Ruby sank back on her pillows and sobbed convulsively.  Anne pressed her hand in an agony of sympathy—­silent sympathy, which perhaps helped Ruby more than broken, imperfect words could have done; for presently she grew calmer and her sobs ceased.

“I’m glad I’ve told you this, Anne,” she whispered.  “It has helped me just to say it all out.  I’ve wanted to all summer—­every time you came.  I wanted to talk it over with you—­but I couldn’t.  It seemed as if it would make death so sure if I said I was going to die, or if any one else said it or hinted it.  I wouldn’t say it, or even think it.  In the daytime, when people were around me and everything was cheerful, it wasn’t so hard to keep from thinking of it.  But in the night, when I couldn’t sleep—­it was so dreadful, Anne.  I couldn’t get away from it then.  Death just came and stared me in the face, until I got so frightened I could have screamed.

“But you won’t be frightened any more, Ruby, will you?  You’ll be brave, and believe that all is going to be well with you.”

“I’ll try.  I’ll think over what you have said, and try to believe it.  And you’ll come up as often as you can, won’t you, Anne?”

“Yes, dear.”

“It—­it won’t be very long now, Anne.  I feel sure of that.  And I’d rather have you than any one else.  I always liked you best of all the girls I went to school with.  You were never jealous, or mean, like some of them were.  Poor Em White was up to see me yesterday.  You remember Em and I were such chums for three years when we went to school?  And then we quarrelled the time of the school concert.  We’ve never spoken to each other since.  Wasn’t it silly?  Anything like that seems silly now.  But Em and I made up the old quarrel yesterday.  She said she’d have spoken years ago, only she thought I wouldn’t.  And I never spoke to her because I was sure she wouldn’t speak to me.  Isn’t it strange how people misunderstand each other, Anne?”

“Most of the trouble in life comes from misunderstanding, I think,” said Anne.  “I must go now, Ruby.  It’s getting late—­and you shouldn’t be out in the damp.”

“You’ll come up soon again.”

“Yes, very soon.  And if there’s anything I can do to help you I’ll be so glad.”

“I know.  You have helped me already.  Nothing seems quite so dreadful now.  Good night, Anne.”

“Good night, dear.”

Anne walked home very slowly in the moonlight.  The evening had changed something for her.  Life held a different meaning, a deeper purpose.  On the surface it would go on just the same; but the deeps had been stirred.  It must not be with her as with poor butterfly Ruby.  When she came to the end of one life it must not be to face the next with the shrinking terror of something wholly different—­something for which accustomed thought and ideal and aspiration had unfitted her.  The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth.