Gilbert rushed off to his office the moment they were inside the house and Anne went silently up to their room, where the moonlight was lying on the floor, still and silver and cold. She went to the open window and looked out. It was evidently the Carter Flaggs' dog's night to howl and he was putting his heart into it. The lombardy leaves glistened like silver in the moonlight. The house about her seemed whispering tonight ... whispering sinisterly, as if it were no longer her friend.
Anne felt sick and cold and empty. The gold of life had turned to withered leaves. Nothing had any meaning any longer. Everything seemed remote and unreal.
Far down the tide was keeping its world-old tryst with the shore.
She could ... now that Norman Douglas had cut down his spruce bush ... see her little House of Dreams. How happy they had been there ... when it was enough just to be together in their own home, with their visions, their caresses, their silences! All the colour of the morning in their lives ... Gilbert looking at her with that smile in his eyes he kept for her alone ... finding every day a new way of saying, "I love you" ... sharing laughter as they shared sorrow.
And now ... Gilbert had grown tired of her. Men had always been like that ... always would be. She had thought Gilbert was an exception but now she knew the truth. And how was she going to adjust her life to it?
"There are the children, of course," she thought dully. "I must go on living for them. And nobody must know ... NOBODY. I will not be pitied.”
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 I went in ... I was RIGHT ... they've 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 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.'“
Life which had seemed so grey and foolish a few moments before was golden and rose and splendidly rainbowed again. The diamond pendant slipped to the floor, unheeded for the moment. It was beautiful ... but there were so many things lovelier ... confidence and peace and delightful work ... laughter and kindness ... that old SAFE feeling of a sure love.
"Oh, if we could keep this moment for ever, Gilbert!”
"We're going to have some moments. It's time we had a second honeymoon. Anne, there's going to be a big medical congress in London next February. We're going to it ... and after it we'll see a bit of the Old World. There's a holiday coming to us. We'll be nothing but lovers again ... it will be just like being married over again. You haven't been like yourself for a long time. ("So he had noticed.") You're tired and overworked ... you need a change. ("You too, dearest. I've been so horribly blind.") I'm not going to have it cast up to me that doctors' wives never get a pill. We'll come back rested and fresh, with our sense of humour completely restored. Well, try your pendant on and let's get to bed. I'm half dead for sleep ... haven't had a decent night's sleep for weeks, what with twins and worry over Mrs.
Garrow.”
"What on earth were you and Christine talking about so long in the garden tonight?" asked Anne, peacocking before the mirror with her diamonds.
Gilbert yawned.
"Oh, I don't know. Christine just gabbled on. But here is one fact she presented me with. A flea can jump two hundred times its own length. Did you know that, Anne?”
("They were talking of fleas when I was writhing with jealousy.
What an idiot I've been!") "How on earth did you come to be talking of fleas?”
"I can't remember ... perhaps it was Dobermann pinschers suggested it.”
"Dobermann pinschers! WHAT are Dobermann pinschers?”
"A new kind of dog. Christine seems to be a dog connoisseur. I was so obsessed with Mrs. Garrow that I didn't pay much attention to what she was saying. Now and then I caught a word about complexes and repressions ... that new psychology that's coming up ... and art ... and gout and politics ... and frogs.”
"Frogs!”
"Some experiments a Winnipeg research man is making. Christine was never very entertaining, but she's a worse bore than ever. And malicious! She never used to be malicious.”
"What did she say that was so malicious?" asked Anne innocently.
"Didn't you notice? Oh, I suppose you wouldn't catch on ... you're so free from that sort of thing yourself. Well, it doesn't matter. That laugh of hers got on my nerves a bit. And she's got fat. Thank goodness, you haven't got fat, Anne-girl.”
"Oh, I don't think she is so very fat," said Anne charitably. "And she certainly is a very handsome woman.”
"So-so. But her face has got hard ... she's the same age as you but she looks ten years older.”
"And you talking to her about immortal youth!”
Gilbert grinned guiltily.
"One has to say something civil. Civilization can't exist without a LITTLE hypocrisy. Oh, well, Christine isn't a bad old scout, even if she doesn't belong to the race of Joseph. It's not her fault that the pinch of salt was left out of her. What's this?”