“Long ago, Cynthia White,” she said slowly, “you were vexed with me one day, and you told me that God would punish me yet, because I made an idol of my son, and set it up in His place.  Do you remember?  Your word was a true one.  God saw that I loved Chester too much, and He meant to take him from me.  I thwarted one way when I made him give up Damaris.  But one can’t fight against the Almighty.  It was decreed that I must lose him—­if not in one way, then in another.  He has been taken from me utterly.  I shall not even have his grave to tend, Cynthia.”

“As near to a mad woman as anything you ever saw, with her awful eyes,” Cynthia told Carl, afterwards.  But she did not say so there.  Although she was a shallow, commonplace soul, she had her share of womanly sympathy, and her own life had not been free from suffering.  It taught her the right thing to do now.  She sat down by the stricken creature and put her arms about her, while she gathered the cold hands in her own warm clasp.  The tears filled her big, blue eyes and her voice trembled as she said: 

“Thyra, I’m sorry for you.  I—­I—­lost a child once—­my little first-born.  And Chester was a dear, good lad.”

For a moment Thyra strained her small, tense body away from Cynthia’s embrace.  Then she shuddered and cried out.  The tears came, and she wept her agony out on the other woman’s breast.

As the ill news spread, other Avonlea women kept dropping in all through the day to condole with Thyra.  Many of them came in real sympathy, but some out of mere curiosity to see how she took it.  Thyra knew this, but she did not resent it, as she would once have done.  She listened very quietly to all the halting efforts at consolation, and the little platitudes with which they strove to cover the nakedness of bereavement.

When darkness came Cynthia said she must go home, but would send one of her girls over for the night.

“You won’t feel like staying alone,” she said.

Thyra looked up steadily.

“No.  But I want you to send for Damaris Garland.”

“Damaris Garland!” Cynthia repeated the name as if disbelieving her own ears.  There was never any knowing what whim Thyra might take, but Cynthia had not expected this.

“Yes.  Tell her I want her—­tell her she must come.  She must hate me bitterly; but I am punished enough to satisfy even her hate.  Tell her to come to me for Chester’s sake.”

Cynthia did as she was bid, she sent her daughter, Jeanette, for Damaris.  Then she waited.  No matter what duties were calling for her at home she must see the interview between Thyra and Damaris.  Her curiosity would be the last thing to fail Cynthia White.  She had done very well all day; but it would be asking too much of her to expect that she would consider the meeting of these two women sacred from her eyes.

She half believed that Damaris would refuse to come.  But Damaris came.  Jeanette brought her in amid the fiery glow of a November sunset.  Thyra stood up, and for a moment they looked at each other.