s things into her ear. Meaningless?
They would have had no meaning to any who might have overheard; but
in Sally's heart, as it was meant they should be, they were charged
to the full--a cup beneath an ever-flowing fountain that brims
over--with such kindness and sympathy, as only a woman of Janet's
nature knows how to bestow to another and more gentle of her sex.

"Are you unhappy, Sally?" she asked, when, from the sounds of her
weeping, she had become more rational.

There was no answer.

"Are you, Sally?"

"Yes, frightfully--frightfully! Oh, I wish I hadn't got to go on."
It was rent from her heart, torn from her. All the spirit in her was
broken--crushed.

"But why, my darling? Why?" The thin arms held her tighter, warm lips
kissed her neck and shoulders. "Did he treat you badly--did he?"

"No!"

Janet gleaned much in the directness of that answer.

"Doesn't he care for you?"

She knew then that Sally cared for him.

"I don't know. How could I know?"

"He hasn't told you so, one way or the other?"

"No."

"But you think he doesn't?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Then what makes you so frightfully unhappy?"

"Because I'm never going to see him again."

The words were thick, choked almost in her throat.

"Oh, then he doesn't care," said Janet, softly.

"Yes, he does!" retorted Sally, wildly. "He does care, only--only--"

"Only what?"

"Only, he thinks too little of himself and--and too much of me. He
says he's not the sort of man I ought to have anything to do with"--the
words were rushing from her now--the torrent of earth that a landslip
sets free. "He never wants to marry, he hates the conventionalities
and the bonds of marriage like you say you do. And he asked me to
forgive him for thinking I was different--different--to what he had
expected. He said he ought never to have spoken to me in the first
instance, and that it was his fault, and he blamed himself entirely
for what had happened. Then he took me downstairs and put me in a
hansom and said good-bye. And--I'm not to see him--any more."

It was a pitiable little story, pitiably told; punctuated with tears
and choking breaths, with no heed for effect, nor attempt to make
it dramatic or sadder than it already was.

When she had finished, she lay there, crying quietly in Janet's arms,
all courage gone, all vitality sapped from her.

For a long time Janet waited, thinking it all through. Then she
whispered in Sally's ears.

"And you lo