Chapter 7

When she waked in the morning, it was with, the remembrance of his tenderness. Well, of course he was sorry for her. Anybody would be. But Christopher was sorry, too. And Christopher had something to offer her—more than Ridgeley—yes, it was more—

She was half afraid to go down-stairs. Christopher would be at breakfast on the porch. Jeanette would be there, pouring coffee, and perhaps Ridgeley if he had no calls. And Christopher would talk in his gay young voice—and Ridgeley would read the newspaper, and she and Christopher would make their plans for the day—

She rose and began to dress, but found herself suddenly panic-stricken at the thought of the plans that Christopher might make. If they motored off together, he would talk to her as he had talked in the grove of birches—of the temple bells, and of the desert, and the strange harbors—and how could she be sure that she would be strong enough to resist—and what if she listened, and let him have his way?

She decided to eat her breakfast in bed, and rang for it. A note came up from Christopher. "Don't stay up-stairs. Ridgeley left hours ago, and I shan't enjoy my toast and bacon if you aren't opposite me. I have picked a white rose to put by your plate. And I have a thousand things to say to you—"

His words had a tonic effect. Oh, why not—? What earthly difference would it make? And hadn't Browning said something like that—"Who knows but the world may end to-night?"

She was not sure that was quite the way that Browning had put it, and she thought she would like to be sure—she could almost see herself saying it to Christopher.

So she went into her husband's room to get the book.

Ridgeley's books were on the shelf above his desk. They had nothing to do with his medical library—that was down-stairs in his office, and now and then he would bring up a great volume. But he had a literary side, and he had revealed some of it to Anne in the days before he had been too busy. His Browning was marked, and it was not hard to find "The Last Ride." She opened at the right page, and stood reading—an incongruous figure amid Ridgeley's masculine belongings in her sheer negligee of faint blue.

She closed the book, put it back on the shelf, and was moving away, when her eyes were caught by two words—"For Anne," at the top of a sheet of paper which lay on Ridgeley's desk. The entire page was filled with Ridgeley's neat professional script, and in a flash the gesture which he had made the night before returned to her, as if he were trying to hide something from her gaze.

She bent and read....

Oh, was this the way he had spent the hours of the night? Searching for words which might comfort her, might clear away her doubts, might bring hope to her heart?

And he had found things like this: "My little sister, Death," said good St. Francis; ... "The darkness is no darkness with thee, but the night is as clear as day; the darkness and light to thee are both alike..." "Yea, though I Walk through the Valley of the Shadow ..." These and many others, truths which had once been a part of her.

She read, avidly. Oh, she had been thirsty—for this! Hungry for this! And Ridgeley—! The tears dripped so that she could hardly see the lines. She laid her cheek against the paper, and her tears blistered it.

She carried it into her room. Christopher's note still lay on her pillow. She read it again, but she had no ears now for its call. She rang for her maid. "I shall stay in bed and write some letters."

She wrote to Christopher, after many attempts. "We have been such good, good friends. And we mustn't spoil it. Perhaps if you could go away for a time, it would be best for both of us. I am going to believe that some day you will find great happiness. And you would never have found happiness with me, you would have found only—fear. And I know now what the old man meant about the beads—'What you think is evil—cannot be evil.' Christopher, death isn't evil, if it isn't the end of things. And I am going to believe that it is not the end ..."

Christopher went into town before lunch, and later Anne sat alone on the stone bench in her grove of birches. They were serene and still in the gold of the afternoon. Yet last night they had writhed in the storm. She, too, had been swept by a storm.... She missed her playmate—but she had a sense of relief in the absence of her tempestuous lover.

Ridgeley came home that night with news of Christopher's sudden departure. "He found telegrams. He told me to say 'good-bye' to you."

"I am sorry," Anne said, and meant it. Sorry that it had to be—but being sorry could not change it.

After dinner Ridgeley had a call to make, and Anne went up to bed. But she was awake when her husband came in, and the thin line of light showed. She waited until she heard the boom of water in his bath, and then she slipped out of bed and opened the door between. She was propped up in her pillows when he reappeared in his blue bathrobe.

"Hello," he called, "did you want me?"

"Yes, Ridgeley."

He came in. "Anything the matter?"

"No. I'm not sick. But I want to talk."

"About what?"

"This—" She showed him the paper with its caption, "For Anne."

"Ridgeley, did you write it because I was—afraid?" her hand went out to him.

His own went over it. "I think I wrote it because I was afraid."

"You?"

His grip almost hurt her. "My dear, my dear, I haven't believed in things. How could I ... with all the facts that men like me have to deal with? But when I faced ... losing you...! love's got to be eternal..."

"Ridgeley."

"I won't ... lose you. Oh, I know. We've grown apart. I don't know how a man is going to help it ... in this darned whirlpool.... But you've always been right ... here.... I've felt I might ... have you, if I ever had time ..." his voice broke.

"And I thought you didn't care."

"I was afraid of that, and somehow I couldn't get ... back ... to where we began. I was always thinking I would.... And then this came....

"I always hated to kill the things that you believed, Anne. I thought I had to be honest ... that it would be better for you to face the truth.... But which one of us knows the Truth? Not a man among us. And I came across this ... 'Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die....' We are all fools—the wisest of us...."

She held out her arms to him, and he gathered her close. She felt that it had been a thousand years since she had prayed, yet she heard herself speaking.... And when he laid her back upon her pillows, she was aware that together they had approached some height from which they would never again descend.

"I'll leave the door open," he said, as he left her. "I shall be reading, and you can see the light."

It seemed as if the light from his room flooded the world. The four posts of her bed once more were tipped with shining saints! She turned on her pillow—beyond the garden, the grove of white birches was steeped in celestial radiance.

"My little sister, Death," said good St. Francis.

With her hand under her cheek, she slept at last, as peacefully as a child.

THE EMPEROR'S GHOST