"To be
"'Conscious that a world's regret
Would seek us where we lie!'"
quoted Mrs. Lynn, with a slight, sad smile. "Ah, Mrs. Wentworth, will you believe that I have scarcely ever regarded the subject from that point of view? When I first took up literary work it was to win bread for my little child. Since success has crowned my efforts, since hard necessity drives me no longer, I labor on because I have need to fill an empty void in my life. From first to last I have had no thought of fame."
The soft sigh of the waves blending with her voice made it sound very sad. Mrs. Wentworth looked at the beautiful, proud face curiously. Some kind of a history was written on it. There was a lingering shadow in the somber, dark eyes, a sorrowful gravity about the lovely crimson lips. She wondered what that empty void might be. And then she remembered that she had heard that Mrs. Lynn was a widow.
"It is grief for her husband," said Beatrix to herself.
"I suppose we all have something in our lives that we are glad to forget in the oblivion of hard work, or even in the pursuit of pleasure," she said. "My little Cyril's death left an aching void in my own heart, and I have another sorrow too. I have been a disobedient child to my parents. I never fully appreciated the enormity of my unpardonable fault until I had a little daughter of my own."
Beatrix spoke in a tone of dreamy sadness. She did not seem to be speaking to a stranger, but rather to a friend. The subtle likeness between Mrs. Lynn and Laurel Vane affected her strangely.
Laurel caught at her words quickly.
"Your unpardoned fault," she echoed. "Do you mean to say that your parents never forgave your disobedience, Mrs. Wentworth?"