hat it
might mean to possess a mother.

"Theo and I know about it all," Honor explained at length; and Quita
nodded. The fact that she was crying her heart out on the shoulder of
her detested rival made the whole incident dreamlike to the verge of
stupefaction: and it was Honor who spoke again.

"We'll just wait here together till they come back; and shut--the worst
out of our thoughts. You have splendid courage, my dear, and I think I
love nothing in the world more than courage. Sit down with me now on
this pile of fir-needles. It looks a little less saturated than the
rest of the world."

Still keeping an arm round her, she drew her down unresisting to her
side: and Quita, choking back the tears that had probably saved her
brain from after-effects of the shock, looked with awakened interest at
her new-found friend.

"I don't deserve that you should be so good to me," she said, humour
flashing through her pain like a watery sunbeam on a day of mist. "I
have hated you, with all my heart, ever since I first saw you!"

At which confession Honor pressed her closer. "Bless you for telling
me!--I take it simply as the measure of--your love for him."

"_Mon Dieu_, no! Not now," she answered very low.

"I am glad of that too. For I want very much to be good friends with
Captain Lenox's wife."

On the last word a slow colour crept back into Quita's cheeks.

"You mustn't speak of it--yet, to any one else. There are
difficulties--big difficulties . . ."

"I know;--but you may trust him to conquer them. One feels in him the
sort of force that moves mountains."

Again Quita nodded. "You seem to know everything," she added, a last
spark flickering in the ashes of her jealousy. "And I suppose you
blame _me_ for it all."

"I am too ignorant of the facts to blame either of you. I only know
that even if he wronged you in any way, he has been more than
sufficiently punished."

At that Quita's lips quivered, and the storm of her grief broke out
afresh: while the greater storm overhead, having accomplished its evil
work, rolled rapidly northward, with the colossal unconcern of a giant
who crushes a beetle in his path; and the first stupendous downrush of
water subsided into a melancholy drizzle of rain.

In that endless hour of looking and waiting for those who seemed as if
they had been blotted out for all time, Quita learned once and for all
what manner of woman Honor Desmond was; learnt also something of t