She stood as he had left her until the street door closed below. She watched him on the sidewalk, walking with slow uncertain steps, until he was lost in the crowd. Then, stretching out in the dark, her empty hands, she dropped on her knees beside the window. Her shoulders shook with sobs, but there are no tears for such as she. She was far beyond the blessed flow which blinds some eyes to the reality of pain. The inner depths, bare and quivering, are healed by no such balm as this.
She voiced only the simple question which women of all ages have asked in the midst of a cruel hurt—"Why? Dear God, why must it be?"
Some of the last lines of "A Denial" came to her, seemingly in pitiful comment—
"So farewell, thou whom I have met too late
To let thee come so near;
Be counted happy—"
"If only she can care again," she said to herself, "it will not be so hard for me—if 'one beloved woman feels thee dear!'"
The grey dawn broke at last and found her still upon her knees.
With the brightening east the signs of life began again in the street below. After a little she stood up and looked far across the irregular lines of roofs and chimney tops to the glowing tapestry of the morning spread like a promise in the dull grey of the sky.
"He didn't want me hurt like this," she said aloud. "He told me he didn't want me hurt like this."
The first rays of the sun shot into the little room and rested with loving touch upon her face. The old childish look was gone, but in the eyes of the woman who had wrought and suffered, something of the old peace still lay. She turned back to her bare cheerless room, ready to face the world again, and then a little cry escaped her. White, radiant, glorified, her Easter lily had bloomed.