"I think I understand as much as an ancient bachelor may. But you must do your share and help the powers to help you. There's an effort called for. Hard to make, but you must make it. Take up your life again—the old life that you laid down; an' do it with a single heart."
"I cannot yet. I left it behind so gladly. I must go back for it. I do not care about any life just now. I cannot cry or laugh with my heart. It's all pretence—think what that means. I look at everything from the outside—like Christo used to. I'm a dead, withered bough still on the tree; and what is it to me that the next bough is busy about new leaves?"
"You do yourself a wrong to say so, and I'd not listen to anybody else who spoke so ill of you. You must come back to yourself—your own good self—and the sooner the better. That's a plain duty at least—not to be escaped from. That's a call, whether your heart's sad or merry. 'Tis the honest, everyday duty of a woman to be good, dear heart—same as it's the duty of a Mary lily to be white. Keep your proper colour, as God meant you, and as God taught you. Live as you have lived: with a sense of duty for the sake of those that love you, if no better reason."
She sighed again, aweary of the subject.
"Now we'll go home. We're wasting my first breath of sweet air in words. Better to draw it in silently and not turn it into talk."
Mark Endicott laughed.
"Why, yes, it does the heart more good that way, no doubt. You're a deal wiser than I am, niece, for all my grey hairs and jackdaw chatter."
Then slowly down the hill, without more speech, they drove together.
CHAPTER IX.
AN OLD-TIME PRESCRIPTION