XIV


Anna did not receive the boy's letter in the Tyrol. It followed her to
Oxford. She was just going out when it came, and she took it up with
the mingled beatitude and almost sickening tremor that a lover feels
touching the loved one's letter. She would not open it in the street,
but carried it all the way to the garden of a certain College, and sat
down to read it under the cedar-tree. That little letter, so short,
boyish, and dry, transported her halfway to heaven. She was to see him
again at once, not to wait weeks, with the fear that he would quite
forget her! Her husband had said at breakfast that Oxford without 'the
dear young clowns' assuredly was charming, but Oxford 'full of tourists
and other strange bodies' as certainly was not. Where should they go?
Thank heaven, the letter could be shown him! For all that, a little
stab of pain went through her that there was not one word which made
it unsuitable to show. Still, she was happy. Never had her favourite
College garden seemed so beautiful, with each tree and flower so cared
for, and the very wind excluded; never had the birds seemed so tame
and friendly. The sun shone softly, even the clouds were luminous and
joyful. She sat a long time, musing, and went back forgetting all she
had come out to do. Having both courage and decision, she did not leave
the letter to burn a hole in her corsets, but gave it to her husband at
lunch, looking him in the face, and saying carelessly:

"Providence, you see, answers your question."

He read it, raised his eyebrows, smiled, and, without looking up,
murmured: