CHAPTER XXIX
Anne left town about the middle of June and did not return until late in September. She surprised every one who knew her by going to Nova Scotia, where she took a cottage in one of the quaint old coast towns. Lutie and George and the baby spent the month of August with her. Near the close of their visit, Anne made an announcement that, for one day at least, caused them to doubt, very gravely, whether she was in her right mind. George, very much perturbed, went so far as to declare to Lutie in the seclusion of their bedroom that night, that Anne was certainly dotty. And the queer part of it all was that he couldn't, for the life of him, feel sorry about it!
The next morning they watched her closely, at times furtively, and waited for her to either renounce the decision of the day before or reveal some sign that she had no recollection of having made the astounding statement at all,—in which case they could be certain that she had been a bit flighty and would be in a position to act accordingly. (Get a specialist after her, or something like that.) But Anne very serenely discoursed on the sweetest sleep she had known in years, and declared she was ready for anything, even the twelve-mile tramp that George had been trying so hard to get her to take with him. Her eyes were brighter, her cheeks rosier than they had been for months, and, to George's unbounded amazement, she ate a hearty breakfast with them.
"I have written to Simmy," said she, "and James has posted the letter. The die is cast. Congratulate me!"
"But, hang it all," cried George desperately, "I still believe you are crazy, Anne, so—how can I congratulate you? My Lord, girl—"
He stopped short, for Lutie sprang up from the table and threw her arms around Anne. She kissed her rapturously, all the time gurgling something into her ear that George could not hear, and perhaps would not have understood if he had. Then they both turned toward him, shining-eyed and exultant. An instant later he rushed over and enveloped both of them in his long, strong arms and shouted out that he was crazy too.
Anne's letter to Simmy was a long one, and she closed it with the sentence: "You may expect me not later than the twentieth of September."
Thorpe grew thin and haggard as the summer wore away; his nerves were in such a state that he seriously considered giving up his work, for the time being, at least. The truth was gradually being forced in upon him that his hand was no longer as certain, no longer as steady as it had been. Only by exercising the greatest effort of the will was he able to perform the delicate work he undertook to do in the hospitals. He was gravely alarmed by the ever-growing conviction that he was never sure of himself. Not that he had lost confidence in his ability, but he was acutely conscious of having lost interest. He was fighting all the time, but it was his own fight and not that of others. Day and night he was fighting something that would not fight back, and yet was relentless; something that was content to sit back in its own power and watch him waste his strength and endurance. Each succeeding hour saw him grow weaker under the strain. He was fighting the thing that never surrenders, never weakens, never dies. He was struggling against a mighty, world-old Giant, born the day that God's first man was created, and destined to live with all God's men from that time forth: Passion.
Time and again he went far out of his way to pass by the house near Washington Square, admittedly surreptitious in his movements. On hot nights he rode down Fifth Avenue on the top of the stages, and always cast an eye to the right in passing the street in which Anne lived, looking in vain for lights in the windows of the closed house. And an hundred times a day he thought of the key that no longer kept company with others at the end of a chain but lay loose in his trousers' pocket. Times there were when an almost irresistible desire came upon him to go down there late at night and enter the house, risking discovery by the servants who remained in quarters, just for a glimpse of the rooms upstairs she had described,—her own rooms,—the rooms in which she dreamed of him.