But Mrs. Lorrimer shook her head and pressed the girl's hand.
"We can bear anything, Sylvia--anything. We are never asked to bear too much."
"I am," cried Sylvia passionately. "I can't bear his dying--without knowing. He must know."
"He will know, dear."
Sylvia took comfort from the quiet assurance. She believed Mrs. Lorrimer meant she felt sure that Phil was still living, would live. She did not know the mother meant that her son might already be where there could be no misunderstanding, no longer any seeing as through a glass darkly, but face to face with infinite realities. Alice Lorrimer was not young like Sylvia. She knew from sad experience how many paths of human life lead straight to the Garden of Gethsemane.'
Presently Sylvia spoke again.
"Mrs. Lorrimer, how do you suppose I could have been so blind--not to know--I cared--this way?" Sylvia's phrases came out in quick, uneven gasps, as if every word hurt. "I didn't know--I never knew until Jack told me just now--about Phil. I didn't know," she moaned.
"Maybe Phil was blind too, dear. I think he was. He put an unreal thing ahead of a real one, I am afraid, just because he cared so much. You needn't look surprised, child. Mothers know so much more than any one ever tells them. Of course I don't know what happened in New York, but I have always suspected my boy hurt you, and it was the hurt which made you shut your eyes so tight."
"It was something like that," admitted Sylvia. "It is so horribly easy to get all muddled and twisted up in life."
"It is," agreed Mrs. Lorrimer. "Sometimes it takes a great grief to remove the bandages from our eyes."