She rose to her feet abruptly, sinking her teeth into her thumb to regain her control. Rhett’s words came back to her again, “She loves you. Let that be your cross.” Well, the cross was heavier now. It was bad enough that she had tried by every art to take Ashley from her. But now it was worse that Melanie, who had trusted her blindly through life, was laying the same love and trust on her in death. No, she could not speak. She could not even say again: “Make an effort to live.” She must let her go easily, without a struggle, without tears, without sorrow.

The door opened slightly and Dr. Meade stood on the threshold, beckoning imperiously. Scarlett bent over the bed, choking back her tears and taking Melanie’s hand, laid it against her cheek.

“Good night,” she said, and her voice was steadier than she thought it possibly could be.

“Promise me —” came the whisper, very softly now.

“Anything, darling.”

“Captain Butler — be kind to him. He — loves you so.”

“Rhett?” thought Scarlett, bewildered, and the words meant nothing to her.

“Yes, indeed,” she said automatically and, pressing a light kiss on the hand, laid it back on the bed.

“Tell the ladies to come in immediately,” whispered the doctor as she passed through the door.

Through blurred eyes she saw India and Pitty follow the doctor into the room, holding their skirts close to their sides to keep them from rustling. The door closed behind them and the house was still. Ashley was nowhere to be seen. Scarlett leaned her head against the wall, like a naughty child in a corner, and rubbed her aching throat.

Behind that door, Melanie was going and, with her, the strength upon which she had relied unknowingly for so many years. Why, oh, why, had she not realized before this how much she loved and needed Melanie? But who would have thought of small plain Melanie as a tower of strength? Melanie who was shy to tears before strangers, timid about raising her voice in an opinion of her own, fearful of the disapproval of old ladies, Melanie who lacked the courage to say Boo to a goose? And yet —

Scarlett’s mind went back through the years to the still, hot noon at Tara when gray smoke curled above a blue-clad body and Melanie stood at the top of the stairs with Charles’ saber in her hand. Scarlett remembered that she had thought at the time: “How silly! Melly couldn’t even heft that sword!” But now she knew that had the necessity arisen, Melanie would have charged down those stairs and killed the Yankee — or been killed herself.

Yes, Melanie had been there that day with a sword in her small hand, ready to do battle for her. And now, as Scarlett looked sadly back, she realized that Melanie had always been there beside her with a sword in her hand, unobtrusive as her own shadow, loving her, fighting for her with blind passionate loyalty, fighting Yankees, fire, hunger, poverty, public opinion and even her beloved blood kin.

Scarlett felt her courage and self-confidence ooze from her as she realized that the sword which had flashed between her and the world was sheathed forever.

“Melly is the only woman friend I ever had,” she thought forlornly, “the only woman except Mother who really loved me. She’s like Mother, too. Everyone who knew her has clung to her skirts.”

Suddenly it was as if Ellen were lying behind that closed door, leaving the world for a second time. Suddenly she was standing at Tara again with the world about her ears, desolate with the knowledge that she could not face life without the terrible strength of the weak, the gentle, the tender hearted.

She stood in the hall, irresolute, frightened, and the glaring light of the fire in the sitting room threw tall dim shadows on the walls about her. The house was utterly still and the stillness soaked into her like a fine chill rain. Ashley! Where was Ashley?

She went toward the sitting room seeking him like a cold animal seeking the fire but he was not there. She must find him. She had discovered Melanie’s strength and her dependence on it only to lose it in the moment of discovery but there was still Ashley left. There was Ashley who was strong and wise and comforting. In Ashley and his love lay strength upon which to lay her weakness, courage to bolster her fear, ease for her sorrow.

He must be in his room, she thought, and tiptoeing down the hall, she knocked softly. There was no answer, so she pushed the door open. Ashley was standing in front of the dresser, looking at a pair of Melanie’s mended gloves. First he picked up one and looked at it, as though he had never seen it before. Then he laid it down gently, as though it were made of glass, and picked up the other one.

She said: “ Ashley!” in a trembling voice and he turned slowly and looked at her. The drowsy aloofness had gone from his gray eyes and they were wide and unmasked. In them she saw fear that matched her own fear, helplessness weaker than her own, bewilderment more profound than she would ever know. The feeling of dread which had possessed her in the hall deepened as she saw his face. She went toward him.

“I’m frightened,” she said. “Oh, Ashley, hold me. I’m so frightened!”

He made no move to her but stared, gripping the glove tightly in both hands. She put a hand on his arm and whispered: “What is it?”

His eyes searched her intently, hunting, hunting desperately for something he did not find. Finally he spoke and his voice was not his own.

“I was wanting you,” he said. “I was going to run and find you — run like a child wanting comfort — and I find a child, more frightened, running to me.”

“Not you — you can’t be frightened,” she cried. “Nothing has ever frightened you. But I — You’ve always been so strong —”

“If I’ve ever been strong, it was because she was behind me,” he said, his voice breaking, and he looked down at the glove and smoothed the fingers. “And — and — all the strength I ever had is going with her.”

There was such a note of wild despair in his low voice that she dropped her hand from his arm and stepped back. And in the heavy silence that fell between them, she felt that she really understood him for the first time in her life.

“Why —” she said slowly, “why, Ashley, you love her, don’t you?”

He spoke as with an effort.

“She is the only dream I ever had that lived and breathed and did not die in the face of reality.”

“Dreams!” she thought, an old irritation stirring. “Always dreams with him! Never common sense!”

With a heart that was heavy and a little bitter, she said: “You’ve been such a fool, Ashley. Why couldn’t you see that she was worth a million of me?”

“Scarlett, please! If you only knew what I’ve gone through since the doctor —”

“What you’ve gone through! Don’t you think that I — Oh, Ashley, you should have known, years ago, that you loved her and not me! Why didn’t you! Everything would have been so different, so — Oh, you should have realized and not kept me dangling with all your talk about honor and sacrifice! If you’d told me, years ago, I’d have — It would have killed me but I could have stood it somehow. But you wait till now, till Melly’s dying, to find it out and now it’s too late to do anything. Oh, Ashley, men are supposed to know such things — not women! You should have seen so clearly that you loved her all the time and only wanted me like — like Rhett wants that Watling woman!”

He winced at her words but his eyes still met hers, imploring silence, comfort. Every line of his face admitted the truth of her words. The very droop of his shoulders showed that his own self-castigation was more cruel than any she could give. He stood silent before her, clutching the glove as though it were an understanding hand and, in the stillness that followed her words, her indignation fell away and pity, tinged with contempt, took its place. Her conscience smote her. She was kicking a beaten and defenseless man — and she had promised Melanie that she would look after him.

“And just as soon as I promised her, I said mean, hurting things to him and there’s no need for me to say them or for anyone to say them. He knows the truth and it’s killing him,” she thought desolately. “He’s not grown up. He’s a child, like me, and he’s sick with fear at losing her. Melly knew how it would be — Melly knew him far better than I do. That’s why she said look after him and Beau, in the same breath. How can Ashley ever stand this? I can stand it. I can stand anything. I’ve had to stand so much. But he can’t — he can’t stand anything without her.”

“Forgive me, darling,” she said gently, putting out her arms. “I know what you must be suffering. But remember, she doesn’t know anything — she never even suspected — God was that good to us.”

He came to her quickly and his arms went round her blindly. She tiptoed to bring her warm cheek comfortingly against his and with one hand she smoothed the back of his hair.

“Don’t cry, sweet. She’d want you to be brave. She’ll want to see you in a moment and you must be brave. She mustn’t see that you’ve been crying. It would worry her.”

He held her in a grip that made breathing difficult and his choking voice was in her ear.

“What will I do? I can’t — I can’t live without her!”

“I can’t either,” she thought, shuddering away from the picture of the long years to come, without Melanie. But she caught herself in a strong grasp. Ashley was depending on her, Melanie was depending on her. As once before, in the moonlight at Tara, drunk, exhausted, she had thought: “Burdens are for shoulders strong enough to carry them.” Well, her shoulders were strong and Ashley’s were not. She squared her shoulders for the load and with a calmness she was far from feeling, kissed his wet cheek without fever or longing or passion, only with cool gentleness.

“We shall manage — somehow,” she said.

A door opened with sudden violence into the hall and Dr. Meade called with sharp urgency:

“Ashley! Quick!”

“My God! She’s gone!” thought Scarlett “And Ashley didn’t get to tell her good-by! But maybe —”

“Hurry!” she cried aloud, giving him a push, for he stood staring like one stunned. “Hurry!”

She pulled open the door and motioned him through. Galvanized by her words, he ran into the hall, the glove still clasped closely in his hand. She heard his rapid steps for a moment and then the closing of a door.

She said, “My God!” again and walking slowly to the bed, sat down upon it and dropped her head in her hands. She was suddenly tired, more tired than she had ever been in all her life. With the sound of the closing door, the strain under which she had been laboring, the strain which had given her strength, suddenly snapped. She felt exhausted in body and drained of emotions. Now she felt no sorrow or remorse, no fear or amazement. She was tired and her mind ticked away dully, mechanically, as the clock on the mantel.

Out of the dullness, one thought arose. Ashley did not love her and had never really loved her and the knowledge did not hurt. It should hurt. She should be desolate, broken hearted, ready to scream at fate. She had relied upon his love for so long. It had upheld her through so many dark places. Yet, there the truth was. He did not love her and she did not care. She did not care because she did not love him. She did not love him and so nothing he could do or say could hurt her.

She lay down on the bed and put her head on the pillow tiredly. Useless to try to combat the idea, useless to say to herself: “But I do love him. I’ve loved him for years. Love can’t change to apathy in a minute.”

But it could change and it had changed.

“He never really existed at all, except in my imagination,” she thought wearily. “I loved something I made up, something that’s just as dead as Melly is. I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not. And I wouldn’t see what he really was. I kept on loving the pretty clothes — and not him at all.”

Now she could look back down the long years and see herself in green flowered dimity, standing in the sunshine at Tara, thrilled by the young horseman with his blond hair shining like a silver helmet. She could see so clearly now that he was only a childish fancy, no more important really than her spoiled desire for the aquamarine earbobs she had coaxed out of Gerald. For, once she owned the earbobs, they had lost their value, as everything except money lost its value once it was hers. And so he, too, would have become cheap if, in those first far-away days, she had ever had the satisfaction of refusing to marry him. If she had ever had him at her mercy, seen him grown passionate, importunate, jealous, sulky, pleading, like the other boys, the wild infatuation which had possessed her would have passed, blowing away as lightly as mist before sunshine and light wind when she met a new man.

“What a fool I’ve been,” she thought bitterly. “And now I’ve got to pay for it What I’ve wished for so often has happened. I’ve wished Melly was dead so I could have him. And now she’s dead and I’ve got him and I don’t want him. His damned honor will make him ask me if I want to divorce Rhett and marry him. Marry him? I wouldn’t have him on a silver platter! But, just the same I’ve got him round my neck for the rest of my life. As long as I live I’ll have to look after him and see that he doesn’t starve and that people don’t hurt his feelings. He’ll be just another child, clinging to my skirts. I’ve lost my lover and I’ve got another child. And if I hadn’t promised Melly, I’d — I wouldn’t care if I never saw him again.”