Ruby grew paler as the summer waned; 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 chattering and whispering of her beaux, and their rivalries 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 wilful 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 grumbled about Anne’s frequent visits, and declared she would catch consumption; even Marilla was dubious.

“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.”

But tonight Anne did not feel this so keenly.  Ruby was strangely quiet.  She said not a word about parties and drives and dresses and “fellows.”  She lay in the hammock, with her untouched work beside her, and a white shawl wrapped about her thin shoulders.  Her long yellow braids of hair—­how Anne had envied those beautiful braids in old schooldays!—­lay on either side of her.  She had taken the pins out—­they made her head ache, she said.  The hectic flush was gone for the time, leaving her pale and childlike.

The moon rose in the silvery sky, empearling the clouds around her.  Below, the pond shimmered in its hazy radiance.  Just beyond the Gillis homestead was the church, with the old graveyard beside it.  The moonlight shone on the white stones, bringing them out in clear-cut relief against the dark trees behind.

“How strange the graveyard looks by moonlight!” said Ruby suddenly.  “How ghostly!” she shuddered.  “Anne, it won’t be long now before I’ll be lying over there.  You and Diana and all the rest will be going about, full of life—­and I’ll be there—­in the old graveyard—­dead!”

The surprise of it bewildered Anne.  For a few moments she could not speak.

“You know it’s so, don’t you?” said Ruby insistently.

“Yes, I know,” answered Anne in a low tone.  “Dear Ruby, I know.”

“Everybody knows it,” said Ruby bitterly.  “I know it—­I’ve known it all summer, though I wouldn’t give in.  And, oh, Anne”—­she reached out and caught Anne’s hand pleadingly, impulsively—­“I don’t want to die.  I’m afraid to die.”

“Why should you be afraid, Ruby?” asked Anne quietly.

“Because—­because—­oh, I’m not afraid but that I’ll go to heaven, Anne.  I’m a church member.  But—­it’ll be all so different.  I think—­and think—­and I get so frightened—­and—­and—­homesick.  Heaven must be very beautiful, of course, the Bible says so—­but, Anne, it won’t be what I’ve been used to.”