t not to
have it at Wyck, on Colin's account. So I shall just be married
from Evelyn's house.

Give us your blessing, there's a dear.

Your loving

Adeline Fielding.

Anne's eyes filled with tears. At last she saw Adeline Fielding
completely, as she was, without any fascination. She thought: "She's
marrying to get away from Colin. She's left him to me to look after. How
could she leave him? How could she?"

Anne didn't go up for the wedding. She told Adeline it wasn't much use
asking her when she knew that Colin couldn't be left.

"Or, if you like, that _I_ can't leave him."

Her father wrote back:

Your Aunt Adeline thinks you reproach her for leaving Colin. I told her
you were too intelligent to do anything of the sort. You'll agree it's
the best thing she could do for him. She's no more capable of looking
after Colin than a kitten. She wants to be looked after herself, and
you ought to be grateful to me for relieving you of the job.

But I don't like your being alone down there with Colin. If he isn't
better we must send him to a nursing home.

Are you wondering whether we're going to be happy?

We shall be so long as I let her have her own way; which is what I mean
to do.

Your very affectionate father,

JOHN SEVERN.

And Anne answered:

DEAREST DADDY,--I shouldn't dream of reproaching Aunt Adeline any more
than I should reproach a pussycat for catching birds.

Look after her as much as you please--_I_ shall look after Colin.
Whether you like it or not, darling, you can't stop me. And I won't let
Colin go to a nursing home. It would be the worst possible place for
him. Ask Eliot. Besides, he _is_ better.

I'm ever so glad you're going to be happy.

Your loving

ANNE.

VIII

ANNE AND COLIN

i

Autumn had passed. Colin's couch was drawn up before the fire in the
drawing-room. Anne sat with him there.

He was better. He could listen for half an hour at a time when Anne read
to him--poems, short stories, things that were ended before Colin tired
of them. He ate and drank hungrily and his body began to get back its
strength.

At noon, when the winter sun shone, he walked, first up and down the
terrace, then round and round the garden, then to the beech trees at the
top of the field, and then down the hill to the Manor Farm. On mild days
she drove him about the country in the