Late that afternoon Greta stole hatless through the lilac bushes; she looked tired after her night journey, and sat idly on a chair in the speckled shadow of a lime-tree. 'It is not like home,' she thought; 'I am unhappy. Even the birds are silent, but perhaps that is because it is so hot. I have never been sad like this—for it is not fancy that I am sad this time, as it is sometimes. It is in my heart like the sound the wind makes through a wood, it feels quite empty in my heart. If it is always like this to be unhappy, then I am sorry for all the unhappy things in the world; I am sorrier than I ever was before.' A shadow fell on the grass, she raised her eyes, and saw Dawney. “Dr. Edmund!” she whispered. Dawney turned to her; a heavy furrow showed between his brows. His eyes, always rather close together, stared painfully. “Dr. Edmund,” Greta whispered, “is it true?” He took her hand, and spread his own palm over it. “Perhaps,” he said; “perhaps not. We must hope.” Greta looked up, awed. “They say he is dying.” “We have sent for the best man in Vienna.” Greta shook her head. “But you are clever, Dr. Edmund; and you are afraid.” “He is brave,” said Dawney; “we must all be brave, you know. You too!” “Brave?” repeated Greta; “what is it to be brave? If it is not to cry and make a fuss—that I can do. But if it is not to be sad in here,” she touched her breast, “that I cannot do, and it shall not be any good for me to try.” “To be brave is to hope; don't give up hope, dear.” “No,” said Greta, tracing the pattern of the sunlight on her skirt. “But I think that when we hope, we are not brave, because we are expecting something for ourselves. Chris says that hope is prayer, and if it is prayer, then all the time we are hoping, we are asking for something, and it is not brave to ask for things.” A smile curved Dawney's mouth. “Go on, Philosopher!” he said. “Be brave in your own way, it will be just as good as anybody else's.” “What are you going to do to be brave, Dr. Edmund?” “I? Fight! If only we had five years off his life!” Greta watched him as he walked away. “I shall never be brave,” she mourned; “I shall always be wanting to be happy.” And, kneeling down, she began to disentangle a fly, imprisoned in a cobweb. A plant of hemlock had sprung up in the long grass by her feet. Greta thought, dismayed: 'There are weeds!' It seemed but another sign of the death of joy. 'But it's very beautiful,' she thought, 'the blossoms are like stars. I am not going to pull it up. I will leave it; perhaps it will spread all through the garden; and if it does I do not care, for now things are not like they used to be and I do not, think they ever shall be again.' XXVII The days went by; those long, hot days, when the heat haze swims up about ten of the forenoon, and, as the sun sinks level with the mountains, melts into golden ether which sets the world quivering with sparkles.