“It—his letter swept away all my anger. I—I understood.”
“Of course,” Muriel nodded, “there is his point of view.”
“I saw it,” said Anne. “I realized—or thought I realized—the utter loneliness that made him act as he had done. I—I wrote to him.”
“Yes?” queried Muriel again, and very gently.
“I said—oh, I said a good deal,” confessed Anne. “And—and he has never replied. Oh, don’t you see it’s that that hurts? I said things I would never have said if I hadn’t believed he was longing for me to say them, if I hadn’t”—Anne’s face was crimson—“wanted to say them. I was so sure I’d hear from him again. And—and there was only a cruel silence. I’d give anything never to have written that letter.” Shamed, broken, she looked piteously at Muriel. Anne was proud, and she was young. She did not yet know that there is no shame in giving love, offering it purely, finely, as she had done. Is not God Himself daily making the offering, an offering from which too many of us turn away?
“But, darling Anne,” cried Muriel, “perhaps—surely he could not have received it.”
Anne shook her head. “It’s what I’d like to believe,” she said with a little bitter laugh, “what [Pg 220]we’d both like to believe. But it’s no good. I sent it to his publishers, the same address as that to which I’d sent the others. Oh, no! that kind of letters don’t miscarry. I have misunderstood all through.”
“Darling!” said Muriel softly.
There was a long silence, broken only by an occasional little sputtering of the coal in the fire, and the rumble of wheels and clack of horses’ hoofs without. And in the silence Muriel was giving very deep thanks to St. Joseph that Anne—her beloved Anne—was once more restored to her. Also she was cogitating in her own mind still further benefits to be asked of him.
Presently Anne broke the silence.