Anne had given up a moonlight drive to the White Sands beach that she might spend the evening with Ruby. She had so spent many evenings that summer, although she often wondered what good it did any one, and sometimes went home deciding that she could not go again.

Ruby grew paler as the summer waned⁴; the White Sands school was given up—“her father thought it better that she shouldn’t teach till New Year’s”—and the fancy work she loved oftener and oftener fell from hands grown too weary for it. But she was always gay, always hopeful, always chattering⁵ and whispering of her beaux, and their rivalries⁶ and despairs. It was this that made Anne’s visits hard for her. What had once been silly or amusing was gruesome, now; it was death peering through a wilful⁷ mask of life. Yet Ruby seemed to cling to her, and never let her go until she had promised to come again soon. Mrs. Lynde grumbled⁸ about Anne’s frequent visits, and declared she would catch consumption; even Marilla was dubious⁹.

“Every time you go to see Ruby you come home looking tired out,” she said.

“It’s so very sad and dreadful,” said Anne in a low tone. “Ruby doesn’t seem to realize her condition in the least. And yet I somehow feel she needs help—craves it—and I want to give it to her and can’t. All the time I’m with her I feel as if I were watching her struggle with an invisible foe—trying to push it back with such feeble resistance as she has. That is why I come home tired.”

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