"Ah, if only I could have been more helpful," Alice sighed.
"You don't know how much you have helped," the other answered. "People may give gold, and it may go just as far as gold can. That is a long way, some will say. Well, so it is, but even the long way has a limit. There is only one thing that is not hindered by any limit at all. It flies on, far, far beyond Time, and right into Eternity. It is Love."
"MISS DE VIGNY HAD ALWAYS LIKED ALICE HARPER."
Alice looked attentively at the girl for a moment. She was a puny young woman with round shoulders and a narrow chest. Her skin was very fair, and she had the large luminous eyes which often indicate consumption.
"How did you learn so much, Miss Dayne?" asked she with a smile.
"Just by watching life," was the reply. "I do not think that we shall ever meet here again. I am going a longer journey than you are. And yet, who knows? Perhaps it may not be so very far."
Alice had arranged to start on Monday by a very early train. She left the house before any of the other women had come downstairs. Her box was in the hall; she had supplied herself with some sandwiches, and could have a cup of tea at the station. So she was driven through the streets before the shops were open, or London had shaken off such sleep as it can get. She reached Waterloo in time to drink her tea, and secure a comfortable corner in a third-class carriage.
When the train began to move out of the station she was still thinking of herself as Alice Harper, the dressmaker, going to start afresh in a new sphere. The former Alice was merely the girl of the dream.
She smiled, rather a forlorn little smile, when she called up a vision of the dream—Alice, travelling first-class, and wearing a lovely, grey costume, as costly and as daintily simple as it could possibly be. The dressmaker was arrayed in a coat and skirt of pepper-and-salt tweed which would stand any amount of wear and tear, and a pink calico shirt. Her gloves were carefully mended; a very serviceable umbrella and sunshade were strapped up with a plain waterproof cloak; she had none of those charming superfluities which a well-to-do woman seldom goes without. And yet it was a peaceful face that was shaded by the sailor hat; and as the train rushed on into the sweet, green country her eyes grew very bright.