When Derrick left the wood--and how loath he was to leave it, for
Celia's presence seemed still to haunt it!--and returned to the inn, he
found Reggie still with his writing-pad on his knee. He glanced up, as
Derrick sank into the seat beside him, and said drily, "You look almost offensively happy, Green. I need not ask you if I am to
congratulate you."
"Congratulate away," said Derrick, with so obvious an expression of
satisfaction that Reggie nodded and smiled. "Have you been working all
the time?"
"No," replied Reggie. "There has been an interlude. I have been for a
walk. Green, did you ever meet an angel?"
"I have just left one," said Derrick, almost involuntarily.
"I beg your pardon. I forgot that there were two in this wicked old
world of ours. Well, I've just parted from the other one. She was
walking, with her wings folded, and a basket in her hand. It was heavy;
and, after a time, I plucked up sufficient courage to ask her to let me
take it. She would have refused, but the child she was carrying on her
other arm was not very comfortable."
"There is a child?" said Derrick, with a smile. "I thought you had
embarked on a love-story."
"There is a child," assented Reggie, gravely. "And it is a
love-story," he added, still more gravely. "But the love is all on my
side--at present."
"Oh, I see; a widow," said Derrick, not by any means lightly; for, to
your lover, love is a sacred subject, and he is full of subtle sympathy
for his kind.
"Very much a widow," said Reggie, with a touch of bitterness, and
looking straight before him. "She not only permitted me, after much
pressure, to carry the basket, but she allowed me to speak to her. She
said very little to me--angels are not obliged to talk, you know; it is
quite sufficient for them to exist. I carried the basket to the
cottage," he went on in a low voice and dreamily, "and she said, 'Thank
you.' When an angel says 'thank you'--But no doubt you have heard one
repeat the simple, magic word and know its effect on you. To-morrow I
shall be on the road at the same time, and, if Heaven is very kind to
me, I shall meet her, and again she will be carrying a basket. You think
I am very confiding, Green. Well, I feel that I've got to tell someone;
just as you feel that you want to tell me about your angel."