After dinner Ridgeley had a call to make, and Anne went up to bed. But she was awake when her husband came in, and the thin line of light showed. She waited until she heard the boom of water in his bath, and then she slipped out of bed and opened the door between. She was propped up in her pillows when he reappeared in his blue bathrobe. "Hello," he called, "did you want me?" "Yes, Ridgeley." He came in. "Anything the matter?" "No. I'm not sick. But I want to talk." "About what?" "This--" She showed him the paper with its caption, "For Anne." "Ridgeley, did you write it because I was--afraid?" her hand went out to him. His own went over it. "I think I wrote it because I was afraid." "You?" His grip almost hurt her. "My dear, my dear, I haven't believed in things. How could I ... with all the facts that men like me have to deal with? But when I faced ... losing you...! love's _got_ to be eternal..." "Ridgeley." "I won't ... lose you. Oh, I know. We've grown apart. I don't know how a man is going to help it ... in this darned whirlpool.... But you've always been right ... here.... I've felt I might ... have you, if I ever had time ..." his voice broke. "And I thought you didn't care." "I was afraid of that, and somehow I couldn't get ... back ... to where we began. I was always thinking I would.... And then this came.... "I always hated to kill the things that you believed, Anne. I thought I had to be honest ... that it would be better for you to face the truth.... But which one of us knows the Truth? Not a man among us. And I came across this ... '_Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die_....' We are all fools--the wisest of us...." She held out her arms to him, and he gathered her close. She felt that it had been a thousand years since she had prayed, yet she heard herself speaking.... And when he laid her back upon her pillows, she was aware that together they had approached some height from which they would never again descend. "I'll leave the door open," he said, as he left her. "I shall be reading, and you can see the light." It seemed as if the light from his room flooded the world. The four posts of her bed once more were tipped with shining saints! She turned on her pillow--beyond the garden, the grove of white birches was steeped in celestial radiance. "_My little sister, Death_," said good St. Francis. With her hand under her cheek, she slept at last, as peacefully as a child. THE EMPEROR'S GHOST I