if at the beginning of the last chapter miss haldane was perturbed, worried, perplexed, so, rather more than two months later, muriel lancing was perturbed, worried, perplexed, also; and for the same cause, namely, the strange demeanour of the lady anne garland, who had returned to town at the beginning of november.
she was changed, she was totally different, so sighed muriel, reflective, meditative. where was her former charm? her former sweet kindliness? her faith, her trust, her buoyancy—in short, her everything that went to make up the anne muriel knew and loved? an obsession seemed to have come upon her. she was cynical, hard, the speaker of little bitter phrases, deliberately calculated to wound and hurt. she was not, as muriel reflected, anne at all, but a mask, a shell of a woman, in which deep down the real anne was imprisoned, buried.
“if only she would speak,” sighed muriel to herself. “if only the mask could be removed for a moment the real anne would be liberated. confession, so says dear old father o’sullivan, is good for the soul. it would be incalculably good for anne’s. but she won’t make one. and short of asking her straight out to do so, which would inevitably fix the mask on tighter still, i can do nothing.”
but, all the same, muriel went off to the oratory and set up a candle to st. joseph, telling him pretty lucidly the whole state of affairs and requesting him to do something.
now whether it was the intervention of st. joseph, or whether it was that the real imprisoned anne could bear her solitary confinement no longer, must be a matter for pure conjecture: but on the next occasion that muriel visited anne’s house in cheyne walk she was distinctly conscious that though the mask was on there was a tiny crack in it, and through the crack the real anne was looking with a kind of dumb pleading.
in a twinkling muriel’s finger was towards it, in, of course, the most insidious and hidden way imaginable. it is useless to attempt to describe her methods; they were purely feminine, entirely delicate. at length the shell, the mask, fell asunder, and the real anne, being liberated, spoke. it was an enormous relief to her, and from the very beginning up to millicent’s disclosure she confided the whole story to muriel, who watched her with her greeny-grey eyes full of sympathy.
“oh, but,” cried muriel as she stopped, “i quite understand your anger. of course, it’s very difficult to put into exact words why you are angry, the whole situation is so extraordinarily complicated. but,” she concluded, “any woman with the smallest modicum of sense must see why. and the fact that millicent was the person there at the time can’t have made things a bit nicer.”
“it didn’t,” said anne quietly. “but i haven’t finished yet. he wrote to me.”
“yes?” queried muriel.
“it—his letter swept away all my anger. i—i understood.”
“of course,” muriel nodded, “there is his point of view.”
“i saw it,” said anne. “i realized—or thought i realized—the utter loneliness that made him act as he had done. i—i wrote to him.”
“yes?” queried muriel again, and very gently.
“i said—oh, i said a good deal,” confessed anne. “and—and he has never replied. oh, don’t you see it’s that that hurts? i said things i would never have said if i hadn’t believed he was longing for me to say them, if i hadn’t”—anne’s face was crimson—“wanted to say them. i was so sure i’d hear from him again. and—and there was only a cruel silence. i’d give anything never to have written that letter.” shamed, broken, she looked piteously at muriel. anne was proud, and she was young. she did not yet know that there is no shame in giving love, offering it purely, finely, as she had done. is not god himself daily making the offering, an offering from which too many of us turn away?
“but, darling anne,” cried muriel, “perhaps—surely he could not have received it.”
anne shook her head. “it’s what i’d like to believe,” she said with a little bitter laugh, “what we’d both like to believe. but it’s no good. i sent it to his publishers, the same address as that to which i’d sent the others. oh, no! that kind of letters don’t miscarry. i have misunderstood all through.”
“darling!” said muriel softly.
there was a long silence, broken only by an occasional little sputtering of the coal in the fire, and the rumble of wheels and clack of horses’ hoofs without. and in the silence muriel was giving very deep thanks to st. joseph that anne—her beloved anne—was once more restored to her. also she was cogitating in her own mind still further benefits to be asked of him.
presently anne broke the silence.
“muriel, i’d rather you should forget—that we should never speak again—about what i’ve told you this afternoon.”
muriel took up an illustrated paper from a side table.
“hats,” she announced sententiously, “will be worn small this winter, and skirts mercifully not quite so tight. have you noticed mrs. clinton? she’s positively indecent. i blush scarlet if i’m with a man when i meet her.”
anne laughed, though there were tears in her eyes.
“muriel,” she said, “you’re the silliest and dearest little elf in christendom.”
