He pressed his shaking hands to his closed eyes, then forced them to open upon the terrible desolation where she had stood a moment since—and saw bare boards under foot, bare walls, cobwebs, dust.
The girl was tiptoeing around the four walls examining the condition of the woodwork.
"It only needs electric lights and a furnace in the cellar and some kalsomine and pretty wall paper——"
She turned to glance back at him, and stood so, regarding him with amused curiosity—for he had dropped on his knees in the dust, groping in an odd blind way for a flower that had just fallen from his coat.
"There are millions of them by the roadside," she said as he stumbled to his feet and drew the frail blossom through his buttonhole with unsteady fingers.
"Yes," he said, "there are other roses in the world." Then he drew a deep, quiet breath and smiled at her.
She smiled, too.
"This was her room," she explained, "the room where she first met her husband, the room into which she came a bride, the room where she died, poor thing. Oh, I forgot that you don't know who she was!"
"Elizabeth Tennant," he answered calmly.
