The furniture and books and pictures
seemed to me to reproach me with having deserted them; but, oh
dear, what a fantastic, foolish, anxious little wretch I was, with
all my plans for uplifting everyone! You don't know, dearest, you
can't know, out of what a stagnant little pool you fished me up!"
"And yet _I_ feel," said Howard, "as if it was you who had saved me
from a sort of death--what a charming picture! two people who can't
swim saving each other from drowning."
"Well, that's the way that things are done!" said Maud decisively.
They left the garden, and betook themselves to the pool; the waters
welled up, green and cold, from the depth, and hurried away down
their bare channel.
"This is the scene of my life," said Howard; "I WILL be sentimental
about this! This is where my ghost will walk, if anywhere; good
heavens, to think that it was not three years ago that I came here
first, and thought in a solemn way that it was going to have a
strange significance for me. 'Significance,' that is the mischief!
But it is all very well, now that every minute is full of
happiness, to laugh at the old fears--they were very real at the
time,--'the old wind, in the old anger'--one can't sit and dream,
though it's pleasant, it's pleasant."
"It was the only time in my life," said Maud, "when I was ever
brave! Why isn't one braver? It is agreeable at the time, and it is
almost overpaid!"
"It is like what a doctor told me once," said Howard, "that he had
never in his life seen a patient go to the operating table other
than calm and brave.
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