"I have thought," he said, "that it might be for a dead sweetheart he
mourned thus. There are men, you know, who love that way and never smile
again."

Short-sighted John, to have dreamed that he could forestall any
conjecture in the girl's heart!

"I have thought of that," she answered meekly; "it would seem as if it
could be nothing else. But, John, if she be really dead--" Carlen did
not finish the sentence; it was not necessary.

After a silence she spoke again: "Dear John, if you could be more
friendly with him I think it might be different. He is your age. Father
and mother are too old, and to me he will not speak." She sighed deeply
as she spoke these last words, and went on: "Of course, if it is for a
dead sweetheart that he is grieving thus, it is only natural that the
sight of women should be to him worse than the sight of men. But it is
very seldom, John, that a man will mourn his whole life for a
sweetheart; is it not, John? Why, men marry again, almost always, even
when it is a wife that they have lost; and a sweetheart is not so much
as a wife."

"I have heard," said the pitiless John, "that a man is quicker healed of
grief for a wife than for one he had thought to wed, but lost."

"You are a man," said Carlen. "You can tell if that would be true."

"No, I cannot," he answered, "for I have loved no woman but you, my
sister; and on my word I think I will be in no haste to, either. It
brings misery, it seems to me."