e a difference in life to Chatty; but she had
not thought of this in any but a hopeful and cheerful way. She was more
startled now than she dared say. Had there been any explanation between
them which she had not been told of? Was there any obstacle she did not
know? Her mind was thrown into great bewilderment, too great to permit
of any exercise of her judgment suddenly upon the little mystery--if
mystery there was.

"I did not mean to enter into such deep questions," she said, in a tone
which she felt to be apologetic. "I meant only a little society to keep
us going. Though we did not go out very much in London, still there was
just enough to make the blank more evident if we see nobody here."

Chatty's heart protested against this view: for her part she would have
liked that life which had lasted three weeks to remain as it was, unlike
anything else in her experience, a thing which was over, and could return
no more. Had she not been saying to herself that all that remained to her
was the Afterwards, the long gray twilight upon which no other sun would
rise? In her lack of imagination, the only imagination she had known
became more absolute than any reality, a thing which once left behind
would never be renewed again. She felt a certain scorn of the attempt to
make feeble imitations of it, or even to make up for that light which
never was on sea or shore, by any little artificial illuminations. A
sort of gentle fury, a wild passion of resistance, rose within her at
the thought of making up for it. She did not wish to make up for it: the
blank could not be made less evident whatever any one might do or say.
But all this Chatty shut up in her own heart. She made no reply, but
bent her head more and more over her muslin work, and worked faster and
faster, with the tears collecting, which she never would consent to
shed, hot and salt behind her eyes.

Mrs. Warrender was silent too. She was confounded by the new phase
of feeling, imperfectly revealed to her, and filled with wonder, and
self-reproach, and sympathy. Had she been to blame to leave her child
exposed to an influence which had proved too much for her peace of
mind?--that was the well-worn conventional phrase, and it was the only
one that seemed to answer the occasion, too much for her peace of mind!
The mother, casting stealthy glances at her daughter, so sedulously,
nervously busy, could only grope at a comprehension of what was in
Chatty's mind. She thought