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
he still remembered the old Redmond one he had admired so much!")
Anne felt like a released bird . . . she was flying again. Gilbert's arms were around her . . . his eyes were looking into hers in the moonlight.
"You do love me, Gilbert? I'm not just a habit with you? You haven't said you loved me for so long."
"My dear, dear love! I didn't think you needed words to know that. I couldn't live without you. Always you give me strength. There's a verse somewhere in the Bible that is meant for you . . . 'She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.'"
operated . . . she has an excellent chance of living. Anne girl, I could jump over the moon! I've shed twenty years."
Anne had either to laugh or cry . . . so she began to laugh. It was lovely to be able to laugh again . . . lovely to feel like laughing. Everything was suddenly all right.
"I suppose that is why you forgot this was our anniversary?" she taunted him.
Gilbert released her long enough to pounce on the little packet he had dropped on the table.
"I didn't forget it. Two weeks ago I sent to Toronto for this. And it didn't come till tonight. I felt so small this morning when I hadn't a thing to give you that I didn't mention
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
"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.")
night she would probably think of a brilliant retort she might have made but that did not help her now
Her air seemed to relegate Anne to the generation of aunts. Anne managed a smile with her lips, not her eyes. If she could only think of something clever to say! She knew that at three o'clock that
It used to be delicious to wake in the night . . . to lie and look out of her window at the night's enfolding loveliness . . . to hear Gilbert's regular breathing beside her . . . to think of the children across the hall and the beautiful new day that was coming. But now! Anne was still awake when the dawn, clear and green as fluor-spar, was in the eastern sky and Gilbert came home at last. "Twins," he said hollowly as he flung himself into bed and was asleep in a minute. Twins, indeed! The dawn of the fifteenth anniversary of your wedding day and all your husband could say to you was "Twins." He didn't even remember it was an anniversary.
Gilbert apparently didn't remember it any better when he came down at eleven. For the first time he did not mention it; for the first time he had no gift for her. Very well, he
Two boys on the fence whooped derisively, but who cared
Taylor's funeral I thought she was a bride, she looked so happy. I always think when I see your ma come into a room that everyone perks up as if they expected something to happen. The new fashions set her, too. Most of us just ain't made to wear 'em
