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She had come to see the lady who was so busily addressing envelopes and, after a decent interval of polite abstraction, she devoted herself cautiously to this purpose. Nurse Watkins, before Desire's entrance, had not been addressing envelopes. She had been reading. Her book lay open upon the window-sill and Desire, having good eyes, could read its title upside down.
How pitifully bare lay the shortened story of that smothered life. Desire's heart, so much stronger than the heart of her who gave it birth, filled with a great tenderness. She saw herself once more a little frightened child. She felt again that sense of Presence in the room. And knew that, for a child's sake, a gentle soul had not made haste to happiness.
We found Sami, much comforted, sitting upon Desire's lap, a thing he could seldom be induced to do. At our entrance he began to shiver again but soon quieted. Desire had tried questioning but it was of no use. He either couldn't, or wouldn't, say anything about what had frightened him. Desire was inclined to think that he did not know. But I was not so sure.
Away from Desire's glamour, back in New York, he had not broken his engagement to the heiress. Instead, he had married her on the day arranged before he met the clergyman's daughter. There was never again a connected record in the diary. But the story Vere's slow, steady voice conveyed to us was the one we knew; the one my Desire had told to me the first night I slept in this house.
"Benis told me so this morning." "Benis told you?" in surprise. "Well, he didn't exactly tell me. But I am sure he wanted to." This was too subtle for the doctor. There were times when he frankly admitted his inability to bridge Desire's conversational chasms. He was often puzzled by the things she did not say.
Desire's eyes grew cold and dark with shadow as she left her charming visitor to her wistful rest. That Mary Davis was the lady of her husband's one romance, she had no longer any doubt. Anyone, that is, any man, might love deeply and hopelessly a woman of such rare and subtle charm. Possessing youth in glorious measure herself, Desire naturally discounted her rival's lack of it.
His surprise was great on passing the store to see it still lit up, and a crowd of men inside, while from the apartments occupied by the Edwards family came the tinkling of Desire's piano.
Besides " He paused and Desire felt herself clutch, unaccountably, at the arm of her garden chair. "She wouldn't understand," finished Benis. Desire's grasp upon the chair relaxed. "Life is like that," he went on slowly. "No matter how careful people are there is always someone who slips in and gets hurt.
Desire's attention had lapsed as the gentlemen's talk got into the political depths, but some time after it was again aroused by hearing the mention of Perez Hamlin's name. The doctor was saying: "They say he is lurking just over the York border at Lebanon.
The silence that held the others dumb before the significance of that last sentence covered my silence from notice. Desire's face was quite hidden; lamplight and firelight wavered and gleamed across her bent head. I wanted to arise and go to her, to take her hands and tell her to have patience and courage. But when this wave ebbed, my strength drained away with the receding water.
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