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will be able to make a place for himself again. It must be very strange for him, poor fellow. I suppose all these years since his accident will not exist for him.ā€
CHAPTER 33 LESLIE RETURNS

A fortnight later Leslie Moore came home alone to the old house where she had spent so many bitter years. In the June twilight she went over the fields to Anneā€™s, and appeared with ghost-like suddenness in the scented garden.

ā€œLeslie!ā€ cried Anne in amazement. ā€œWhere have you sprung from? We never knew you were coming. Why didnā€™t you write? We would have met you.ā€

ā€œI couldnā€™t write somehow, Anne. It seemed so futile to try to say anything with pen and ink. And I wanted to get back quietly and unobserved.ā€

Anne put her arms about Leslie and kissed her. Leslie returned the kiss warmly. She looked pale and tired, and she gave a little sigh as she dropped down on the grasses beside a great bed of daffodils that were gleaming through the pale, silvery twilight like golden stars.

ā€œAnd you have come home alone, Leslie?ā€

ā€œYes. George Mooreā€™s sister came to Montreal and took him home with her. Poor fellow, he was sorry to part with meā€”though I was a stranger to him when his memory first came back. He clung to me in those first hard days when he was trying to realise that Dickā€™s death was not the thing of yesterday that it seemed to him. It was all very hard for him. I helped him all I could. When his sister came it was easier for him, because it seemed to him only the other day that he had seen her last. Fortunately she had not changed much, and that helped him, too.ā€

ā€œIt is all so strange and wonderful, Leslie. I think we none of us realise it yet.ā€

ā€œI cannot. When I went into the house over there an hour ago, I felt that it MUST be a dreamā€”that Dick must be there, with his childish smile, as he had been for so long. Anne, I seem stunned yet. Iā€™m not glad or sorryā€”or ANYTHING. I feel as if something had been torn suddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole. I feel as if I couldnā€™t be Iā€”as if I must have changed into somebody else and couldnā€™t get used to it. It gives me a horrible lonely, dazed, helpless feeling. Itā€™s good to see you againā€”it seems as if you were a sort of anchor for my drifting soul. Oh, Anne, I dread it allā€”the gossip and wonderment and questioning. When I think of that, I wish that I need not have come home at all. Dr. Dave was at the station when I came off the trainā€”he brought me home. Poor old man, he feels very badly because he told me years ago that nothing could be done for Dick. `I honestly thought so, Leslie,ā€™ he said to me today. `But I should have told you not to depend on my opinionā€”I should have told you to go to a specialist. If I had, you would have been saved many bitter years, and poor George Moore many wasted ones. I blame myself very much, Leslie.ā€™ I told him not to do thatā€”he had done what he thought right. He has always been so kind to meā€”I couldnā€™t bear to see him worrying over it.ā€

ā€œAnd Dickā€”George, I mean? Is his memory fully restored?ā€

ā€œPractically. Of course, there are a great many details he canā€™t recall yetā€”but he remembers more and more every day. He went out for a walk on the evening after Dick was buried. He had Dickā€™s money and watch on him; he meant to bring them home to me, along with my letter. He admits he went to a place where the sailors resortedā€”and he remembers drinkingā€”and nothing else. Anne, I shall never forget the moment he remembered his own name. I saw him looking at me with an intelligent but puzzled expression. I said, `Do you know me, Dick?ā€™ He answered, `I never saw you before. Who are you? And my name is not Dick. I am George Moore, and Dick died of yellow fever yesterday! Where am I? What has happened to me?ā€™ Iā€”I fainted, Anne. And ever since I have felt as if I were in a dream.ā€

ā€œYou will soon adjust yourself to this new state of things, Leslie. And you are youngā€”life is before youā€”you will have many beautiful years yet.ā€

ā€œPerhaps 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. Iā€™mā€”Iā€™mā€”Anne, Iā€™m lonely. I miss Dick. Isnā€™t it all very strange? Do you know, I was really fond of poor Dickā€”George, I suppose I should sayā€”just as I would have been fond of a helpless child who depended on me for everything. I would never have admitted itā€”I was really ashamed of itā€”because, you see, I had hated and despised Dick so much before he went away. When I heard that Captain Jim was bringing him home I expected I would just feel the same to him. But I never didā€”although I continued to loathe him as I remembered him before. From the time he came home I felt only pityā€”a pity that hurt and wrung me. I supposed then that it was just because his accident had made him so helpless and changed. But now I believe it was because there was really a different personality there. Carlo knew it, Anneā€”I know now that Carlo knew it. I always thought it strange that Carlo shouldnā€™t have known Dick. Dogs are usually so faithful. But HE knew it was not his master who had come back, although none of the rest of us did. I had never seen George Moore, you know. I remember now that Dick once mentioned casually that he had a cousin in Nova Scotia who looked as much like him as a twin; but the thing had gone out of my memory, and in any case I would never have thought it of any importance. You see, it never occurred to me to question Dickā€™s identity. Any change in him seemed to me just the result of the accident.

ā€œOh, Anne, that night in April when Gilbert told me he thought Dick might be cured! I can never forget it. It seemed to me that I had once been a prisoner in a hideous cage of torture, and then the door had been opened and I could get out. I was still chained to the cage but I was not in it. And that night I felt that a merciless hand was drawing me back into the cageā€”back to a torture even more terrible than it had once been. I didnā€™t blame Gilbert. I felt he was right. And he had been very goodā€”he said that if, in view of the expense and uncertainty of the operation, I should decide not to risk it, he would not blame me in the least. But I knew how I ought to decideā€”and I couldnā€™t face it. All night I walked the floor like a mad woman, trying to compel myself to face it. I couldnā€™t, Anneā€”I thought I couldnā€™tā€”and when morning broke I set my teeth and resolved that I WOULDNā€™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 I had 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 was one of Dickā€™s quiet, drowsy days, so I left him alone. I was gone a little 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 a pleased smile on his face. Somehow, Anne, I just gave way then. That smile on his poor vacant face was more than I could endure. I felt as if I were denying a child the chance to grow and develop. I knew that I 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 me hateful in those weeks before I went away. I didnā€™t mean to beā€”but I couldnā€™t think of anything except what I had to do, and everything and everybody about me were like shadows.ā€

ā€œI knowā€”I understood, Leslie. And now it is all overā€”your chain is brokenā€”there is no cage.ā€

ā€œThere is no cage,ā€ repeated Leslie absently, plucking at the fringing grasses with her slender, brown hands. ā€œButā€”it doesnā€™t seem as if there were anything else, Anne. Youā€”you remember what I told you of my folly that night on the sandbar? I find one doesnā€™t get over being a fool very quickly. Sometimes I think there are people who are fools forever. And to be a foolā€”of that kindā€”is almost as bad as being aā€”a dog on a chain.ā€

ā€œYou will feel very differently after you get over being tired and bewildered,ā€ said Anne, who, knowing a certain thing that Leslie did not know, did not feel herself called upon to waste overmuch sympathy.

Leslie laid her splendid golden head against Anneā€™s knee.

ā€œAnyhow, I have YOU,ā€ she said. ā€œLife canā€™t be altogether empty with such a friend. Anne, pat my headā€”just as if I were a little girlā€”MOTHER me a bitā€”and let me tell you while my stubborn tongue is loosed a little just what you and your comradeship have meant to me since that night I met you on the rock shore.ā€

CHAPTER 34 THE SHIP Oā€™DREAMS COMES TO HARBOR

One morning, when a windy golden sunrise was billowing over the gulf in waves of light, a certain weary stork flew over the bar of Four Winds Harbor on his way from the Land of Evening Stars. Under his wing was tucked a sleepy, starry-eyed, little creature. The stork was tired, and he looked wistfully about him. He knew he was somewhere near his destination, but he could not yet see it. The big, white lighthouse on the red sandstone cliff had its good points; but no stork possessed of any gumption would leave a new, velvet baby there. An old gray house, surrounded by willows, in a blossomy brook valley, looked more promising, but did not seem quite the thing either. The staring green abode further on was manifestly out of the question. Then the stork brightened up. He had caught sight of the very placeā€”a little white house nestled against a big, whispering firwood, with a spiral of blue smoke winding up from its kitchen chimneyā€”a house which just looked as if it were meant for babies. The stork gave a sigh of satisfaction, and softly alighted on the ridge-pole.

Half an hour later Gilbert ran down the hall and tapped on the spare-room door. A drowsy voice answered him and in a moment Marillaā€™s pale, scared face peeped out from behind the door.

ā€œMarilla, Anne has sent me to tell you that a certain young gentleman has arrived here. He hasnā€™t brought much luggage with him, but he evidently means to stay.ā€

ā€œFor pityā€™s sake!ā€ said Marilla blankly. ā€œYou donā€™t mean to tell me, Gilbert, that itā€™s all over. Why wasnā€™t I called?ā€

ā€œAnne wouldnā€™t let us disturb you when there was no need. Nobody was called until about two hours ago. There was no `passage perilousā€™ this time.ā€

ā€œAndā€”andā€”Gilbertā€”will this baby live?ā€

ā€œHe certainly will. He weighs ten pounds andā€”why, listen to him. Nothing wrong with his lungs, is there? The nurse says his hair will be red. Anne is furious with her, and Iā€™m tickled to

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