they talked of surface things--current things: the service that
afternoon; some of the relatives who had been there; of old friends of
their father's. They kept away from the things their hearts were full
of.

Ruth had been glad to see Harriett; it touched her that Harriett should
come. But she was nervous with her; it was true that she was holding
back. That new assurance which had helped her through the last few days
had deserted her. Since Ted told her of Mildred that inner quiet from
which assurance drew was dispelled. She seemed struck back--bewildered,
baffled. Was it always to be that way? Every time she gained new ground
for her feet was she simply to be struck back to new dismays, new
incertitudes, new pain? Had she only deluded herself in that feeling
which had created the strengthening calm of the last few days?

After Ted left her she had continued to sit looking down the street
where Mildred had gone; just a little while before she had been looking
down that street as the way she herself had gone--the young girl giving
herself to love, facing all perils, daring all things for the love in
her heart. But now she was not thinking of the love in Mildred's heart;
she was thinking of the perils around her--the pity of it--the waiting
disaster. A little while before it had seemed there should always be a
place in the world for love, that things shutting love out were things
unreal. And now she longed to be one with Edith in getting Mildred back
to those very things--those unreal things that would safeguard. The
mockery of it beat her back, robbing her of the assurance that had been
her new strength. That was why Harriett found her strange, hard to talk
to. She wanted to cower back. She tried not to think of Mildred--to get
back to herself. But that she could not do; Mildred was there in
between--confusing, a mockery.

Harriett spoke of the house, how she supposed the best thing to do would
be to offer it for sale. Ruth looked startled and pained. "It's in bad
repair," Harriett said; "it's all run down. And then--there's really no
reason for keeping it."

And then they fell silent, thinking of years gone--years when the house
had not been all run down, when there was good reason for keeping it. To
let the house go to strangers seemed the final acknowledgment that all
those old things had passed away. It was a more intimate, a sympathetic
silence into which that feeling flowed--each thinking of old days in
that