When she waked in the morning, it was with, the remembrance of his
tenderness. Well, of course he was sorry for her. Anybody would be. But
Christopher was sorry, too. And Christopher had something to offer
her--more than Ridgeley--yes, it was more--
She was half afraid to go down-stairs. Christopher would be at breakfast
on the porch. Jeanette would be there, pouring coffee, and perhaps
Ridgeley if he had no calls. And Christopher would talk in his gay young
voice--and Ridgeley would read the newspaper, and she and Christopher
would make their plans for the day--
She rose and began to dress, but found herself suddenly panic-stricken
at the thought of the plans that Christopher might make. If they motored
off together, he would talk to her as he had talked in the grove of
birches--of the temple bells, and of the desert, and the strange
harbors--and how could she be sure that she would be strong enough to
resist--and what if she listened, and let him have his way?
She decided to eat her breakfast in bed, and rang for it. A note came up
from Christopher. "Don't stay up-stairs. Ridgeley left hours ago, and I
shan't enjoy my toast and bacon if you aren't opposite me. I have picked
a white rose to put by your plate. And I have a thousand things to say
to you--"
His words had a tonic effect. Oh, why not--? What earthly difference
would it make? And hadn't Browning said something like that--"_Who knows
but the world may end to-night_?"
She was not sure that was quite the way that Browning had put it, and
she thought she would like to be sure--she could almost see herself
saying it to Christopher.
So she went into her husband's room to get the book.
Ridgeley's books were on the shelf above his desk. They had nothing to
do with his medical library--that was down-stairs in his office, and now
and then he would bring up a great volume. But he had a literary side,
and he had revealed some of it to Anne in the days before he had been
too busy. His Browning was marked, and it was not hard to find "The Last
Ride." She opened at the right page, and stood reading--an incongruous
figure amid Ridgeley's masculine belongings in her sheer negligee of
faint blue.
She closed the book, put it back on the shelf, and was moving away, when
her eyes were caught by two words--"For Anne," at the top of a sheet of
paper which lay on Ridgeley's desk. The entire page was filled with
Ridgeley's neat professional script, and in a flash the gesture which he
had made the night before returned to her, as if he were trying to hide
something from her gaze.
She bent and read....
Oh, was this the way he had spent the hours of the night? Searching for
words which might comfort her, might clear away her doubts, might bring
hope to her heart?
And he had found things like this: "_My little sister, Death_," said
good St. Francis; ... "_The darkness is no darkness with thee, but the
night is as clear as day; the darkness and light to thee are both
alike_..." "_Yea, though I Walk through the Valley of the Shadow_ ..."
These and many others, truths which had once been a part of her.
She read, avidly. Oh, she had been thirsty--for this! Hungry for this!
And _Ridgeley_--! The tears dripped so that she could hardly see the
lines. She laid her cheek against the paper, and her tears blistered it.
She carried it into her room. Christopher's note still lay on her
pillow. She read it again, but she had no ears now for its call. She
rang for her maid. "I shall stay in bed and write some letters."
She wrote to Christopher, after many attempts. "We have been such good,
_good_ friends. And we mustn't spoil it. Perhaps if you could go away
for a time, it would be best for both of us. I am going to believe that
some day you will find great happiness. And you would never have found
happiness with me, you would have found only--fear. And I know now what
the old man meant about the beads--'What you think is evil--cannot be
evil.' Christopher, death isn't evil, if it isn't the end of things. And
I am going to believe that it is not the end ..."
Christopher went into town before lunch, and later Anne sat alone on
the stone bench in her grove of birches. They were serene and still in
the gold of the afternoon. Yet last night they had writhed in the storm.
She, too, had been swept by a storm.... She missed her playmate--but she
had a sense of relief in the absence of her tempestuous lover.
Ridgeley came home that night with news of Christopher's sudden
departure. "He found telegrams. He told me to say 'good-bye' to you."
"I am sorry," Anne said, and meant it. Sorry that it had to be--but
being sorry could not change it.
After dinner Ridgeley had a call to make, and Anne went up to bed. But
she was awake when her husband came in, and the thin line of light
showed. She waited until she heard the boom of water in his bath, and
then she slipped out of bed and opened the door between. She was propped
up in her pillows when he reappeared in his blue bathrobe.
"Hello," he called, "did you want me?"
"Yes, Ridgeley."