"I can't tell you just yet; but it's a comfort to have your sympathy.
Don't speak to me for a little while, please."

He went back to his place and watched her with a yearning heart,
longing for the power to soothe her. She looked so forlorn and
desolate, too frail to bear her load of sorrow.

"I must try to be brave," she smiled up at him at length. "And you are
my trustee. Please bring those papers I laid down. I suppose I must
talk to you about the farm."

It did not strike George that this was a rather sudden change, or that
there was anything incongruous in Sylvia's considering her material
interests in the midst of her grief. After examining the documents, he
asked her a few questions, to which she gave explicit answers.

"Now you should be able to decide what must be done," she said finally;
"and I'm anxious about it. I suppose that's natural."

"You have plenty of friends," George reminded her consolingly.

Sylvia rose, and there was bitterness in her expression.

"Friends? Oh, yes; but I've come back to them a widow, badly provided
for--that's why I spent some months in Montreal before I could nerve
myself to face them." Then her voice softened as she fixed her eyes on
him. "It's fortunate there are one or two I can rely on."

Sylvia left him with two clear impressions: her helplessness, and the
fact that she trusted him. While he sat turning over the papers, his