e, surely there was a balance of
happiness--surely order did prevail. Nor were the deaths of young people
really the saddest things in life--they were saved so much; they kept
so much. The dead--she called to mind those who had died early,
accidentally--were beautiful; she often dreamt of the dead. And in
time Terence himself would come to feel--She got up and began to wander
restlessly about the room.

For an old woman of her age she was very restless, and for one of her
clear, quick mind she was unusually perplexed. She could not settle to
anything, so that she was relieved when the door opened. She went up
to her husband, took him in her arms, and kissed him with unusual
intensity, and then as they sat down together she began to pat him and
question him as if he were a baby, an old, tired, querulous baby. She
did not tell him about Miss Vinrace's death, for that would only disturb
him, and he was put out already. She tried to discover why he was
uneasy. Politics again? What were those horrid people doing? She spent
the whole morning in discussing politics with her husband, and by
degrees she became deeply interested in what they were saying. But every
now and then what she was saying seemed to her oddly empty of meaning.

At luncheon it was remarked by several people that the visitors at the
hotel were beginning to leave; there were fewer every day. There were
only forty people at luncheon, instead of the sixty that there had been.
So old Mrs. Paley computed, gazing about her with her faded eyes, as
she took her seat at her own table in the window. Her party generally
consisted of Mr. Perrott as well as Arthur and Susan, and to-day Evelyn
was lunching with them also.

She was unusually subdued. Having noticed that her eyes were red, and
guessing the reason, the others took pains to keep up an elaborate
conversation between themselves. She suffered it to go on for a
few minutes, leaning both elbows on the table, and leaving her soup
untouched, when she exclaimed suddenly, "I don't know how you feel, but
I can simply think of nothing else!"

The gentlemen murmured sympathetically, and looked grave.

Susan replied, "Yes--isn't it perfectly awful? When you think what
a nice girl she was--only just engaged, and this need never have
happened--it seems too tragic." She looked at Arthur as though he might
be able to help her with something more suitable.

"Hard lines," said Arthur briefly. "But it was a foolish thing t