"I have heard," said the pitiless John, "that a man is quicker healed of grief for a wife than for one he had thought to wed, but lost."
"You are a man," said Carlen. "You can tell if that would be true."
"No, I cannot," he answered, "for I have loved no woman but you, my sister; and on my word I think I will be in no haste to, either. It brings misery, it seems to me."
If Carlen had spoken her thought at these words, she would have said, "Yes, it brings misery; but even so it is better than joy." But Carlen was ashamed; afraid also. She had passed now into a new life, whither her brother, she perceived, could not follow. She could barely reach his hand across the boundary line which parted them.
"I hope you will love some one, John," she said. "You would be happy with a wife. You are old enough to have a home of your own."
"Only a year older than you, my sister," he rejoined.
"I too am old enough to have a home of my own," she said, with a gentle dignity of tone, which more impressed John with a sense of the change in Carlen than all else which had been said.
It was time to return to the house. As he had done when he was ten, and she nine, John stood at the bottom of the steepest rock, with upstretched arms, by the help of which Carlen leaped lightly down.
"We are not children any more," she said, with a little laugh.
"More's the pity!" said John, half lightly, half sadly, as they went on hand in hand.