"It might very naturally seem so, to one who knows what you have to make you the happiest of the happy."
"You yourself didn't find happiness among similar surroundings," she said, looking at him intently.
"Similar?" The thought seemed to amuse him.
"Well, weren't they similar? At any rate we were in the same world, and you say now we are not."
"We are so far apart," said he evenly, "that we can only signal to each other. And even then—neither is familiar with the other's code!"
"Oh!" she exclaimed, and a strange expression showed in her eyes. "What a hard, hard thing for you to say! It doesn't sound like you."
"Hard?" he questioned, with a contraction of the brows. "It is substantially what you yourself once said. If it was true then, it must be true now."
Moved by some impulse the two looked at each other searchingly, Donald Brown's face grave but tense, Helena Forrest's full of a proud pain. Clearly they were not understanding each other's code now—so much was evident.
At this instant, without warning, the outer door flew open. Mrs. Kelcey, her round red face disordered, her breath coming short, stood upon the threshold and spoke pantingly, without regard to the company assembled:
"Mr. Brown, sor! The baby's dyin—the sthranger child. It was took all of a suddint. Would ye moind comin' to say a bit of a prayer over him? Father McCarty's away, or I wouldn't ask it."