heart. "Grandmamma hated me," Helena Richie reflected. "She begrudged
me the least little bit of pleasure." Yet her feeling towards the hard
old woman now was not resentment; it was only wonder. "_Why_ didn't
she like me to be happy?" she thought. It never occurred to her
that her grandmother who had guarded and distrusted her had also loved
her. "Of course I never loved her," she reminded herself, "but I
wouldn't have wanted her to be unhappy. She wanted me to be wretched.
Curious!" Yet she realized that at that time she had not desired love;
she had only desired happiness. Looking back, she pondered on her
astounding immaturity; what a child she had been to imagine that
merely to get away from that gray life with her grandmother would be
happiness, and so had married Frederick. Frederick.... She was
eighteen, and so pretty. She smiled remembering how pretty she was.
And Frederick had made such promises! She was to have every kind of
happiness. Of course she had married him. Thinking of it now, she did
not in the least blame herself. If the dungeon doors open and the
prisoner catches a glimpse of the green world of sunshine, what
happens? Of course she had married Frederick! As for love, she never
thought of it; it did not enter into the bargain--at least on her
part. She married him because he wanted her to, and because he would
make her happy. And, oh, how glad her grandmother had been! At the
memory of that passionate satisfaction, Helena clasped her hands over
the two brown braids that folded like a chaplet around her head and
laughed aloud, the tears still glittering on her lashes. Her prayers,
her grandmother said, had been answered; the girl was safe--an honest
wife! "Now lettest Thou Thy servant--" the old woman murmured, with
dreadful gratitude in her voice.

Thinking of that gratitude, the tears dried upon Helena's cheeks, hot
with the firelight and with her thoughts. "Suppose she had lived just