She has been there nearly six months.

I see her occasionally.
At first she appeared quite stunned by grief, but she is becoming rather more cheerful as time passes on." The letter fell out of Michael's hand.
"_Rather more cheerful as time passes on._" Someone close at hand laughed, a loud, fierce laugh.
Michael looked up startled.

He was alone.

He never knew that it was he who had laughed.
"_Rather more cheerful as time passes on._" He looked back and saw the months of waiting that lay behind him,--during which the time had passed on.

He saw them pieced together into a kind of map; an endless desert of stones and thorns, and in the midst a little figure in the far distance, coming toiling towards him, under a blinding sun.
That figure was himself.