Do you know, I was really fond of poor ****--George, Isuppose I should say--just as I would have been fond of a helpless child who depended on me for everything. Iwould never have admitted it--I was really ashamed of it--because, you see, I had hated and despised **** 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 did--although I continued to loathe him as I remembered him before. From the time he came home I felt only pity--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, Anne--Iknow now that Carlo knew it. I always thought it strange that Carlo shouldn't have known ****. 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. Iremember now that **** 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 ****'s identity. Any change in him seemed to me just the result of the accident.
"Oh, Anne, that night in April when Gilbert told me he thought **** 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 cage--back to a torture even more terrible than it had once been.
I didn't blame Gilbert. I felt he was right. And he had been very good--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 decide--and Icouldn't face it. All night I walked the floor like a mad woman, trying to compel myself to face it. Icouldn't, Anne--I thought I couldn't--and when morning broke I set my teeth and resolved that I WOULDN'T. Iwould 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 Ihad to go up to the Glen to do some shopping. It was one of ****'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 didn't mean to be--but I couldn't think of anything except what I had to do, and everything and everybody about me were like shadows.""I know--I understood, Leslie. And now it is all over--your chain is broken--there is no cage.""There is no cage," repeated Leslie absently, plucking at the fringing grasses with her slender, brown hands.
"But--it doesn't seem as if there were anything else, Anne. You--you remember what I told you of my folly that night on the sand-bar? I find one doesn't get over being a fool very quickly. Sometimes I think there are people who are fools forever. And to be a fool--of that kind--is almost as bad as being a--a dog on a chain.""You will feel very differently after you get over being tired and bewildered," 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 Anne's knee.
"Anyhow, I have YOU," she said. "Life can't be altogether empty with such a friend. Anne, pat my head--just as if I were a little girl--MOTHER me a bit--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."
