My heart was like to break; but we spent that last evening in unconquerable brightness. I know I was no less cheerful than Gordon—and ever and anon I wondered if his heart were as sad as mine. The most pitiful feature of it all was Dorothy's unconscious glee—moving was such great fun, she thought. Harold was old enough to catch the contagion of our pain—for pain will show through the best veneer that courage can provide.
Both the children, and their grandfather too, were in bed and sound asleep when Gordon and I went up-stairs together about ten o'clock. We went into the children's room, for they were still unparted, the little bed nestling close to the big one; and we stood long above the slumbering forms, our eyes swimming as we looked.
"I wonder if it's really so," I heard Gordon murmur.
"What, darling?" I said.
"That God pities us—like we pity them," the sentence finished in a broken voice. "It solves all life's problems—if that's really so."
I could make no answer. But I bowed and kissed Harold's lovely brow; then Dorothy's.
"Come with me, Gordon," I said gently, after we had stood a while in silence, starting to move across the hall.
He followed me into our own room. "This is harder than all the rest," I said brokenly; "this is the dearest and sacredest room in the world to me. Oh, Gordon," and I was sobbing now, "surely they'll let me—whoever comes here after us—surely they'll let me come sometimes and see it, won't they, Gordon?"
His arms were so strong, his voice so tender. "Why, dearest, why? What makes this room so sacred to you?"
"Oh, don't you know?" and the words could hardly come for sobbing; "this is where they were born, Gordon—where they both were born. It was right there I lay when I first saw Harold's face. Oh, Gordon, I can't—I don't know how to give it up."