"I will have a look at them, if you don't mind."
Dimbie rose.
"No, I want Mrs. Smiling Face. Women ought to know more about the arrangements of their homes than men."
He offered me his hand.
I looked helplessly at Dimbie. It was so difficult to speak, to tell him. My voice still had an annoying habit of breaking when I was trying my hardest to refer to my—sorrow in a cheerful, careless fashion. The tears did not come, but—there was always the break. I would be telling Amelia she might have my waterproof, as I should never require it again. I would start quite bravely, then would come the catch. Will it always be so, I wonder? Shall I never become quite calm and indifferent? It is eleven days since Dimbie came home—a rich man—full of his good news. Eleven days he has spent with me, and never once have we spoken of the cross we are called upon to bear, for it is Dimbie's cross as much as mine. Are we wise to put it behind us thus? Should we not feel it less if we bravely discussed it? And yet it is my doing. It is I who willed it so, I who bade Dimbie never to speak of it, and now I am almost sorry. Somehow it seems as though the silence makes it harder to bear. Our skeleton becomes more of a skeleton. Perhaps if we were to discuss it freely, frankly, we should begin to regard it in the same way as one regards a smoky chimney—as tiresome, annoying, but bearable if the windows are kept open to let in the fresh air. Our windows left wide would let in a great deal of happiness—love, comradeship, the pleasure of friends, the interest of books, the everlasting joy of Nature. I must ask Dimbie what he thinks. Dimbie always knows what is right.
In a few brief words he explained to Professor Leighrail that I was a prisoner to my couch, and that he must conduct him to the house. The Professor started as though to offer me words of sympathy, and then stopped. Simply taking my hand in his he pressed it gently, and then followed Dimbie into the house.
"That was nice of him," I thought. "I wish Nanty was here that they might renew their old friendship. Perhaps they—but no," I laughed, "they are a little old, and—Nanty hates men."
Amelia bore down upon me with intense excitement.
"That gentleman has got his coat off, and he's poking about the drains with my bamboo."
"It just shows how prepared you were for any emergency, Amelia," I said sympathetically.