that was plainly assumed.