Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/107

A Puritan Bohemia not realize how much he depended upon her.

"I shall be glad," said Anne firmly. But she knew better.

She smiled, remembering the tears she had shed on the day of his first call. They were tears of regret in not finding herself mistaken in the old decision on the wharf. The four years' silence had been eloquent.

"Whoever wants to prevail with me should stay away," thought Anne, walking restlessly up and down. "The winds and the stars will plead his cause more eloquently than he. Only, it will be fatal for him ever to come back!"

She wondered if in every experience the gods had prepared for her disappointment, trying to pit reality against a dream.

Taking up her brushes she began to paint. Then the music became a voice, a cry for all she had wanted and had missed in life. That was a false stroke! She laid down her palette and put out the light, then curled up on the rug before the fire.

Self-expression! To leave a record of