'And this is to be the last time?' said Mrs. Wylie, consoling herself.
'Yes. The last time!'
There was a strange, hard ring in the young wanderer's tone as he echoed the foreboding words and turned gravely away. The sound seemed to strike some sympathetic chord in the good lady's heart, for she, too, looked almost mournful.
'I would give a good deal to have you safe back again,' murmured Mrs. Wylie in an undertone. The remark was hardly addressed to him, and he allowed it to pass unnoticed. Presently, however, he turned and looked into her face with some anxiety depicted on his calm features. Then he took a step or two nearer to her.
'This will never do,' he said gravely, standing in front of her with his strong hands clenched.
She gave rather a lame little laugh, and looked up with a deprecating glance.
'Theo, I am afraid I am not so plucky as I used to be. My nerve is gone. I think I left it ... at Fjaerholm.'
He made no reply, but merely stood by her in his silent manliness, and from his presence she somehow gathered comfort, as women do—from your presence and mine sometimes. Although we be of coarser fibre, failing to grasp the hidden pathos of everyday life—the little trials, the petty sorrows; failing often to divine the motives that grow out of a finer, truer, nobler nature than ours, and always failing to appreciate the unselfishness of woman's love—despite all these, our presence is at times a comfort because of the greater strength that does or should lie within us.
No reference had hitherto been made between Mrs. Wylie and Trist to the events attending the last voyage of the Hermione. A year had not yet elapsed, and the Admiral's name was still avoided. Trist was of a singularly sympathetic nature, although he evinced some contempt for death itself, which was a mere matter of familiarity; and it was his creed that things and names which cause a pang of sorrow are best left in oblivion. Mrs. Wylie was outwardly little changed, but he knew that the wound was by no means healed, and he had, therefore, allowed all recollection of the Hermione's sorrowful voyage to die from his memory. No doubt the great healer Time would do for Mrs. Wylie what he has done for us all since the days of Adam—but it was too soon yet. In the annals of sorrow a year is no long period. It has often struck me that we have to lament over one singular trait in the mechanism of the human mind. It is a pity that the effect of joy is so short-lived, while sorrow holds its own so long. There are so many varieties of sorrow that by the time we have tasted most of them and have become accustomed to the flavour, life itself is at an end, and lo! we have had no time to enjoy its pleasures by reason of the years spent in wrestling with woe.
Theo Trist held his peace sympathetically and yet without encouragement. Mrs. Wylie no doubt understood his motive, for they possessed in common that desire of concealing the seamy side which Brenda had characterized as cowardly. In her strong young courage (self-assertive as all young virtues are) she seemed to take a pride in facing untoward things—indeed, she sought them; while these two, in their greater experience, slurred them over as a clever painter slurs over certain accessories in his picture, in order that the brighter objects may stand more firmly on the face of the canvas.