“I know.”  Bernardine said gently.  “But you are not free.”

He made no answer to that, but slipped into the chair.

“You look tired,” he said.  “What have you been doing?”

“I have been dusting the books,” she answered, smiling at him.  “You remember you told me I should be content to do that.  The very oldest and shabbiest have had my tenderest care.  I found the shop in disorder.  You see it now.”

“I should not call it particularly tidy now,” he said grimly.  “Still, I suppose you have done your best.  Well, and what else?”

“I have been trying to take care of my old uncle,” she said.  “We are just beginning to understand each other a little.  And he is beginning to feel glad to have me.  When I first discovered that, the days became easier to me.  It makes us into dignified persons when we find out that there is a place for us to fill.”

“Some people never find it out,” he said.

“Probably, like myself, they went on for a long time, without caring,” she answered.  “I think I have had more luck than I deserve.”

“Well,” said the Disagreeable Man.  “And you are glad to take up your life again?”

“No,” she said quietly.  “I have not got as far as that yet.  But I believe that after some little time I may be glad.  I hope so, I am working for that.  Sometimes I begin to have a keen interest in everything.  I wake up with an enthusiasm.  After about two hours I have lost it again.”

“Poor little child,” he said tenderly.  “I, too know what that is.  But you will get back to gladness:  not the same kind of satisfaction as before; but some other satisfaction, that compensation which is said to be included in the scheme.”

“And I have begun my book,” she said, pointing to a few sheets lying on the counter:  that is to say, I have written the Prologue.”

“Then the dusting of the books has not sufficed?” he said, scanning her curiously.

“I wanted not to think of myself,” Bernardine, said.  “Now that I have begun it, I shall enjoy going on with it.  I hope it will be a companion to me.”

“I wonder whether you will make a failure or a success of it?” he remarked.  “I wish I could have seen.”

“So you will,” she said.  “I shall finish it, and you will read it in Petershof.”

“I shall not be going back to Petershof,” he said.  “Why should I go there now?”

“For the same reason that you went there eight years ago,” she said.

“I went there for my mother’s sake,” he said.

“Then you will go there now for my sake,” she said deliberately.

He looked up quickly my little

“Little Bernardine,” he cried, “my Little Bernardine—­is it possible that you care what becomes of me?”

She had been leaning against the counter, and now she raised herself, and stood erect, a proud, dignified little figure.

“Yes, I do care,” she said simply, and with true earnestness.  “I care with all my heart.  And even if I did not care, you know you would not be free.  No one is free.  You know that better than I do.  We do not belong to ourselves:  there are countless people depending on us, people whom we have never seen, and whom we never shall see.  What we do, decides what they will be.”