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“Christopher….”

“Anne, listen.”

“You mustn’t say things like that to me … you must not…!”

“I must. I want you to have happiness. We’ll crowd more in to a few short months than some people have in a lifetime. And you have a right to it.”

“Would it be happiness?”

“Why not? In a way we are all pushing death ahead of us. Who knows that he will be alive to-morrow? There’s this arm of mine … there’s every chance that I’ll have trouble with it. And an automobile accident may wreck a honeymoon. You’ve as much time as thousands who are counting on more.”

The lightning flashed and showed the birches writhing.

“But afterward, Christopher, afterward…?”

“Well, if it is Heaven, we’ll have each other. And if it is Hell … there were Paolo and Francesca … and if it is sleep, I’ll dream eternally of you! Anne … Anne, do you love me enough to do it?”

“Christopher, please!”

But the storm was upon them–rain and wind, and the thunder a cannonade. Christopher, brought at last to the knowledge of its menace, picked Anne up in his arms, and ran for shelter. When they reached the house, they found Ridgeley there. He was stern. “It was a bad business to keep her out. She’s afraid of storms.”

“Were you afraid?” Christopher asked her, as Ridgeley went to look after the awnings.

“I forgot the storm,” she said, and did not meet his eyes.

VI

Lying awake in her wide bed, Anne thought it over. She was still shaken by Christopher’s vehemence. She had believed him her friend, and had found him her lover–and oh, he had brought back youth to her. If he left her now, how could she stand it–the days with no one but Jeanette Ware, and the soul-shaking knowledge of what was ahead?

And Ridgeley would not care–much. In a week be swallowed up by his work….

She tried to read, but found it difficult. Across each page flamed Christopher’s sentences…. “We’ll ride through the desert…. We’ll set our sails for strange harbors….”

Was that what the old man had meant at the circus…. “What you think is evil–cannot be evil”? Would Christopher give her all that she had hoped of Ridgeley? If she lived to be eighty, she and Ridgeley would–jog. Was Christopher right–“You’ll have more happiness in a few months than some people in a lifetime?”

She heard her husband moving about in the next room, the water booming in his bath. A thin line of light showed under his door.

She shut her book and turned out her lamp. The storm had died down and the moon was up. Through the open window she could see beyond the garden to the grove of birches.

Hitherto, the thought of the little grove had been as of a sanctuary. She was aware, suddenly, that it had become a place of contending forces. Were the guardian angels driven out…?

But there weren’t any guardian angels! Ridgeley had said that they were silly. And Christopher didn’t believe in them. She wished that her mother might have lived to talk it over. Her mother had had no doubts.

The door of her husband’s room opened, and he was silhouetted against the light. Coming up to the side of her bed, he found her wide-eyed.

“Can’t you sleep, my dear?”

“No.”

“I don’t want to give you anything.”

“I don’t want anything.”

He sat down by the side of the bed. He had on his blue bathrobe, and the open neck showed his strong white throat. “My dear,” he said, “I’ve been thinking of what you said this morning–about my lack of belief and the effect it has had on yours. And–I’m sorry.”

“Being sorry doesn’t help any, does it, Ridgeley?”

“I should like to think that you had your old faiths to–comfort you.”

She had no answer for that, and presently he said, “Are you warm enough?” and brought an extra blanket, because the air was cool after the storm, and then he bent and kissed her forehead. “Shut your eyes and sleep if you can.”