operated . . . she has an excellent chance of living. Anne girl, I could jump over the moon! I've shed twenty years." Anne had either to laugh or cry . . . so she began to laugh. It was lovely to be able to laugh again . . . lovely to feel like laughing. Everything was suddenly all right. "I suppose that is why you forgot this was our anniversary?" she taunted him. Gilbert released her long enough to pounce on the little packet he had dropped on the table. "I didn't forget it. Two weeks ago I sent to Toronto for this. And it didn't come till tonight. I felt so small this morning when I hadn't a thing to give you that I didn't mention
"Are you really well, Gilbert? You look frightfully tired. I know you're overdoing it." A wave or horror swept over Annie. Gilbert did look tired . . . frightfully tired . . . and she hadn't seen it until Christine pointed it out! Never would she forget the humiliation of that moment. ("I've been taking Gilbert too much for granted and blaming him for doing the same thing.")
What was that? Somebody was coming up the stairs, three steps at a time, as Gilbert used to do long ago in the House of Dreams . . . as he had not done for a long time now. It couldn't be Gilbert . . . it was! He burst into the room . . . he flung a little packet on the table . . . he caught Anne by the waist and waltzed her round and round the room like a crazy schoolboy, coming to rest at last breathlessly in a silver pool of moonlight. "I was right, Anne . . . thank God, I was right! Mrs. Garrow is going to be all right . . . the specialist has said so." "Mrs. Garrow? Gilbert, have you gone crazy?" "Didn't I tell you? Surely I told you . . . well, I suppose it's been such a sore subject I just couldn't talk of it. I've been worried to death about it for the past two weeks . . . couldn't think of anything else, waking or sleeping. Mrs. Garrow lives in Lowbridge and was Parker's patient. He asked me in for a consultation . . . I diagnosed her case differently from him . . . we almost fought . . . I was sure I was right . . . I insisted there was a chance . . . we sent her to Montreal . . . Parker said she'd never come back alive . . . her husband was ready to shoot me on sight. When she was gone I went to bits . . . perhaps I was mistaken . . . perhaps I'd tortured her needlessly. I found the letter in my office when
