. "I can't bear myself without you. I must have you
near me. Why should you leave me?"

So Bernardine lingered. She tried to read a book which lay on the table.
She counted the lines and dots on the wall-paper. She thought about the
dead man; and about the living woman. She had pitied him; but when she
looked at the stricken face of his wife, Bernardine's whole heart rose
up in pity for her. Remorse would come, although it might not remain
long. The soul would see itself face to face for one brief moment; and
then forget its own likeness.

But for the moment--what a weight of suffering, what a whole century of
agony!

Bernardine grew very tender for Mrs. Reffold: she bent over the sofa,
and fondled the beautiful face.

"Mrs. Reffold" . . . she whispered.

That was all she said: but it was enough.

Mrs. Reffold burst into an agony of tears.

"Oh, Miss Holme," she sobbed, "and I was not even kind to him! And now
it is too late. How can I ever bear myself?"

And then it was that the soul knew its own remorse.

CHAPTER XVII.

A RETURN TO OLD PASTURES.

SHE had left him alone and neglected for whole hours when he was alive.
And now when he was dead, and it probably mattered little to him where
he was laid, it was some time before she could, make up her mind to
leave him in the lonely little Petershof cemetery.

"It will be so dreary for him there," she said to the Doctor.

"Not so dreary as you made it for him here," thought the Doctor.

But he did not say that: he just urged her quietly to have her husband
buried in Petershof; and she yielded.

So they laid him to rest in the dreary cemetery.

Bernardine went to the funeral, much against the Disagreeable Man's wish.

"You are looking like a ghost yourself," he said to her. "Come out with
me into the country instead."

But she shook her head.

"Another day," she said. "And Mrs. Reffold wants me. I can't leave her
alone, for she is so miserable."

The Disagreeable Man shrugged his shoulders, and went of by himself.

Mrs. Reffold clung very much to Bernardine those last days before she
left Petershof. She had decided to go to Wiesbaden, where she had
relations; and she invited Bernardine to go with her: it was more than
that, she almost begged her. Bernardine refused.

"I have been from England nearly five months," she said, "and my money
is coming to an end. I must go back and work."

"Then come away with me as my companion," Mrs. Reffold sug