y know about God or where you go when you are dead? Nothing, no more
than you or I!"

His voice was harsh and bitter then, but the next instant it was kind.
With his arm about her he was saying:

"Don't, Ethel--please--don't take it like that! I was a brute! I won't
again! I'll keep it inside! I'm sorry, dear!"

"Oh, Joe," she whispered, "if we only knew!"

So these two faced eternity.

But only at moments. They looked away. For she saw how good it was for
Joe to have the distractions that he craved; and so on their long walks
at night she took him to the noisy streets, or into the movies, where
his mind appeared to stop and find some rest. Best of all, she
discovered, was to go with him in the small car which he used for his
business. Driving this car through crowded streets amid a clamour and
blare of horns and shouts and peals of laughter, the look on Joe's face
made Ethel see how this dulled his grief, how he lost himself and his
questionings and became a mere part of the town. What a glamourous
seething town! There was something terrific to her in its laugh. If
you stopped to think and ask yourself, "What are we all doing here?" how
soon it jostled you back into line!

So passed another fortnight. Then Joe grew quieter, and with relief she
saw he was ready to stay home. She herself felt tired and relaxed; and
it was good to sit at home on these December evenings and feel that both
had partly emerged from the sea of doubts in which they had been
plunged. He had come out of it, she soon learned, with an image of his
wife that even Ethel vaguely felt was swiftly becoming so ideal as to
have little or no resemblance to the woman who had died. But eagerly
she helped him in this building of Amy's memory. She dwelt upon Amy's
appealing side, her lovable moods, her beauty and dash, her unerring
instinct for pretty things, her unselfishness, her anxious planning for
Ethel's good.

And all this fitted in so well with the picture Joe was making of the
wife who had been so true to him, who had never had a thought or a wish
for anything but his career. How cheerfully she had given up all sorts
of pleasures, trips abroad, a house in the country, summer vacations.
Year after year she had spent the hot months almost wholly in town
because he could not afford to leave, although she herself had had many
chances to go to friends in the mountains or up along the seashore.
Instead she had stayed with him in town; and in the eve