For the first time in his knowledge of her, Murdoch saw in her the youth he had always missed. Her dark and bitter young face was softened; for the moment she seemed almost a child,—even though a child whose life had been clouded by the shadow of sin and wrong.
"I think—he would," he said, slowly.
"And I have got into the habit of coming here when I was lonely or—at my worst."
"You are lonely often, I dare say," he returned, wearily. "I wish it could be helped."
"It is nothing new," she replied, with something of her old manner, "and there is no help for it."
But her touch upon the grass was a caress. She smoothed it softly, and moved with singular gentleness a few dead leaves which had dropped upon it.
"When I come here I am—better," she said, "and—less hard. Things do not seem to matter so much—or to look so shameful."
A pause followed, which she herself broke in upon.
"I have thought a great deal of—what he left unfinished," she said. "I have wished that I might see it. It would be almost as if I had seen him."
"I can show it to you," Murdoch answered. "It is a little thing to have caused so great pain."