It had been weeks since he had seen it, and in those weeks much had
happened. Her smiling presence came to him freshly, as the spring
might come to one housed through a long winter, or the dawn after a
dark night.
"Edith!"
He leaned upon the balustrade. The nurse, coming out, warned him.
"Indeed, you'd better stay in your room."
"I'm all right. Please don't worry. You 'tend to your knitting, and
I'll take care of myself."
She insisted, however, on bringing out a chair and a rug. "Perhaps it
will be a change for you to sit in the hall," she conceded, and tucked
him in, and he found himself trembling a little from weakness, and glad
of the support which the chair gave him.
It seemed very pleasant to sit there with Edith smiling at him. For
the first time in many weeks his mind was at rest. Ever since Hilda
had come he had felt the pressure of an exciting presence. He felt
this morning free from it, and glad to be free.
What a wife Edith had been! Holding him always to his highest and
best, yet loving him even when he stumbled and fell. Bending above him
in her beautiful charity and understanding, raising him up, fostering
his self-respect in those moments of depression when he had despised
himself.
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