c.

The eyes held her strangely. They were deep and dark and burning with
secret fires. Hunger and longing were in their depths, and yet there was
a certain exaltation, as of hope persisting against the knowledge of
defeat.

Rosemary's terror gradually vanished. She felt an all-pervading
calmness, a sense of acceptance, of fulfilment.

[Sidenote: Not of One's Own Choice]

For a long time she stood there, transfixed by the eyes that never for
an instant wavered from hers. They searched her inmost soul; they saw
all things past and to come. They questioned her, challenged her, urged
something upon her, and yet she was not afraid.

At last, with dry lips, she spoke. "Who are you?" She did not recognise
the sound of her own voice.

"The Lord of Life," the figure answered, in low, deep tones that
vibrated through the empty rooms like the swept strings of a harp.

"And this is--?"

"The House of the Broken Heart. I live here."

"Why?" she asked.

"Not of my own choice. Why have you come?"

"Not of my own choice," she repeated, dully. "I came because I had to."

"They all do. That is why I myself am here."

"Do--do many come?"

"Yes."

Rosemary looked back over her shoulder, then lifted her eyes to those of
the grey figure. "Then it is strange," she said, "that I am here alone."

"You are not alone. These rooms are full, but no one sees another in
the House of the Broken Heart. Each one is absorbed in his own grief to
the exclusion of all else. Only I may see them, with bowed heads, pacing
to and fro.

[Sidenote: Selfish Grief]

"On the stairway," he went on, "is a young mother who has lost her
child. She goes up and down endlessly, thinking first she hears it
crying for her in the room above, and then in the room below. Her
husband sits at the foot of the stairs with his face hidden in his
hands, but she has no thought for him. He has lost wife and child too."

"Poor man!" said Rosemary, softly. "Poor woman!"

"Yonder is a grey-haired woman, reaping the bitterness that she has
sown. There are a husband and wife who have always been jealous of one
another, and will be, until the end of time. There is a girl who has
trusted and been betrayed, but she will go out again when her courage
comes back. Just behind you is a woman who has estranged her husband
from his family and has found his heart closed to her in the hour of her
greatest need. Coming toward you is a man who was cruel to his wife, and
never