"Come, come, no names. You are incorrigible. I believe you'd have your
joke on your death-bed."

"I should if you were there. I should die laughing," Kitty retorted.

"There will be no death-bed for you, miss. You'll be translated--no,
that's not right; no one could translate you."

"God might--or a man I loved well enough not to marry him."

There was a note of emotion in her laugh as she uttered the words. It
did not escape the ear of the Young Doctor, who regarded her fixedly for
a moment before he said: "I'm not sure that even He would be able to
translate you. You speak your own language, and it's surely original.
I am only just learning its alphabet. No one else speaks it. I have a
fear that you'll be terribly lonely as you travel along the trail, Kitty
Tynan."

A light of pleasure came into Kitty's eyes, though her face was a little
drawn. "You really do think I'm original--that I'm myself and not like
anybody else?" she asked him with a childlike eagerness.

"Almost more than any one I ever met," answered the Young Doctor gently;
for he saw that she had her own great troubles, and he also felt now
fully what this comedy or tragedy inside the house meant to her. "But
you're terribly lonely--and that's why: because you are the only one of
your kind."

"No, that's why I'm not going to be lonely," she said, nodding towards