It was “too much pink rose” for any human eyes to see unmoved.  We all cried:  and Annie herself shed a few tears, but finally helped us all by saying gayly,—­

“You’ll make me ill again if you all go on like this.  I hate people that cry.”

No stranger’s eye would have detected the thousandth part of a second’s pause which George Ware’s feet made on the threshold of that room when his eyes first saw Annie.  Before the second had ended he was simply the eager, glad, affectionate cousin, and had taken calmly and lovingly the child’s kiss which Annie gave him as she had given it every day of her life.

We could not speak.  My uncle tried to read his newspaper; my aunt’s hands shook in their pretense of sewing; I threw myself on the floor at the foot of Annie’s lounge and hid my face in its cushions.

But George Ware’s brave voice went steadily on.  Annie’s sweet glad tones, weak and low, but still sweeter than any other tones I ever heard, chimed in and out like fairy bells from upper air.  More than an hour passed.  I do not know one word that we said.

Then George rose, saying:  “I must not tire you, little Annie, so I am going now.”

“Will you come, again to-morrow?” she asked as simply as a little child.

“Yes, dear, if you are not the worse for this,” he replied, and kissed her forehead and walked very quickly away without looking back.  I followed him instantly into the hall, for I had seen that in his face which had made me fear that, strong man as he was, he would fall.  I found him sitting on the lowest step of the staircase, just outside the door.

“My God, Helen,” he gasped, “it isn’t only this last year she has forgotten.  She has gone back five years.”

“Oh no, dear George,” I said; “you are mistaken.  She remembers everything up to a year ago.  You know she remembered about your going to India.”

“That is nothing,” he said impatiently.  “You can’t any of you, see what I mean, I suppose.  But I tell you she has forgotten five years of me.  She is to me just as she was when she was fourteen.  Do you think I don’t know the face and voice and touch of each day of my darling’s life? oh, my God! my God!” and he sank down on the stair again in a silence which was worse than groans.  I left him there and went back to Annie.

“How old Cousin George looks,” she was saying, as I entered the room; “I didn’t remember that he was so old.  Why, he looks as old as you do, sweet papa.  But then,” reflectively, “after all, he is pretty old.  He is fifteen years older than I am—­and I am nineteen:  thirty-four! that is old, is it not papa?” said she, half petulantly.  “Why don’t you speak, any of you?”

“You are getting too tired, my darling,” said her father, “and now I shall carry you up-stairs.”

After Annie was asleep, my Aunt Ann and I sat for hours in the library, going over and over and over, with weary hopelessness, all her words and looks, and trying to comfort each other.  I think each knew the utter despair of the other’s heart.