"I am more inclined to think that they will justify your doubts."
Lassie looked pleased. She valued Ingram's opinion highly.
A little later Alva herself came home, pale as she always was, but more weary looking than nightfall usually found her.
ALVA.
"Lie down before supper," Lassie suggested; and her friend accepted the suggestion.
"Come and sit beside me," she said, in a tone that was almost pleading; "give me your hand. I'm really quite used up."
Lassie perched beside her on the bed, and took the long slender hand between her own pretty little white ones.
"You are a wise little maiden," Alva said, smiling into her face. "I shall fight this away quickly. I know much better than to be weak. I understand the scientific, spiritual reasons for it quite well—it is that I am under a double strain these days, and also—" she hesitated—"I think that I am really under a triple strain," she said, "you do not guess how close to my heart that poor girl has come through her description of her lover. I think of her so often, and such a strange undercurrent sweeps up in me. I try to understand it, and I can't; but I wonder if it can be some troubling of myself because the one whose life is so valuable must go, and the one whose life has no value will remain. I do not begrudge any one anything, God knows; but my heart winces when I think that his soul will go on and leave me alone, while a body that is the same as his will live and live for another. I am brave, I am strong; my higher self has courage and understanding to cope with any problem that may come, but it seems as if this one laid me on a rack, because—because—" she stopped, and then in a low cry: "Lassie, she doesn't seem to me to be worthy of even his body. Perhaps I misjudge her, but even the human presentment of such a man should have a wife of greater caliber. Somehow it hurts me, somehow everything hurts me to-night. You see, dear, you were right. In some ways. Yes, you were right."