Annie was asleep in the next room, but she half awoke with a sense of
his presence. She had heard his voice through the folds of sleep. And
she thought she was lying on the rug before the dining-room fire, with
Alec and his mother at the tea-table, as on that night when he brought
her in from the snow-hut. Finding out confusedly that the supposition
did not correspond with some other vague consciousness, she supposed
next that she "had died in sleep and was a blessed ghost," just going
to find Alec in heaven. That was abandoned in its turn, and all at once
she knew that she was in her own bed, and that Alec and his mother were
talking in the next room.
She rose, but could hardly dress herself for trembling. When she was
dressed she sat down on the edge of the bed to bethink herself.
The joy was almost torture, but it had a certain qualifying bitter in
it. Ever since she had believed him dead, Alec had been so near to her!
She had loved him as much as ever she would. But Life had come in
suddenly, and divided those whom Death had joined. Now he was a great
way off; and she dared not speak to him whom she had cherished in her
heart. Modesty took the telescope from the hands of Love, and turning
it, put the larger end to Annie's eye.
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