the day . . . thought you'd forgotten it, too . . . hoped you had. When I went into the office there was my present along with Parker's letter. See how you like it."
It was a little diamond pendant. Even in the moonlight it sparkled like a living thing.
"Gilbert . . . and I . . ."
"Try it on. I wish it had come this morning . . . then you'd have had something to wear to the dinner besides that old enamel heart. Though it did look rather nice snuggling in that pretty white hollow in your throat, darling. Why didn't you leave on that green dress, Anne? I liked it . . . it reminded me of that dress with the rosebuds on it you used to wear at Redmond."
("So he had noticed the dress! So
"Are you really well, Gilbert? You look frightfully tired. I know you're overdoing it."
A wave or horror swept over Annie. Gilbert did look tired . . . frightfully tired . . . and she hadn't seen it until Christine pointed it out! Never would she forget the humiliation of that moment. ("I've been taking Gilbert too much for granted and blaming him for doing the same thing.")
What was that? Somebody was coming up the stairs, three steps at a time, as Gilbert used to do long ago in the House of Dreams . . . as he had not done for a long time now. It couldn't be Gilbert . . . it was!
He burst into the room . . . he flung a little packet on the table . . . he caught Anne by the waist and waltzed her round and round the room like a crazy schoolboy, coming to rest at last breathlessly in a silver pool of moonlight.
"I was right, Anne . . . thank God, I was right! Mrs. Garrow is going to be all right . . . the specialist has said so."
"Mrs. Garrow? Gilbert, have you gone crazy?"
"Didn't I tell you? Surely I told you . . . well, I suppose it's been such a sore subject I just couldn't talk of it. I've been worried to death about it for the past two weeks . . . couldn't think of anything else, waking or sleeping. Mrs. Garrow lives in Lowbridge and was Parker's patient. He asked me in for a consultation . . . I diagnosed her case differently from him . . . we almost fought . . . I was sure I was right . . . I insisted there was a chance . . . we sent her to Montreal . . . Parker said she'd never come back alive . . . her husband was ready to shoot me on sight. When she was gone I went to bits . . . perhaps I was mistaken . . . perhaps I'd tortured her needlessly. I found the letter in my office when
