TH

CHAPTER XXVI

HE light burned in Edith's room till morning; for her spine kept sleep from her through many nights. They no longer said, "She is better, or certainly no worse." They said, "She is worse, or certainly no better." The progress of her death could be reckoned by weeks and measured by inches. Soon they would be giving her morphia, to make her sleep. Meanwhile she was terribly awake.

She heard her brother's soft footsteps as he passed her door. She heard him pause on the upper landing and creep into the room overhead. She heard him go out again and shut himself up in the little room beyond. There came upon her an awful intuition of the truth. The next day she sent for him.

"What is it, Edie?" he said.

She looked at him with loving eyes, and asked him as Maggie had asked, "Are you ill?"

He started. The question brought back to him vividly the scene of the night before; brought back to him Maggie with her love and fear.

"What is it? Tell me," she insisted.

He owned to headaches. She knew he often had them. "It's not a bit of use," she said, "trying to deceive me. It's not headaches. It's Anne."

"Poor Anne. I think she's all right. After all, she's got the child, you know."

"Yes. She's got Peggy. If I could see you all right, too, I should die happy."

"Don't worry about me. I'm not worth it."

She gazed at him searchingly, confirmed in her intuition. That was the sort of thing poor Charlie used to say.

"It's my fault," she said. "It always has been."

"Angel, if you could lay everybody's sins on your own shoulders, you would."

"I mean it. You were right and I was wrong. Ah, how one pays! Only you've had to pay for my untruthfulness. I can see it now. If I'd done as you asked me, in the beginning, and told her the truth"

"She wouldn't have married me. No, Edie. You're assuming that I've lived to regret that I married her. I never have regretted it for one single moment. Not for myself, that is. For her, yes. Granted that I'm as unhappy as you please, I'd rather be unhappy with her than happy without her. See?"

"Walter-if you keep true to her, I believe you'll have your happiness yet. I don't know how it's coming. It may come very late. But it's bound to come. She's good

He assented with a groan. "Oh, much too good."

"And the goodness in her must recognise the goodness in you; when she understands. I believe she's beginning to understand. She doesn't know how much she understands."

"Understands what?"

"Your goodness. She loved you for it. She'll love you for it again."

"My dear Edie, you're the only person who believes in my goodness-you and Peggy."

"I and Peggy. And Charlie and the Hannays. And Nanna and the Gardners-and God."

"I wish God would give Anne a hint that He thinks well of me."

"Dear-if you keep true to her-He will."

If he kept true to her! It was the second time she had said it. It was almost as if she had divined what had so nearly happened.

"I think," she said, "I'd like to talk to Anne, now, while I can talk. You see, once they go giving me morphia" -she closed her eyes. "Just let me lie still for half an hour, and then bring Anne to me."

She lay still. He watched her for an hour. And he knew that in that hour she had prayed.

He found Anne sitting on the nursery floor, playing with Peggy. "Edie wants you," he said, loosening Peggy's little hands as they clung about his legs. "Mother must go, darling," said she.

But all Peggy said was, "Daddy'll stay."

He did not stay long. He had to restrain himself, to go carefully with Peggy, lest he should help her to make her mother's heart ache.

Anne found Nanna busied about the bed. Nanna was saying, "Is that any easier, Miss Edie?"

"It's heavenly, Nanna," said Edie, stifling a moan. "Oh dear, I hope in the next world I shan't feel as if my spine were still with me, like people when their legs are cut off."

"Miss Edie, what an idea!"

"Well, Nanna, you can't tell whether it mayn't be so. Anne, dear, you've got such a nice, pretty body, why have you such a withering contempt for it? It behaves so well to you, too. That's more than I can say of mine; and yet, I believe I shall quite miss it when it's gone. At any rate, I shall be glad that I was decent to the poor

thing while it was with me. Run away now, please, Nanna, and shut the door."

Nanna thought she knew why Miss Edie wanted the door shut. She, too, had her intuitive forebodings. She was aware, the whole household was aware, that the mistress cared more for her child than for the husband who had given it her. Their master's life was not altogether happy. They wondered many times how he was going to stand it.

"Anne," said Edith, "I'm uneasy about Walter." "You need not be,” said Anne.

"How can you expect him to be well when he's so unhappy?"

Anne was silent.

"How long is it going to last, dear? And where is it going to end?"

"Edith, you needn't be afraid. I shall never leave him."

That was not what Edith was afraid of, but she did not say so.

"How can I," Anne went on, "when I believe the Church's doctrine of marriage?"

"Do you? Do you believe that love is a provision for the soul's redemption of the body? or for the body's redemption of the soul?"

"I believe that, having married Walter, whatever he is or does, I cannot leave him without great sin."

"Then you'll be shocked when I tell you that if your husband were a bad man, I should be the first to implore you to leave him, though he is my brother. Where there

can be no love on either side there's no marriage, and no sacrament. That's my profane belief."

"And when there's love on one side only?"

"The sacrament is there, offered by the loving person, and refused by the unloving. And that refusal, my dear child, may, if you like, be a great sin-supposing, of course, that the love is pure and devoted. I hardly know which is the worst sin, then, to refuse to give, or to refuse to take it; or to take it, and then throw it away. What would you think if Peggy hardened her little heart against you?"

"My Peggy!"

"Yes, your Peggy. It's the same thing. You'll see it some day. But I want you to see it now, before it's too late."

"Edie, if you'd only tell me where I've failed! If you're thinking of our-our separation"

"I was not. But, since you have mentioned it, I can't help reminding you that you fell in love with Walter because you thought he was a saint. And so I don't see what's to prevent you now. He's qualifying. He mayn't be perfect; but, in some ways, a saint couldn't very well do more. Has it never occurred to that you are indulging the virtue that comes easiest to you, and exacting from him the virtue that comes hardest? And he has stood the test."

"It was his own doing-his own wish."

"Is it? I doubt it-when he's more in love with you than he was before he married you."

"That's all over."

"For you. Not for him. He's a man, as you may say, of obstinate affections."

"Ah, Edie-you don't know."