"Eyes that are closed to earthly sight,
Can never wake to weep;
Nor pain, nor woe, nor grief, nor blight,
Can move that slumber deep.
"So hearts of dust all griefs forsake,
They never break nor bleed;
The living hearts that throb and ache
Our tender pity need."
The newly made widow leaned against the berth where the dead man lay with his face hidden beneath the sheet, her face in her hands, sobbing in a subdued but heart-broken way. None of the other berths had been made up yet, and the few men in the car looked solemn and ill at ease. A gayly dressed mulatto woman, evidently the lady's maid, was whispering to the smart yellow porter.
Geraldine paused by the weeping woman with a timid glance that took in every detail of her appearance—the elegant curves of the stately figure in a fine cloth traveling gown, the glint of golden hair beneath the dark, close hat, the glittering rings on the hands that held the handkerchief to her face.
She whispered, shyly, to Standish:
"She is one of those grand aristocrats that I used to see at O'Neill's store. I'm afraid to speak to her. Some of them are so proud, so haughty, they can wither you with a look."
"Suppose we go back, then, to our seats," he returned, eagerly.
But something held Geraldine by the mourner's side, in spite of her terror of proud, rich women; and as a sudden low sob broke on the air, she started hurriedly forward with a gentle touch on the lady's arm, bending her face down to whisper, brokenly, out of the wealth of her sympathy:
"Oh, I am so sorry for you, I am so sorry for you! May God help you to bear it!"
The mourner lifted up a lovely face framed in golden hair—the face of a woman somewhere between thirty and forty—and met the glance of those sweet brown eyes swimming in sympathetic tears, and her heart seemed to answer the girl's words. With another heart-breaking sob, she dropped her face against Geraldine's shoulder, and let the girlish arms infold her like a daughter's clasp.