n. The long thick braid of Anne's
hair was flung back on the pillow, framing the child's golden head in
gold.

His eyes filled with tears as he looked at them. For a moment his heart
stood still. Why not he as well as anybody else? His heart told him why.

As he turned he sighed. A sigh of longing and tenderness, and of
thankfulness for a great deliverance. Above all, of thankfulness.

CHAPTER XXVI

The light burned in Edith's room till morning; for her spine kept sleep
from her through many nights. They no longer said, "She is better, or
certainly no worse." They said, "She is worse, or certainly no better."
The progress of her death could be reckoned by weeks and measured by
inches. Soon they would be giving her morphia, to make her sleep.
Meanwhile she was terribly awake.

She heard her brother's soft footsteps as he passed her door. She heard
him pause on the upper landing and creep into the room overhead. She
heard him go out again and shut himself up in the little room beyond.
There came upon her an awful intuition of the truth.

The next day she sent for him.

"What is it, Edie?" he said.

She looked at him with loving eyes, and asked him as Maggie had asked,
"Are you ill?"

He started. The question brought back to him vividly the scene of the
night before; brought back to him Maggie with her love and fear.

"What is it? Tell me," she insisted.

He owned to headaches. She knew he often had them.

"It's not a bit of use," she said, "trying to deceive _me_. It's not
headaches. It's Anne."

"Poor Anne. I think she's all right. After all, she's got the child, you
know."

"Yes. _She_'s got Peggy. If I could see you all right, too, I should die
happy."

"Don't worry about me. I'm not worth it."

She gazed at him searchingly, confirmed in her intuition. That was the
sort of thing poor Charlie used to say.

"It's my fault," she said. "It always has been."

"Angel, if you could lay everybody's sins on your own shoulders, you
would."

"I mean it. You were right and I was wrong. Ah, how one pays! Only
_you_'ve had to pay for my untruthfulness. I can see it now. If I'd done
as you asked me, in the beginning, and told her the truth--"

"She wouldn't have married me. No, Edie. You're assuming that I've lived
to regret that I married her. I never have regretted it for one single
moment. Not for myself, that is. For her, yes. Granted that I'm as
unhappy as you please, I'd rather be unhappy with