s if I must
be. But why can't I remember? It seems as if any one would remember the
man she was married to--as if one couldn't forget that, no matter what
happened. But if there is a Geoffrey Annersley why doesn't he come and
get me and make me remember him?"

Larry shook his head.

"Don't worry, please. We'll keep on advertising. He is bound to come
before long if he really is your husband. Some day he will be coming up
our hill and run away with you, worse luck!"

Ruth's eyes were on the ring again.

"It is funny," she said. "But I can't make myself _feel_ married. I can't
make the ring mean anything to me. I don't want it to mean anything. I
don't want to be married. Sometimes I dream that Geoffrey Annersley has
come and I put my hand over my eyes because I don't want to see him.
Isn't that dreadful?" she turned to Larry to ask.

"You can't help it." Larry tried manfully to push back his own wholly
unreasonable satisfaction in her aversion to her presumptive husband.
"It is the blow and the shock of the whole thing. It will be all right in
time. You will fall on your Geoffrey's neck and call him blessed when the
time comes."

"I don't believe he is coming," she announced suddenly with conviction.

Larry got up and walked over to her couch.

"What makes you say that?" he demanded.

"I don't know. It was just a feeling I had. Something inside me said
right out loud: 'He isn't coming. He isn't your husband.' Maybe it is
because I don't want him to come and don't want him to be my husband. Oh,
dear! It is all so queer and mixed up and horrid. It is awful not to be
anybody--just a ghost. I wish I'd been killed. Why didn't you leave me?
Why did you dig me out? All the others said I was dead. Why didn't you
let me _be_ dead? It would have been better."

She turned her face away and buried it in the pillow, sobbing softly,
suddenly like a child.

This was too much for Larry. He dropped on his knees beside her and put
his arms around the quivering little figure.

"Don't, Ruth," he implored. "Don't cry and don't--don't wish you were
dead. I--I can't stand it."

There was a tap at the door. Larry got to his feet in guilty haste and
went to the door of the stateroom.

"It is time for Mrs. Annersley's medicine," announced the nurse
impersonally, entering and going over to the wash stand for a glass.

The white linen back safely turned, Larry gave one swift look at Ruth and
bolted, shutting the door behind him.