CHAPTER XX
I
One night in the beginning of January Valerie walked alone back and forth along the drive on what she called her side of the house. She had not seen Dane all day. She had asked nothing about him, and supposed him gone to Dargaville. For a week he had been aloof from her, tired and listless. She did not know whether he had done any work. He had looked at her in a queer appealing way, she had thought, several times, and she thought she had done wonders in the way of ignoring his mood.
She had remembered when she woke that morning that it was the third anniversary of their wedding day. Though she was as unsentimental as ever about the conventional ceremony she had wondered if Dane would give any sign of memory, and was absurdly hurt that he had not. It was the first time he had forgotten to tease her about it. And now she had not even seen him.
Whether it was remembering it or what, she had come to another crisis this night. She was taking stock again of her endurance, wondering desperately how many months she could go on. For it seemed to her now that Dane was going down hill fast, and she had lost every scrap of hope that he would ever be better. She was certain beyond all doubt that he could not save himself, and that she could not save him. If their love could not do it nothing could. She had suffered tortures during the last two months over the lines that were deepening on his face and over the sallowness that was tainting his fine skin. And
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