These words implied consent, approval.  Mrs. Ledwith went up-stairs after them with a heart so much lightened that she was very nearly cheerful.  There would be a good deal to do now, and something to look forward to; the old pulses of activity were quickened.  She could live with those faculties that had been always vital in her, as people breathe with one live lung; but trouble and change had wrought in her no deeper or further capacity; had wakened nothing that had never been awake before.

The house and furniture were to be sold; they would sail in September.

When Desire perceived that it was settled, she gave way; she had said little before; her mother had had many plans, and they amused her; she would not worry her with opposition; and besides, she was herself in a secret dream of a hope half understood.

It happened that she told it to Kenneth Kincaid herself; she saw almost every one who came, instead of her mother; Mrs. Ledwith lived in her own room chiefly.  This was the way in which it had come about, that nobody noticed or guessed how it was with Desire, and what aspect Kenneth’s friendship and kindness, in the simple history of those few weeks, might dangerously grow to bear with her.

Except one person.  Luclarion Grapp, at last, made up her mind.

Kenneth heard what Desire told him, as he heard all she ever had to tell, with a gentle interest; comforted her when she said she could not bear to go, with the suggestion that it might not be for very long; and when she looked up in his face with a kind of strange, pained wonder, and repeated,—­

“But I cannot bear,—­I tell you, I cannot bear to go!” he answered,—­

“One can bear all that is right; and out of it the good will come that we do not know.  All times go by.  I am sorry—­very sorry—­that you must go; but there will be the coming back.  We must all wait for that.”

She did not know what she looked for; she did not know what she expected him to mean; she expected nothing; the thought of his preventing it in any way never entered into her head; she knew, if she had thought, how he himself was waiting, working.  She only wanted him to care.  Was this caring?  Much?  She could not tell.

“We never can come back,” she said, impetuously.  “There will be all the time—­everything—­between.”

He almost spoke to her of it, then; he almost told her that the everything might be more, not less; that friendships gathered, multiplied; that there would be one home, he hoped, in which, by and by, she would often be; in which she would always be a dear and welcome comer.

But she was so sad, so tried; his lips were held; in his pure, honest kindness, he never dreamt of any harm that his silence might do; it only seemed so selfish to tell her how bright it was with him.

So he said, smiling,—­

“And who knows what the ‘everything’ may be?” And he took both her hands in his as he said good-by,—­for his little stops were of minutes on his way, always,—­and held them fast, and looked warmly, hopefully into her face.