There was a long silence, in which she regained, in some measure, her self-control. "I can't think what's wrong with me," she sighed. "I've cried more in the last six months than in all my life before. I'm not the crying kind—naturally, that is."
"Don't think about that, for nature knows a great deal more than we do. Cry all you want to, and thank God you have no grief beyond the reach of tears."
"Beyond—tears?"
"Yes; there is another kind, which I am glad you do not know. It cuts and burns and stings till it is the very refinement of torture, and there is no veil of mist to blind the eyes."
She looked at him curiously. "You——?"
"Yes," he answered, with his head bowed; "that is the kind of grief I know the best."
"I—I'm sorry," she said, stirred to pity.
"Why should you be sorry for me?" he asked, with a rare smile. "There are countless joys in the world, but the griefs are few and old. The humblest of us can find new happiness, but there has been no increase of sorrow since the world was first made. There is a fixed and unvariable quantity of it, and we take turns bearing it—that's all. Nothing comes to any of us that some one before us has not met like a soldier, bravely and well."
"You are strong, but I have no strength."
"There are different kinds of strength, Katherine, and of these the one most to be prized is what we call endurance, for lack of a better word. One can always bear a little more, for we live only one day at a time, and to-morrow may bring us new gifts of which we do not dream."