For seven nights, no matter which way I willed my feet to go, they have led me past Jane’s kitchen door. Alone in the soft spring darkness, in the soft wet darkness some of the nights, I have faced my life. I have looked in that open door till the bitterness and the loneliness have gone out of me. Last night when her man’s arms went about her as she dished their supper, when her child’s arms reached up to her, I looked in, not in bitterness, not in pity of self, not in aching loneliness, but in love. It is wonderful when you can look in on untidy Janes at their kitchen tasks and feel close to their happiness. Life’s supremest gift is hers. Almost, it was mine. Not a makeshift, not a compromise—life’s supremest gift. Across sunlit waves a boat like a white-winged gull set sail for me. Almost, it reached me. How my heart went out to that white drifting boat of prophecy! How the waves sang! Bobby’s _loved one_. Sunlit waves and flashing white-winged boat are gone. But the singing soul of those words shall keep my heart young. It shall be tender to the young and happy, pitiful to the old and alone, compassionate to all untouched by love, whether they scoff in unbelief or whether they would lay down their lives for love. Oh, how tired I am! And how heavy the silence is here in the bridelike, white loveliness of my May garden! And how this silence differs from its fall silences! The silence holds resignation in the fall—this is tense with expectancy. The snowballs that have come so late this year are swaying, they seem to be beckoning to some one, but there is no wind. And the lilies of the valley, late, too—my flower children delayed their blooming till I came home—are swaying; they are pouring out their fragrance—it is poignantly, deliciously sweet, but I feel no wind. Something is the matter with this garden and with me. I am quivering all over as if with intense excitement. The party has tired me out. Just then, when John opened the gate, I almost leaped from this bench. The letters John has brought me are from Mr. Elliott and Dicky. I open Mr. Elliott’s first—a woman always opens a man’s letter first. It is a fine, manly letter, and it ends: “You said you once knew Bob Haralson. He has been at death’s door—struck down without a moment’s warning—appendicitis—a knife quick or death operation. It was the day you came down from Boston. I remember date because you came down from Boston. Haralson is creeping about. I saw him yesterday.” The lines of mountains dance dizzily. I shut my eyes—shut out the spring glory, my fingers making a pressing blackness against my eyeballs. I try to imagine the world this spring day with Bobby gone out of it. Then my heart leaps madly. It is explained—_explained_.