The clock in a neighboring church tower was just striking five on a warm afternoon in June. The pillar box stood at the corner of Guilford Square nearest the church, and on this particular afternoon there chanced to be several people running at the last moment to post their letters. Among others were Brian and Erica. Brian, with a great bundle of parish notices, had just reached the box when running down the other side of the square at full speed he saw his Undine carrying a bagful of letters. He had not met her for some weeks, for it happened to have been a busy time with him, and though she had been very good in coming to read to old Mrs. Osmond, he had always just missed her.
“This is a funny meeting place,” she exclaimed, rather breathlessly. “It never struck me before what a truly national institution the post office is—a place where people of all creeds and opinions can meet together, and are actually treated alike!”
Brian smiled.
“You have been very busy,” he said, glancing at the innumerable envelopes, which she was dropping as fast as might be into the narrow receptacle. He could see that they were directed in her small, clear, delicate handwriting.
“And you, too,” she said, looking at his diminished bundle. “Mine are secularist circulars, and yours, I suppose, are the other kind of thing, but you see the same pillar eats them up quite contentedly. The post office is beautifully national, it sets a good example.”
She spoke lightly, but there was a peculiar tone in her voice which betrayed great weariness. It made Brian look at her more attentively than he had yet done—less from a lover's point of view, more from a doctor's. She was very pale. Though the running had brought a faint color to her cheeks, her lips were white, her forehead almost deathly. He knew that she had never really been well since her mother's death, but the change wrought within the last three weeks dismayed him; she was the mere shadow of her former self.
“This hot weather is trying you,” he said.
“Something is,” she replied. “Work, or weather, or worry, or the three combined.”
“Come in and see my father,” said Brian, “and be idle for a little time; you will be writing more circulars if you go home.”
“No, they are all done, and my examination is over, and there is nothing special going on just now; I think that is why I feel so like breaking down.”