"He has always seemed to me to be the noblest man," Bettina went on. "I don't think I have ever felt that he was anything but great. You people, who have always had everything, can't understand what he seemed to me when he used to come when mother was ill. You can't understand what it meant when he came to me when I was almost dead with loneliness, and told me that he wanted to marry me—you can't understand how every night—I pray—on my knees, that I'll be good enough for him—you can't understand how grateful I am—and how I try to appreciate his work; but I'm made that way—to hate pain. I hate to know about it—to see it——" Again she shuddered.
Diana drew her close. "Oh, you poor little thing," she said, "you poor little thing."
When the dawn, not many hours later, peeped into the three rooms, it showed, in one, Sophie asleep beneath the picture of her lost lover. In another Bettina, asleep, with tears still on her lashes, and with the flashing rings rising and falling above her heart. In the third room it showed Diana, awake, after hours of weariness—writing a letter to Anthony.
When Anthony had read that letter, he left the sanatorium and took a path which led him to the hills and into the hemlock forest. The walk up the hills was long, and the sun was hot, so that when he reached the depths of the wood he threw himself down with a grateful sense of the stillness which could not be disturbed by telephone or tap at the door. For a little while he lay with his eyes shut, steeping himself in that blessed silence.
When at last he sat up, he took from his pocket Diana's letter, and read it again, passing his hand now and then nervously through his hair, until it stood up like the ruffled plumage of an eagle.
"Dear Anthony:—
"It will be easier for me to talk with you in this way than face to face. When you are with me, my point of view seems to get mixed up with your point of view, and before I know it, I find myself making promises which I cannot keep, as to-night, when I almost said I would stay—and be your friend.
"I have always been your friend, Anthony. Haven't I? Even when I was a little girl, and you were a big boy, you seemed to find something in me which made it worth while for you to leave the other big boys and stay with me and talk about my books. Will I ever forget how you read some of them aloud to me? I never open now my thumbed little copy of 'Cranford' without hearing your laughing voice stumbling over the mincing phrases, and as for 'Little Women,' I believe that I worshiped in you the personification of 'Laurie.'
"But those were not the best times, Anthony. The best were when it was too dark to read, and I would curl up on the big bench by the side of the fire, and you would lie at full length on the hearth-rug, and the wind would blow and the waves would boom, and you would weave tales for me out of your wonderful wealth of boyish dreams.
"Blessed memories! But even then I believe I resented your masterfulness a bit, Anthony. There was that time when you told me that I must get my lessons before you would finish the story which was so near the end. And I cried and coaxed, but you stood firm—and I respected you for it, and hated you and loved you in one breath.