THE GAY COCKADE
how fair his hair was with the sun upon it, for he had tucked his cap in his pocket.
That night Christopher again spoke to Ridgeley. "Anne's in a bad way." He told of the walk to the top of the hill.
Ridgeley listened this time, and the next day he took Anne down into his office, and did things to her. "But I don't see why you are doing all this," she complained, as he stuck queer instruments in his ears, and made her draw long breaths while he listened.
"Christopher says you get tired when you walk."
"Well, I do. But there's nothing really the matter, is there?"
There was a great deal the matter, but there was no hint of it in his manner. If she had not been his wife, he would probably have told her the truth—that she had a few months, perhaps a few years ahead of her. He was apt to be frank with his patients. But he was not frank with Anne. He had intended to tell Christopher at once. But Christopher was away for a week.
In the week that he was separated from her, Christopher learned that he loved Anne; that he had been in love with her from the moment that she had stood among the birches—like one of them in her white slenderness—and had talked to him of guardian angels;—"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John!"
92
