"I wish I could hear from him," I said. "I want to know what's happening. But honestly, I think I took the safe way with him, whatever happens. It's much better to have him know what he mustn't say than to have him guessing all sorts of things with no reason for not airing them."
"Yes; but I wish nobody knew anything. We took a terrible risk."
"I did, you mean. If I spoke beyond my authority, the fault is certainly mine. Still, I'm not sure that I'm sorry, and I won't plead that I meant well."
She searched carefully through the heap of flowers. "No, you're one of us now—in a way. What you did was ours, not your own— Oh, I'm sure it's all right anyway, and you acted wisely. Only I'm nervous about it, I suppose." She leaned back wearily. "I do get so tired of all this unnaturalness. Why can't God let us live like other people?"
It was the first time I had ever heard her complain; the first open confession of the weary weight that had lain so long upon her eyes; and it shook me so that for a little I did not trust myself to speak, for fear I should not speak quietly enough. She sat silent, the light gone out of her as I had seen it go on that first day, her hand twisting listlessly at her chain.
"I only wish I could be more use," I said at last.
She turned half toward me: "Sometimes I wish you could know," she said and her eyes of a sudden glimmered and grew wet.
That was more than I could bear. "Lady," I cried, "why can't I know? What difference does it make? Oh, I'm not questioning you; I don't want to satisfy my mere mind with your mystery. I don't care what the explanation is; I'm not after answers to questions. But it can't matter to us, whatever it is. Nothing can. When I thought you were married, that didn't change anything really. It meant that I must go away, that I must never come back to you perhaps—but even that was a little thing. And nothing else in the world could be as bad as that even."
"Don't. Please don't make it any worse—oh, stop telling me—listen!" She caught herself suddenly, holding up her hand. The canary poured out a long trill that sounded like tiny laughter.
"Sheila," I said. "She's been walking about up there all the morning. You've got so that this nightmare doesn't give you an hour's peace. I don't care what it is. You know that. You know that I couldn't be troubled by anything behind you or about you. I never shall want to know. But I want the whole right to stand in front of you and fight it, to take you away from this place and make you forget and be alive. And you know that no reason—"