"Did Arthur mention me?" she asked, and Grace knew then that she
was crying.

Still it was better not to withhold the truth, and bending over
her she answered,

"No, Edith, he did not. I believe he is really striving to do
right."

"And he will live with Nina if she gets well?" came next from the
depths of the pillows where Edith lay half smothered.

"Perhaps so. Would you not like to have him?" Grace asked.

"Ye-e-e-s. I sup-pose so. Oh, I don't know what I like. I don't
know anything except that I wish I was dead," and the silent
weeping became a passionate sobbing as Edith shrank further from
Grace, plunging deeper and deeper among her pillows until she was
nearly hidden from view.

Grace could not comfort her; there was no comfort as she saw, and
as Edith refused to answer any of her questions upon indifferent
topics, she ere long took her leave, and Edith was left alone. She
had reversed her decision while Grace was sitting there, and the
news from Florida was the immediate cause. She should marry
Richard now, and her whole body shook with the violence of her
emotions; but as the fiercest storm will in time expend its fury,
so she grew still at last, though it was rather the stillness of
despair than any healthful, quieting influence stealing over her.
She hated herself because she could not feel an overwhelming joy