"Oo' little gell will like my fowers," she lisped, as Gertrude burst into tears.
Queenie felt very heavy-hearted when, the next day, the Chesters left her and went back to their lonely home. Gertrude kissed her, and tried to say a few words of thanks.
"You have been a good Samaritan to me and Harry, Miss Marriott," she said, in a broken voice; "you have taken us in, and tried to bind up our wounds with oil and wine, and yet you were almost a stranger to us."
"I shall come again. I cannot keep away from there," added Mr. Chester, with a yearning look towards the place where the mortal remains of his darling were laid. "No, I cannot thank you, Miss Marriott, I never can do so."
"Oh, hush! go away, please. Would not any one have done it in my place?" cried the girl, with a little sob. She leant against the little gate, watching them until the phaeton was out of sight. Garth, who was coming down the lane, crossed over the road and joined her.
"So you have your little home to yourself again," he said, looking down at her kindly. "Ah, well, it has been a miserable week to you and to all of us. No one can help feeling for poor Chester; and as for that wife of his—"
"Well!" interrupted Queenie, fixing her strange, fathomless eyes on the young man, as he left his sentence unfinished. Every now and then they startled people with their strange haunting beauty; they startled Garth now, for he became suddenly confused.
"All I meant was, that one can plainly see that Mrs. Chester is not long for this world. Stewart says so plainly, and she must be conscious of it herself. One can tell that there is trouble in store for that poor fellow."
"Yes, and she has begun to love him too late," replied Queenie. "All these years lost, and only to understand each other at the last; there does seem such a mystery in things, Mr. Clayton."
"Not at all; he has only married the wrong woman," returned Garth, coolly; "hundreds of men do that, and have to rue their mistake. You are only a girl, you do not know the world as we do," continued the young man, a little loftily. "There are all sorts of temptations and influences. One needs all one's wisdom and strength of mind to steer clear among all the shoals and quicksands one finds in life."