while I was in outer darkness. And then--by
degrees, after little Dinah came back to me--I began to find that after
all there were other links. Helping her in her trouble helped me to bear
my own. And I came to see that ministering to a need outside one's own is
the surest means of finding comfort in sorrow for oneself. I have been
very selfish Stumpy. I have been gradually waking to that fact for a long
while. I used to immerse myself in those letters to try and get the
feeling of his dear presence. Very, very often I didn't succeed. And I
know now that it was because I was forcing myself to look back and not
forward. I think material things are apt to make one do that. But when
material things are taken quite away, then one is forced upon the
spiritual. And that is what has happened to me. No one can take anything
from me now because what I possess is laid up in store for me. I am
moving forward towards it every day."

She ceased to speak, and again for the space of seconds the silence fell.

Scott broke it, speaking slowly, as if not wholly certain of the wisdom
of speech. "I did not know," he said, "that you had lost those letters."

Her face contracted momentarily with the memory of a past pain. "Eustace
destroyed them," she stated simply.

His brows drew sharply together. "Isabel! Do you mean that?"

She pressed his hand. "Yes, dear. I knew you would feel it badly so I
didn't tell you before. He acted for the best. I see that quite clearly
now. And--in a sense--the best has come of it."

Scott got to his feet with the gesture of a man who can barely restrain
himself. "He did--that?" he said.

She reached up a soothing hand. "My dear, it doesn't matter now. Don't be
angry with him. I know that he meant well."

Scott's eyes looked down into hers, intensely bright, burningly alive.
"No wonder," he said, breathing deeply, "that you never want to see him
again!"

"No, Stumpy; that is not so." Gently she made answer; her hand held his
almost pleadingly. "For a long time I felt like that, it is true. But now
it is all over. There is no bitterness left in my heart at all. We have
grown away from each other, he and I. But we were very close friends
once, and because of that I would give much--oh, very much--to be friends
with him again. It was in a very great measure my selfishness that came
between us, my pride too. I had influence with him, Stumpy, and I didn't
try to use it. I simply threw him off because he d