“My dear”—he had somehow dropped into the use of the little term of endearment, and Gillian found that she liked it and knew that she would miss it if it were suddenly erased from his speech—“my dear, why cross bridges till we come to them? Perhaps, when the time comes, there’ll be no bridge to cross.”
Gillian glanced at him swiftly.
“Do you mean that she—that you’re feeling less bitter towards her, Dan?” she asked eagerly.
He smiled down at her whimsically.
“I don’t quite know. But I know one thing—it’s very difficult to be a lot with you and keep one’s anger strictly up to concert pitch.”
Gillian made no answer. She was too wise—with that intuitive wisdom of woman—to force the pace. If Dan were beginning to relent ever so little towards Magda—why, then, her two best friends might yet come together in comradeship and learn to forget the bitter past. The gentle hand of Time would be laid on old wounds and its touch would surely bring healing. But Gillian would no more have thought of trying to hasten matters than she would have tried to force open the close-curled petals of a flower in bud.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE RETURN
Magda slipped through the tall doorway in the wall which marked the abode of the Sisters of Penitence and stood once more on the pavement of the busy street. The year was over, and just as once before the clicking of the latch had seemed to signify the end of everything, so now it sounded a quite different note—of new beginnings, of release—freedom!