"How do you know?" at length he asked.
"She told me when we were discussing her scheme."
"An absurd scheme!" he exclaimed angrily. Then suddenly stopping short. "No; if it is as you say with her, it is a good, noble scheme, and she could not do better. Let us go home now, Nellie."
She turned with him, her heart aching at the suffering he was trying to hide. Then she remembered she had not said much about "hope," and she tried to think what would comfort him most.
"Dear Walter, it is a good while ago now, more than a year; perhaps some day—"
"Yes, dear," he said quietly.
"Mamma says, 'God loves you better than I do,'" said Nellie in a broken voice.
"So He does, dear; I do not doubt it."
The tone was very quiet; but Nellie felt there was a depth of disappointment which she could not fathom.
"Another day we will talk it over, Nellie; but not to-night, my dear. I must hear what my Heavenly Father has to say to me about it first."