very heavy, I think.
Anyway, he wanted to go back tonight. Well, I've had a splendid visit,
but I'm glad to see you dear folks again. 'East, west, hame's best.'
Davy, have you been growing again lately?"

"I've growed a whole inch since you left," said Davy proudly. "I'm as
tall as Milty Boulter now. Ain't I glad. He'll have to stop crowing
about being bigger. Say, Anne, did you know that Gilbert Blythe is
dying?" Anne stood quite silent and motionless, looking at Davy. Her
face had gone so white that Marilla thought she was going to faint.

"Davy, hold your tongue," said Mrs. Rachel angrily. "Anne, don't
look like that--DON'T LOOK LIKE THAT! We didn't mean to tell you so
suddenly."

"Is--it--true?" asked Anne in a voice that was not hers.

"Gilbert is very ill," said Mrs. Lynde gravely. "He took down with
typhoid fever just after you left for Echo Lodge. Did you never hear of
it?"

"No," said that unknown voice.

"It was a very bad case from the start. The doctor said he'd been
terribly run down. They've a trained nurse and everything's been done.
DON'T look like that, Anne. While there's life there's hope."

"Mr. Harrison was here this evening and he said they had no hope of
him," reiterated Davy.

Marilla, looking old and worn and tired, got up and marched Davy grimly
out of the kitchen.

"Oh, DON'T look so, dear," said Mrs. Rachel, putting her kind old arms
about the pallid girl. "I haven't given up hope, indeed I haven't. He's
got the Blythe constitution in his favor, that's what."

Anne gently put Mrs. Lynde's arms away from her, walked blindly across
the kitchen, through the hall, up the stairs to her old room. At its
window she knelt down, staring out unseeingly. It was very dark. The
rain was beating down over the shivering fields. The Haunted Woods was
full of the groans of mighty trees wrung in the tempest, and the air
throbbed with the thunderous crash of billows on the distant shore. And
Gilbert was dying!

There is a book of Revelation in every one's life, as there is in the
Bible. Anne read hers that bitter night, as she kept her agonized vigil
through the hours of storm and darkness. She loved Gilbert--had always
loved him! She knew that now. She knew that she could no more cast him
out of her life without agony than she could have cut off her right hand
and cast it from her. And the knowledge had come too late--too late even
for the bitter solace of being with him at the last. If she had