CHAPTER 33
LESLIE RETURNS
A fortnight later Leslie Moore came home alone to the old house whereshe had spent so many bitter years. In the June twilight she went overthe fields to Anne's, and appeared with ghost-like suddenness in thescented garden.
"Leslie!" cried Anne in amazement. "Where have you sprung from? Wenever knew you were coming. Why didn't you write? We would have metyou."
"I couldn't write somehow, Anne. It seemed so futile to try to sayanything with pen and ink. And I wanted to get back quietly andunobserved."
Anne put her arms about Leslie and kissed her. Leslie returned thekiss warmly. She looked pale and tired, and she gave a little sigh asshe dropped down on the grasses beside a great bed of daffodils thatwere gleaming through the pale, silvery twilight like golden stars.
"And you have come home alone, Leslie?"
"Yes. George Moore's sister came to Montreal and took him home withher. Poor fellow, he was sorry to part with me--though I was astranger to him when his memory first came back. He clung to me inthose first hard days when he was trying to realise that Dick's deathwas not the thing of yesterday that it seemed to him. It was all veryhard for him. I helped him all I could. When his sister came it waseasier for him, because it seemed to him only the other day that he hadseen her last. Fortunately she had not changed much, and that helpedhim, too."
"It is all so strange and wonderful, Leslie. I think we none of usrealise it yet."
"I cannot. When I went into the house over there an hour ago, I feltthat it MUST be a dream--that Dick must be there, with his childishsmile, as he had been for so long. Anne, I seem stunned yet. I'm notglad or sorry--or ANYTHING. I feel as if something had been tornsuddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole. I feel as if Icouldn't be _I_--as if I must have changed into somebody else andcouldn't get used to it. It gives me a horrible lonely, dazed,helpless feeling. It's good to see you again--it seems as if you werea sort of anchor for my drifting soul. Oh, Anne, I dread it all--thegossip and wonderment and questioning. When I think of that, I wishthat I need not have come home at all. Dr. Dave was at the stationwhen I came off the train--he brought me home. Poor old man, he feelsvery badly because he told me years ago that nothing could be done forDick. 'I honestly thought so, Leslie,' he said to me today. 'But Ishould have told you not to depend on my opinion--I should have toldyou to go to a specialist. If I had, you would have been saved manybitter years, and poor George Moore many wasted ones. I blame myselfvery much, Leslie.' I told him not to do that--he had done what hethought right. He has always been so kind to me--I couldn't bear tosee him worrying over it."
"And Dick--George, I mean? Is his memory fully restored?"
"Practically. Of course, there are a great many details he can'trecall yet--but he remembers more and more every day. He went out fora walk on the evening after Dick was buried. He had Dick's money andwatch on him; he meant to bring them home to me, along with my letter.He admits he went to a place where the sailors resorted--and heremembers drinking--and nothing else. Anne, I shall never forget themoment he remembered his own name. I saw him looking at me with anintelligent but puzzled expression. I said, 'Do you know me, Dick?'He answered, 'I never saw you before. Who are you? And my name is notDick. I am George Moore, and Dick died of yellow fever yesterday!Where am I? What has happened to me?' I--I fainted, Anne. And eversince I have felt as if I were in a dream."
"You will soon adjust yourself to this new state of things, Leslie.And you are young--life is before you--you will have many beautifulyears yet."
"Perhaps I shall be able to look at it in that way after a while, Anne.Just now I feel too tired and indifferent to think about the future.I'm--I'm--Anne, I'm lonely. I miss Dick. Isn't it all very strange?Do you know, I was really fond of poor Dick--George, I suppose I shouldsay--just as I would have been fond of a helpless child who depended onme for everything. I would never have admitted it--I was reallyashamed of it--because, you see, I had hated and despised Dick so muchbefore he went away. When I heard that Captain Jim was bringing himhome I expected I would just feel the same to him. But I neverdid--although I continued to loathe him as I remembered him before.From the time he came home I felt only pity--a pity that hurt and wrungme. I supposed then that it was just because his accident had made himso helpless and changed. But now I believe it was because there wasreally a different personality there. Carlo knew it, Anne--I know nowthat Carlo knew it. I always thought it strange that Carlo shouldn'thave known Dick. Dogs are usually so faithful. But HE knew it was nothis master who had come back, although none of the rest of us did. Ihad never seen George Moore, you know. I remember now that Dick oncementioned casually that he had a cousin in Nova Scotia who looked asmuch like him as a twin; but the thing had gone out of my memory, andin any case I would never have thought it of any importance. You see,it never occurred to me to question Dick's identity. Any change in himseemed to me just the result of the accident.
"Oh, Anne, that night in April when Gilbert told me he thought Dickmight be cured! I can never forget it. It seemed to me that I hadonce been a prisoner in a hideous cage of torture, and then the doorhad been opened and I could get out. I was still chained to the cagebut I was not in it. And that night I felt that a merciless hand wasdrawing me back into the cage--back to a torture even more terriblethan it had once been. I didn't blame Gilbert. I felt he was right.And he had been very good--he said that if, in view of the expense anduncertainty of the operation, I should decide not to risk it, he wouldnot blame me in the least. But I knew how I ought to decide--and Icouldn't face it. All night I walked the floor like a mad woman,trying to compel myself to face it. I couldn't, Anne--I thought Icouldn't--and when morning broke I set my teeth and resolved that IWOULDN'T. I would let things remain as they were. It was very wicked,I know. It would have been just punishment for such wickedness if Ihad just been left to abide by that decision. I kept to it all day.That afternoon I had to go up to the Glen to do some shopping. It wasone of Dick's quiet, drowsy days, so I left him alone. I was gone alittle longer than I had expected, and he missed me. He felt lonely.And when I got home, he ran to meet me just like a child, with such apleased smile on his face. Somehow, Anne, I just gave way then. Thatsmile on his poor vacant face was more than I could endure. I felt asif I were denying a child the chance to grow and develop. I knew thatI must give him his chance, no matter what the consequences might be.So I came over and told Gilbert. Oh, Anne, you must have thought mehateful in those weeks before I went away. I didn't mean to be--but Icouldn't think of anything except what I had to do, and everything andeverybody about me were like shadows."
"I know--I understood, Leslie. And now it is all over--your chain isbroken--there is no cage."
"There is no cage," repeated Leslie absently, plucking at the fringinggrasses with her slender, brown hands. "But--it doesn't seem as ifthere were anything else, Anne. You--you remember what I told you ofmy folly that night on the sand-bar? I find one doesn't get over beinga fool very quickly. Sometimes I think there are people who are foolsforever. And to be a fool--of that kind--is almost as bad as beinga--a dog on a chain."
"You will feel very differently after you get over being tired andbewildered," said Anne, who, knowing a certain thing that Leslie didnot know, did not feel herself called upon to waste overmuch sympathy.
Leslie laid her splendid golden head against Anne's knee.
"Anyhow, I have YOU," she said. "Life can't be altogether empty withsuch a friend. Anne, pat my head--just as if I were a littlegirl--MOTHER me a bit--and let me tell you while my stubborn tongue isloosed a little just what you and your comradeship have meant to mesince that night I met you on the rock shore."
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