He could not have left her of his own will! If he did not come, it would be because he was dead—and then he could never know, never, never know. There would be nothing left to her but the place where he had been. She looked at the walls and the homely furnishings as one seeing them for the first time bare forever of the beloved presence, and fell on her knees, and went on them around the room, dragging herself from chair to sofa, from sofa to bed,—these were the Stations of the Cross that she was making,—with sobs and cries, low and inarticulate, yet carrying with them the awful anguish of a heart laid bare before the Almighty. Here his dear hand had rested, while he thought of her; on this table—here—and here—and here his head had lain. Her tears ceased; she buried her face in the pillow. She must go after him, wherever he was, in this world or another. For he was her husband—where he was she must be, either in body or in spirit. The telephone-bell rang, and Dosia answered it, the voice at the other end inquiring for Mr. Girard, cautiously, it seemed; withholding information from any other. The doctor rang up, in response to an earlier call, with directions for Redge. Hardly had the receiver been laid down when the door-bell clanged. This was to be a night of the ringing of bells! CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO This time, of course, the visitor was Mrs. Snow. In any exigency, any mind- and body-absorbing event of life, the inopportune presence of Mrs. Snow was inexorably to be counted on, though it came always as one of those exasperating recurrences which bring with them a ridiculously fresh irritation each time. It seemed to be the one extra thing you couldn’t stand; in either trouble or joy she affected you like a clinging, ankle-flapping mackintosh on a rainy day. She bowed now to Dosia with a patronizing dignity, pointed by the plaintive warmth of the greeting to Lois, who had come hurrying down-stairs out of those passion-depths of darkness so that Mrs. Snow wouldn’t suspect anything. She had an uncanny faculty of divining just what you didn’t want her to. Once before Lois had suspended tragedy for Mrs. Snow. The same things happen to us over and over again daily in our crowded yet restricted lives—it is we who change in our meeting with them. We have our great passions, our great joys, our heartbreaks, no matter how small our environment. “How do you do, my dear? Mr. Girard has just told me that he was going to stay here to-night, in Mr. Alexander’s absence. He said little Redge was threatened with the croup. Now, if I had only known that Mr. Alexander was away, _I_ could have come and stayed with you!” “Oh, that wasn’t at all necessary,” said Lois hastily. “Thank you very much. Do sit down, won’t you, Mrs. Snow?”