"Yes."
Margaret-Mary was too young to understand—she was easily comforted. Derry sang a little song and her eyes drooped.
But downstairs the little son who was brave like his father, sat on the edge of the bed, and held his mother's hand. "He's in Paradise with the purple camels, Mother, and he's a shining soul—."
It was a week before Jean went with Derry to see Margaret. It had been a week of strange happenings, of being made love to by Derry and of getting Daddy ready to go away. She had reached heights and depths, alternately. She had been feverishly radiant when with her lover. She had resolved that she would not spoil the wonder of these days by letting him know her state of mind.
The nights were the worst. None of them were as bad as the first night, but her dreams were of battles and bloodshed, and she waked in the mornings with great heaviness of spirit.
What Derry had told her of Margaret's loss seemed but a confirmation of her fears. It was thus that men went away and never returned—. Oh, how Hilda would have triumphed if she could have looked into Jean's heart with its tremors and terrors!
She came, thus, into the room, where Margaret sat with her children.
"I want you two women to meet," Derry said, as he presented Jean, "because you are my dearest—"
"He has told me so much about you,"—Margaret put her arm about Jean and kissed her—"and he has used all the adjectives—yet none of them was adequate."
Jean spoke tensely. "It doesn't seem right for us to bring our happiness here."