"Have we any right to ask that?" she whispered. "No one on this side can
ever know."

"Oh, I think you are wrong," Molly said. "We can't be meant to grope in
outer darkness."

Mrs. Langdale whispered something about "those the gods love." She was
too broken-down herself to be able to offer any solid comfort.

After a painful silence she got up and busied herself with reviving
Molly's fire, which had almost gone out. She felt as she had felt only
once before in her life, and that had been ten years previously, when
her only child had died suddenly. She wished passionately that she were
back in Calcutta with her husband. She hated the bleak English winter,
the cruel English seas.

Molly lay quite still for some time, her young face drawn and stricken.

At length she got up and went to the window. It was a morning of bleak
winds and shifting clouds. The sea was just visible, very far and dim
and grey. She stood a long while gazing stonily out.

"Can I get you anything, darling?" said Mrs. Langdale's voice softly
behind her.

"No, thank you," the girl said, without turning. "Please leave me;
that's all!"

And Mrs. Langdale crept away through the hushed house to her own
apartment, there to lay down her head and cry herself exhausted. Dear,