Mrs. Darche wore black for her husband, and Cousin Annie said it was very becoming. Dolly Maylands thought it absurd to put on even the appearance of mourning for such a creature, and said so.
"My dear child," answered Marion gently, "he was my husband."
"I never can realise it," said Dolly. "Do you remember, I used to ask you if you did not sometimes forget it yourself?"
"I never forgot it." Mrs. Darche's voice had a wonderful gravity in it, without the least sadness. She was a woman without affectation.
"No," said Dolly thoughtfully, "I suppose you never had a chance. It is of no use, Marion dear," she added after a little pause, and in a different tone, as though she were tired of pretending a sort of subdued sympathy, "it is of no use at all! I can never be sorry, you know—so that ends it. Why, just think! You are free to marry any one you please, to begin life over again. How many women in your position ever had such a chance? Not but what you would have been just as free if you had got a divorce. But—somehow, this is much more solidly satisfactory. Yes, I know—it is horrid and unchristian—but there is just that—there is a solid satisfaction in—"
She was going to say "in death," but thought better of it and checked herself.
"It will not make very much difference to me just yet," said Marion. "Meanwhile, as I said, he was my husband. I shall wear mourning a short time, and then—then I do not know what I shall do."
"It must be very strange," answered Dolly.
"What, child?"
"Your life. Now you need not call me child in that auntly tone, as though you were five hundred thousand years older and wiser and duller than I am. There are not six years between our ages, you know."