almost made him feel unworthy of the trust she showed him.

"No," he said, smiling at her, "because I know that it's only to a friend
who so understands you, who so cares for all that comes into your life."

"Only to such a friend, indeed," she returned gently.

"Have they been hard, these days?" he asked her, atoning to himself for the
momentary shrinking that she had detected.

"Yes, they have," she answered, "and the more so from my seeing all her
efforts to keep them soft; as if it was ease _I_ wanted! But I have faced
it all."

"What else has there been to face?"

She said nothing for some moments, looking at him with a thoughtful
openness that, he felt, was almost marital in its sharing of silence.

"She's against everything, everything," she said at last.

"You mean in the way we feared?--that she'll try to change things?"

"She'll not seem to try. She'll seem to accept. But she's against my
country; against my life; against me."

"Well, if she accepts, or seems to, that will make it easy for you. There
will be nothing to fight, to oppose."

"Don't use her word, Jack. She will make it easy on the surface; but it's