Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/363

Rh our plans; we were to have a little cottage in the country with a garden full of hollyhocks."

"Of lilies, I think," Barbara said; then stopped confused.

"Perhaps it was lilies," he continued, without seeming to notice her confusion. "Anyway it does not matter; neither were planted. The little cottage was built in the clouds only, and soon tumbled to ruin, leaving the man homeless and loveless during the years that followed, and they were such long years. He did not know where to go nor what to do. He was like one who had been going singing along a happy road and suddenly stumbled into night and weariness. It was like as though he had been led by happiness, so that he was blind to misfortune, and suddenly missed her hand. Then all the unseen things became visible, sorrow trod beside him, solitude echoed his footsteps, age pushed him on the shoulders, and whispered of the dreariness of his loveless years.

"And the girl?" said Barbara angrily, while she struggled to keep back her tears; "what did she do? did she suffer at all?"