THE GAY COCKADE
fort her, might clear away her doubts, might bring hope to her heart?
And he had found things like this: "My little sister, Death," said good St. Francis; ... "The darkness is no darkness with thee, but the night is as clear as day; the darkness and light to thee are both alike ..." "Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow ..." These and many others, truths which had once been a part of her.
She read, avidly. Oh, she had been thirsty—for this! Hungry for this! And Ridgeley! The tears dripped so that she could hardly see the lines. She laid her cheek against the paper, and her tears blistered it.
She carried it into her room. Christopher's note still lay on her pillow. She read it again, but she had no ears now for its call. She rang for her maid. "I shall stay in bed and write some letters."
She wrote to Christopher, after many attempts. "We have been such good, good friends. And we mustn't spoil it. Perhaps if you could go away for a time, it would be best for both of us. I am going to believe that some day you will find great happiness. And you would never have found happiness with me, you would have found only—fear. And I know now what the old man meant about the beads—'What you think is evil—cannot be evil.'
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