"To tell you a secret, he's in love with some one else. But he has no luck. No wonder! If you could be married to him for ten years before you married him at all—"
"I don't know," Helen said thoughtfully. "Those funny men—" She did not finish her thought. "It will be queer without you," and after a pause she added the one word, "lonely."
It was strange that Miriam, whom she loved best, should never present herself to Helen's mind as a companion: the sisters, indeed, rarely spoke together except to argue some domestic point, to scold each other, or to tease, yet each was conscious of the other's admiration, though Helen looked on Miriam as a pretty ornament or toy, and Miriam gazed dubiously at what she called the piety of the other.
"Yes, lonely," she said, but in her heart she was glad that her payment should be great, and she said loudly, as though she recited her creed: "I wouldn't change anything. I believe in the things that happen."
"May they reward you!" he said solemnly.
"When will you have to go?"
"I'm not sure. Pretty soon. Look here, my dear, you three lone women ought to have a dog to take man's place as your natural protector—and so on."
"Have you told Zebedee you are going?"
"Yesterday."
"Then he will be getting one."