ought him back to me dying. He lived only
about half an hour. We were curiously happy in that half hour--but it
was terrible afterwards." She fell into silence, her eyes very
sorrowful. Then she turned to me, with a gesture of her hands. "That's
all the story--and it's for you alone--because you're Austin."

I took her hand for a moment and pressed it. "For me alone--I thank
you."

"A thing like that seems to sweep across life like a hurricane, doesn't
it? Leveling everything, destroying such a lot!"

"You've come back to build it all up again."

She smiled for a moment. "So you've found that out? But I can't build it
all up. Some things I shall never try to build again. The track of the
hurricane will always be left."

"Time, time, time!" said I.

"Not even time. Life's not over--but it's life with a difference. I
don't complain. I accept that readily. I almost welcome it. I may cheat
the world, but I won't cheat myself. I'm not at my old trick of having
it both ways for myself, Austin."

She was determined to see clearly herself, but admitted no obligation to
allow outsiders a view. She would not minimize the thing for herself,
but was quite ready to induce the rest of the world to ignore it. It was
her affair. To her the difference was made, over her life the hurricane
had swept.

"I have no kith or kin; nobody is bound to me. The love of my friends is
free--free to withhold, free to give. I did it for myself, open-eyed.
There is nobody who has a right to harbor it against me."

And she meant that there never should be? It sounded like that.

"As a private offense against him, or her, I mean--as a personal
offense. Of course they've a right to their opinions--and with their
opinions I expect I should agree."

She would agree with the opinions, but did not feel bound to furnish
material for them. She could hardly be blamed there. The candle and the
white sheet--in open congregation--have fallen into such general disuse
that Jenny could not be asked to revive them. So far she might be
excused--people do not expect confessions. But she seemed to underrate
what she termed "opinions" even though, as opinions, she thought that
she would agree with them. On this subject neither Alison nor Mrs. Jepps
would talk of "opinions"; they would use other words. When she said that
there was nobody who had a right to harbor the affair against her, it
was easy to understand her meaning; but her meaning did not exhaust the