"I can't think--I can't think. There's one girl has nervous
prostration, and her name's got mixed with mine, and I can't--"
"Hush, hush! Never mind. You shall come and lie down in my room.
You'll stay with us to-night, anyway, and we'll have a doctor in,
Bishop."
"That's right," assented the Bishop. "I'll go get him myself."
"You--you're not going!" I cried in dismay. It was real. I hated to
see him go.
"Nonsense--'phone." It was Edward who went himself to telephone for
the doctor, and I saw my time getting short.
But the Bishop had to go, anyway. He looked out at his horses
shivering in front of the house, and the sight hurried him.
"My child," he said, taking my hand, "just let Mrs. Ramsay take care of
you to-night. Don't bother about anything, but just rest. I'll see
you in the morning," he went on, noticing that I kind of clung to him.
Well, I did. "Can't you remember what I said to you in the
carriage--that I wished you were my daughter. I wish you were, indeed I
do, and that I could take you home with me and keep you, child."
"Then--to-night--if--when you pray--will you pray for me as if I
was--your own daughter?"
Tom Dorgan, you think no prayers but a priest's are any good, you
bigoted, snickering Catholic! I tell you if some day I cut loose from
you and start in over again, it'll be the Bishop's prayers that'll do
it.
The Dowager and I passed Edward in the ball. He gave me a look behind
her back, and I gave him one to match it. Just practice, you know,
Tom. A girl can never know when she'll want to be expert in these
things.
She made me lie down on a couch while she turned the lamp low, and then
left me alone in a big palace of a bedroom filled with things. And I
wanted everything I saw. If I could, I'd have lifted everything in
sight.
But every minute brought that doctor nearer. Soon as I could be really
sure she was gone, I got up, and, hurrying to the long French windows
that opened on the great stone piazza, I unfastened them quietly, and
inch by inch I pushed them open.
There within ten feet of me stood Edward. No escape that way. He saw
me, and was tiptoeing heavily toward me, when I heard the door click
behind me, and in walked the Dowager back again.