’Ah, my dear love, why have you come to make it harder for me now I must let you go?’ As she drew him closer, and he hid his sightless eyes in the warm comfort of her breast, we slipped away and left them.
After a little while a message came asking us to go up again. He was back on his pillows and Monica was sitting beside him very quietly. All the tortured look had gone from his face and a great peace was there instead, and a great thankfulness in hers.
’Meg,’ he cried, with his old laugh, ’how brazen all you modern women are. You never have the vapours like your grandmothers, never faint when you are pressed to name the day, as any lady should. Instead, you come and beg a chap to marry you when he’s already said he won’t in writing, and bother his life out till he says he will, just to stop the creature chattering. This thing,’ he said, groping for Monica’s hand, ’says that three arms and two eyes are enough for any couple to start housekeeping on, so—oh, good gracious, _could_ I have a cigarette; being proposed to is so dashed exhausting.’
Then we said good-bye and Monica came down to see us off. Just as she and Ross went out of the room Charlie called me back, and as I leaned over him he said with his old absurdity,—
’Isn’t it a merciful dispensation that I’m "amphidextrous," Meg? I shall, at least, be able to fish with my left hand,’ and then, with a little wave of his old diffidence coming back, he added,—
’Wasn’t it perfect of Him to give me back Monica?’
I couldn’t think what he meant, so I said,—
’Why, the only Person I can see now, Meg—my Lord.’ And I choked as I went down the stairs, because from the rapture in his voice he seemed to think his Lord was worth his eyes.
’Oh, no,’ I said, ’it’s just the contrast.’
When we got home another wire was in the hall addressed to me.
’Let me open it,’ said Ross, picking it up.
’No,’ and I snatched it from him and ran up to my room. The dreadful ice was all around my heart again. The horror of a great darkness came upon my mind. I couldn’t pray. I tried to quieten all my jangled nerves by saying—Daddy says ’They’re underneath, oh, always underneath, those everlasting arms,’ and then I read the telegram and flung myself upon the floor beside my bed in an agony of tears.