I was left alone, and I dared to take it, just for a moment.

Something in the design of the cover puzzled me.

I had meant to put it right back, and after I had looked at it there was only one thing to do--to put it back." "They said you found your own picture, or I might have suspected." "They had reason to say it--I never told." "Of course you never told, Miss Kate!" I seemed to learn a great deal of her from that.

She had carried her wound secretly through all those years.
"Poor Little Miss!" I said in spite of myself, and at this quite unexpectedly there befell what I had hoped we might both be spared.
I might not soothe her as I would have wished, so I busied myself in the next room until she called to me.

She was putting what touches she could to her eyes with a small and sadly bedraggled handkerchief.
"There is a better reason for telling no one now," she said, "so we must destroy this.