WHITE BIRCHES
She tried to read, but found it difficult. Across each page flamed Christopher's sentences ... "We'll ride through the desert. ... We'll set our sails for strange harbors. ..."
Was that what the old man had meant at the circus. ... "What you think is evil—cannot be evil"? Would Christopher give her all that she had hoped of Ridgeley? If she lived to be eighty, she and Ridgeley would—jog. Was Christopher right—"You'll have more happiness in a few months than some people in a lifetime?"
She heard her husband moving about in the next room, the water booming in his bath. A thin line of light showed under his door.
She shut her book and turned out her lamp. The storm had died down and the moon was up. Through the open window she could see beyond the garden to the grove of birches.
Hitherto, the thought of the little grove had been as of a sanctuary. She was aware, suddenly, that it had become a place of contending forces. Were the guardian angels driven out ..?
But there weren't any guardian angels! Ridgeley had said that they were silly. And Christopher didn't believe in them. She wished that her mother might have lived to talk it over. Her mother had had no doubts.
The door of her husband's room opened, and he
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