Page:Watts Mumford--Whitewash.djvu/190

 branches and the brown, snow-spotted lawns; the air had not seemed chill, nor the earth unkind. Now, it was all unmitigated ugliness.

"I can't advise you, I'm afraid," he said, coldly; "but I'd be careful if I were you. It's no light matter to bring accusations against man or woman—you have that to learn."

She looked up, hurt that the quick, never-failing sympathy and understanding, the whole-souled appropriation of each other's griefs, joys, and cares that had been a feature of their friendship, should fail her now. A quick thought of her long absence and of possible divergencies of character flashed over her. Her mobile face clouded sadly. She felt very shut out and alone. She, too, realized how much this association and companionship had meant to her. How she had idealized and turned to their perfect friendship as a prop and stay. Her throat ached cruelly. So it was over, this dream of an earthly friendship! Something had deviated them from their parallel during her three years absence, in spite of their constant correspondence. They had grown in different directions. Filled with a 180