was bright with a large fire. Rose did not know that it was an
expression of sympathy from the under-housemaid, whose lover was at the
war. But when she stood opposite the big photograph of the fine manly
face and figure, and the large open eyes looked so straight into hers,
she shrank a little. Something in the room made her shrink into herself.
Her eyes rested on the Victoria Cross in the photograph, on the medals
that had covered his breast. "I shall have them all," she said, and then
she faltered a little. She had faltered in that room before now; she had
often shrunk into herself when the intensely courteous voice had asked
her as she came into his study what she wanted. She blamed herself
gently now, and for two opposite reasons: she blamed herself because she
had wanted what she had not got, and she blamed herself because she had
not done more to get it. "He was always so gentle, so courteous. I ought
to have been quite, quite happy. And why didn't I break through our
reserve, and then we might----" Dimly she felt, but she did not want to
own it to herself, that she had married him as a hero-worshipper. She
had reverenced him more than she loved him. "I ought not to have done
it," she thought, "but I meant what was right, and I could have loved
him---- Oh, I did love him afterwards--only I never could tell him,
and----" Further thoughts led the way to irreverence, even to something
worse. They were wrong thoughts, thoughts against faith and truth and
right; there was no place for such thoughts in Rose's heart. She moved
now, and opened drawers and dusted and put together a few
things--paper-knives, match-boxes, a writing-case, a silver sealing-wax
holder, and so on; the occupation interested and soothed her. She had
the born mystic's love of little kind actions, little presents, things
treasured as symbols of the union of spirits, all the more because of
their slight material value. Then, too, the child element, which is in
every good woman, gave a zest to the occupation and made it restful.