“Have I?” I whispered back, and I think that she must have felt that my words might hold some double meaning, for we stood looking at each other, her eyes meeting mine—unflinching, appraising, her level brows a little arched—puzzled and wholly adorable.
“Please don’t tell any one.”
“It shall be our special secret,” I replied.
She turned and ran to the house, and I lounged up the sunny garden, my pulses pleasantly a-throb, drinking in the morning freshness that seemed to reflect and emphasize the joy of my uplifting discovery.
At the far end and in the corner away from the garage, there is a little rose garden, enclosed on two sides by a sturdy hedge of wild white rose, and on two by the mellow red brick walls—a diminutive but formal square of lawn with a rose bed in each corner—a little place of peace and sanctuary to which I naturally turned. An archway gives entry through the white rose hedge and I passed through it musing happily—yes happily, in spite of all the horrors of the week—for it seemed that for me the darkness might lift to a golden dawn. In one of the corner-beds grew a lovely large white rose and I stooped to examine one of the buds, a thing of perfect beauty, the outer petals curling back to show the heart—layer on layer of closely folded purity.
Then just behind me I heard a tiny splash, and I turned quickly to learn the cause. I had been looking at beauty and thinking of love, while behind me the lawn was a place of broken hopes and death.
Dead birds lay scattered over the little square; sparrows mostly, but a robin with its vivid breast, and a cock blackbird with its gay orange beak were there as well, and they all lay stiffly on their backs with their little claws pathetically extended, for all the world as though they had been taken from some taxidermist’s show-case and scattered about the grass. Under the hedge lay Ethel’s tabby Tom, stark and stiff, a half-eaten sparrow between his outstretched paws.
In the center of the square there stood an old painted iron table on which Ethel kept a shallow dish of red pottery filled with water for the birds in times of drought. A thrush was in the middle of it, lying on its back, and it made one last dying flutter as I stood taking in the tragic little scene. A second thrush, its mate, I guessed, flew down from the garden wall as I watched, and perched on the edge of the dish, then catching sight of me, it gave one long, sorrowful, flutelike note and flew away.
I crossed over to the cat and turned him over with my foot. His eyes were wide and when I saw them I felt the hair go creeping across my scalp, for there was a yellow slit of iris and the rest was an angry red. I started back in horror and ran to the house for Janet.
She was coming down the stairs as I entered the hall, and I beckoned to her to come into the garden with me.