Page:Fidelia, (IA fidelia00balm).pdf/146

 in her room. Myra brought her a cup of coffee but she didn't drink it. She set it on the sill of her window where she watched in the dark.

Soon the house was quiet; they were all gone, except Myra who for a time sat in the dark beside her and then lay down on the bed. Myra went to sleep. Alice did not.

Sometimes she imagined Fidelia and David both lost; sometimes she supposed Fidelia lost and David safe; and sometimes Fidelia safe and David had been drowned. But she believed none of this; she believed them both safe and together; and consequently, while she waited, she tried to recast her life; but she could not.

How she depended upon David! Every plan, every purpose, every hope, every dream was hers only with him. When she thought: "Before I knew him, I was happy enough. I can go back to that," and when she tried to go back, in her mind, it seemed to her she had had nothing then. No; nothing seemed to her as of any account before that day she saw him, serious and awkward in their first class-room together; when some one tittered at a reply he made, her feelings flew to his defense. She waited in the class-room and spoke to the earnest, fine-looking, self-conscious boy who did not know how to fit in with a lot of light-minded classmates.

It seemed to Alice now that, at that moment, she became happy; she began to care greatly; she found something real for her to do. And now it was her life! While she sat at the window, waiting, sometimes she longed for his arms, his voice, his lips; sometimes