Osborn could hardly eat breakfast himself when he saw how sick and
sorry she was; he watched her efforts to eat a piece of dry toast and
tried to comfort.

"When I saw the doctor," he said, "he told me this feeling of yours
would only last two or three months."

"'Only'!" said Marie despairingly, "'only'!" She recalled Julia to him
faintly, when she exclaimed: "I wonder how you men would like to feel
sick and faint and ragged-out for 'only' three months!"

He hung his head.

"Well, we can't help it," he pleaded, half guiltily.

"I know," she whispered, with a sob in her throat, "but don't say
'only.'"

Osborn left home somewhat earlier than usual that morning. That sort
of half-guilty feeling made him glad to go. It wasn't his fault, was
it, that Nature had matters thus arranged? He agreed with his wife
that it was bad management, but he couldn't help it. He was glad that,
as he left, she asked him to do something for her; glad that he was
able to do it.

When he had gone, Marie did a very wise thing, though he would have
thought it a foolish one. She lay down and cried. She cried till she
could cry no longer. She lay there some while after her tears had
ceased, as if their fount had dried, and she adapted her outlook, as
well as she was able, to these unforeseen, surprising and dismaying