"He's contented and I'm miserable," she thought. "Perhaps I should be happier if I were a milkman, and had nothing to long for because there was nothing in me to long with."
2
Far away, in London, Elizabeth strode through Kensington Gardens on her way to work; her head was a little bent, her nostrils dilated, sniffing the air. A chorus of birds hailed her with apparent delight. She noticed several thrushes and at least one blackbird among them. The Albert Memorial came into sight, it glowed like flame in the sun; a pompous and a foolish thing made beautiful.
"I suppose it's spring in Seabourne too," she was thinking, and then: "I wonder if Joan is very unhappy."
She quickened her steps. "Go on, go on, go on!" sang the spring insistently, and then: "Go back, go back, go back! There is something sweeter than ambition." Elizabeth trembled but went on.
To Joan the very glory of it all was an added heart-break. Grief is never so unendurable in suitable company, it finds quite a deal of consolation in the sorrow of others; it feels understood and at home. But on this spring morning in Seabourne Joan's grief found no one to welcome it. Even the servant at Leaside was shouting hymns as she laid the breakfast; she belonged to the Salvation Army and every now and then would pause to clap her hands in rhythm to the jaunty tune.
"My sins they were as scarlet!
They are now as white as snow!"
She carolled, and clapped triumphantly. Joan could hear her from her bedroom upstairs.
Mrs. Ogden heard her too. "Ethel!" she called irritably; "not so much noise, please." She closed her door sharply and kneeling down in front of a newly acquired picture of The Holy Family, began to read a long Matinal Devotion—for Mrs. Ogden was becoming religious. The presence of spring in her room coloured her prayers, giving them an impish vitality. She entreated God with a new note of sincerity and conviction to cast all evil spirits into Hell and keep them there for ever and ever. She made an elaborate private confession, striking her breast considerably more often than the prescribed number of times. "Through my fault, through my fault——" she murmured ecstatically.