far off
from what they were both thinking about that words only seemed to echo
from a distance. "There have to be changes," she said at last, growing
afraid of the pause lest it should imply too much.

"Well, Miss Ethel always hated change," said Laura. Then her
expression began to alter curiously under Caroline's eyes--becoming
charged, as it were, with an inner radiance that shone right through
the outer dullness, or embarrassment, or sadness--whatever there might
be. "At any rate, she has gone where things are certain."

Caroline's heart beat fast with the sudden impact of discovery. Laura,
too, then! They were both just like people hanging on to a spar in a
rough sea and hoping to be thrown on shore at last. That was what life
was, even when you were going to be married to the man of your choice.
But the expression of Laura's face--or was it that thought of a rough
sea?--had in some way brought back that time in the pay-box after Miss
Ethel's death, when Caroline herself had looked up at the blue sky
breaking through the grey. Once more she tried to grope across the
barrier between the seen and the unseen.

What was there after all? Then a line of one of those Sunday-school
hymns floated across her mind--"Oh, Thou that changest not"--And the
thought of Miss Ethel on the stairs with that heavy pail in her hand.

But the thoughts passed so quickly that Laura had not noticed the
pause. "I like to fancy Miss Ethel in a place where things don't
change. It makes you think, when somebody you know goes----" And
Caroline saw Laura felt the same; was drawn more closely in touch with
this eternity to which Miss Ethel had just gone over.

Then a man over in the field shouted loudly to his mate. Both girls
glanced, half startled, in that direction, and when they looked at each
other again the mental atmosphere had quite altered.

"Well, I must be going," said Laura.

But it was still so evident she had left something unsaid, that
Caroline remained half-consciously expectant in the doorway. And a few
steps down the drive Laura did suddenly stop short, pause a moment and
return with quick, nervous steps. "Oh, by the way, I suppose you won't
know that my engagement with Mr. Wilson is broken off?"

For a moment--an age--Caroline's throat seemed to dry up, and she felt
like a person in a nightmare struggling to make a sound which will not
come. Then, out of all the turmoil of questions, fears, emotions that
L