Part 50 (1/2)
”You rite to me, I am sure--and from the date of your letter I trust most earnestly that I may come back to my old place as
”Your devoted friend, ”WALTER BRENDON”
She set the letter down, and drew fron post mark which had come the day before This one too she read
”HassELL'S CAMP, ”NEAR COLORADO
”On or about the day you receive this letter, Anna, the six months will be up Do you expect me, I wonder I think not At any rate, here I am, and here I shall be, twenty thousand feet above all your poison-reeking cities, up where God's wind comes fresh from heaven, very near indeed to the untrodden snows
So through life without a single glireatest and most awful of mysteries, thethat in the mountains there is peace One's sense of proportion, battered out of all shape in the daily life of cities, reasserts itself I love you still, Anna, but life holds other things than the love of man for woman
Some day I shall cos which have cohts I have thought of you, Anna Your face has flitted out of my watch-fire, and then I have been a hauntedthe passion of living would stir even the blood of a clod It coe red, everywhere a wonderful cloud sea, scintillating with colour It is enough to make a man throay canvas and brushes into the bottoh to make one ith despair at his utter and absolute ireatest artist of us all a pigon, the decadents with their flaed sword and a minute of Divinity To perdition with them all
”I shall come back, if at all, a new man I have a new cult to teach, a new enthusiasain My first visit will be to you I in country, with its silent forests and dazzling peaks Iwith you now You love Ennison Believe me, the bitterness of it has alether with ht with lory of these lonely months Yet I shall think of you to-day I pray, Anna, that you may find your happiness
”Your friend, ”DAVID COURTLAW”
”PS--I do not congratulate you on your success I was certain of it I aht you happiness”
Anna's eyes were a little dih she atteether a success
”This is all very well,” she said, ”but two out of the three are rank deserters--and if the papers tell the truth the third is as bad I believe I am doomed to be an old maid”
She finished her breakfast and strolled out across the garden with the letters still in her hand Beyond was a field sloping steeply upwards, and at the top a s close to the hedge side, fragrant ild roses, and holding her skirts high above the dew-laden grass Arrived in the plantation she sat doith her back against a tree trunk
Already the war from the pines their delicious odour
Below her stretched a valley of rich meadowland, of yellow cornfields, and beyond orse She tried to cohts, to think of the last six s And she found herself able to do nothing of the sort A new restlessness see of a leaf, at the lu with quite unaccustoour, her hands were hot, she was conscious of a warmth in her blood which the suled against it quite uselessly
She knew very well that a new thing was stirring in her The period of repression was over It is foolish, she murmured to herself, foolish He will not come He cannot
And then all her restlessness was turned to joy She sprang to her feet and stood listening with parted lips and eager eyes So he found her when he caerly
She held out her arms to him and smiled