She hesitated a moment, frightened at the outdoor dark, and then, catching her breath, ran quickly around the corner of the house, and down the drive toward the low, clapboarded structure beside the stables, where a lighted window-shade with moving shadows pointed out the room of that solemn presence.
The night air was warm and heavy, and its door stood wide. She crept up close and listened. Between low-muttered words of subdued conversation, she heard a slow and labored breathing—a breathing now stopping, now beginning again, and with a curious rattle in it which somehow awed her. From where she crouched, she could see only the foot of the bed, with its tall, bare posts. There seemed to be expectancy in the hushed voices within, and a quick fear seized her lest she should miss the wonderful sight. Quivering with eagerness, she rose to her feet, and with her fascinated gaze seeking out the old face on the pillow, stepped straight forward into the room.
She heard a rising murmur of astonishment, of protest, and before her light-blinded eyes had found their way, felt herself seized roughly, unceremoniously, lifted bodily off her feet and borne out into the night. She heard, through the passionate resentment of her childish mind, the soothing endearments of Jem the gardener, and she struggled to loose herself, beating at his face with her hands and sobbing with helpless suffocation of anger.
A frightened maid met them at the door and took her from him, carrying her to her room to undress her and sit by her till she should fall asleep. No assurance that old Anne would soon be happy in heaven comforted her. No one understood, and she was too hurt to explain what she had wanted.
So she lay through the long hours, the bitter tears of grief and disappointment wetting her pillow.
I.
The air above the shelving stretches of sand-beach shimmered and dilated with the heat of the August afternoon, as Margaret walked just beyond the yeasty edge of the receding waves. There was little wind stirring, and the cool damp was pleasant under her feet. She had left the hotel behind, and the straggling line of bobbing, dark-blue specks, which indicated the habitual bathers, was small in the distance.
A blue-and-silver bound book was in her hand, and her gray tweed skirt and soft jacket, with a bunch of drooping crimson roses at the waist, made a grateful spot upon the white glare. Summer sun and sea-wind had given a clear olive to her face and a scarlet radiance to her full lips, softly curved. Her hair, in waving masses of flush-brown, flowed out from beneath her straw hat, tempting a breeze.