Had the other woman
explained what was in her mind, in her heart -- how
that reckless young man whom she had loved had
given her the treasure because he had heard her
admire Jane's amethysts, and she, all unconscious
of any wrong-doing, had ever regarded it as the one
evidence of his thoughtful tenderness, it being the
one gift she had ever received from him; how she
parted with it, as she had parted with her other
jewels, in order to obtain money to purchase com-
forts for him while he was in prison -- Jane could
not have understood. The fact of an older woman
being fond of a young man, almost a boy, was be-
yond her mental grasp. She had no imagination
with which to comprehend that innocent, pathetic,
almost terrible love of one who has trodden the
earth long for one who has just set dancing feet
upon it. It was noble of Jane Carew that, lacking
all such imagination, she acted as she did: that, al-
though she did not, could not, formulate it to herself,
she would no more have deprived the other woman
and the dead man of that one little unscathed bond
of tender goodness than she would have robbed
his grave of flowers.
Viola looked at her. "I cannot tell you all about
it; you would laugh at me," she whispered; "but
this was mine once."
"It is yours now, dear," said Jane.
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