As they entered the room, Lois turned the key in its lock and bent a
long, penetrating gaze on Margaret.
She lay huddled against the welter of bedclothes, silent, inert,
pearl-pale spots on her cheeks like gray-white smothers of foam over
fretting rocks. Her eyes were closed and her breath came chokingly,
like a child’s after a draught of strong medicine. Suddenly, as Lois
stood pondering, she kneeled upright on the bed, holding her arms out
before her.
“Oh, God!” she cried, “don’t let him die! Please don’t! He can’t--he
can’t die! Why, he’s Richard--Richard Daunt. It’s only an accident. He
can’t die that way. God--God!”
“Hush, dear! Oh, dear! What can I say?” cried Lois.
Margaret slipped to the floor, dragging the covers with her, and
burying her face in the fleecy cuddle. There she writhed like some
trodden thing.
“Oh, dear God!” she sobbed, “just when I knew. He can’t die now! It’s
just to punish me; I’ve been wicked, but I didn’t mean to be. I only
wanted his good! If he had only died before I knew it! Only let him
live till I can tell him, God. I’m not a wicked woman--you know how I
tried. A wicked woman wouldn’t have tried. Oh, God, he doesn’t even
know! I can’t tell him. I’ve suffered already. If he died, I couldn’t
feel worse than I have all this time. Let me think he’s going to die,
but don’t let him. _Don’t let him!_ I want him so! It isn’t for that
that I want him! I know now. I thought it was the other. But I wasn’t
so wicked as that. I’ve been selfish. I’ve been thinking I was good
to keep him away, but I wasn’t. I was cruel. He loved me the right
way. Oh, if I could only forget how he talked!--and he didn’t know
what he was saying. I’ve hated myself ever since. If he dies, I shall
hate myself forever! I don’t deserve that! I’m not so bad as that! I
_couldn’t_ be. I’m willing to be punished in other ways--in any other
way--but not this, God! I can’t stand it!
“I don’t ask for him as he was! I don’t care how he looks! Give him
to me just as he is. Give him to me crippled and helpless, and let me
care for him all my life. Oh, God, it isn’t so much that I ask! It’s
such a little thing for you to grant! Why, every day you let some one
get well, some one who isn’t half as much to anybody as he is to me. If
I were asking something I oughtn’t to--something sinful, it would be
different! But it can’t be bad to want him to get well! I’ll be better
all my life to have him. It isn’t much--I’ll never ask you anything
else as long as I live! Only let him live--don’t take him away! I don’t
care if he can never walk again, if he can only know me, and love me
still! God, his life is so precious to me; it’s worth more than all the
world. If he died, I would want to die, too. God! Hasn’t he suffered
enough? How can you watch him--how can you see what he is suffering
now and not let him live? You can if you want to! There are so many
millions and millions of people, and this is just one of them. Oh, for
Christ’s sake--for Christ’s sake!”
“Oh, Margaret! Margaret!” wailed Lois, falling beside her, as though
physical contact could soothe her. “Don’t go on like that! Don’t! Oh,
it’s too cruel! You break my heart! Darling, darling! He isn’t dead
yet. Maybe--maybe----” She stopped then, choking, but pressing her
hands hard on Margaret’s cheeks, on her hair, on her breast, her limbs,
as though to press back the nerves that she felt throbbed to bursting.
Margaret struggled to her feet, swaying with the paroxysm just passed.
Her eyes were unwet and bright, and her teeth were clenched tightly on
her under lip.
“No, he isn’t dead,” she said slowly, as though to force conviction
on herself. “He isn’t--dead. Doctors are mistaken sometimes, aren’t
they?” she asked dully. “Yes, I know! They are! Dr. Irwin told me so
himself. ‘The prognostications of surgery can in no case be considered
infallible.’ That’s what he said in the lecture yesterday. I wrote it
down in my note-book. That means that he may not die. Oh! I’ve got to
believe that. _I’ve got to!_ Can’t you see that I’ve got to? You don’t
believe he will live! I see it in your face. When the doctor said that
just now, you looked just as he did. He might have stabbed me just as
well. Why! I’d rather die myself a million times--but it wouldn’t do
any good! It wouldn’t do any good!”
Margaret moved to the fire and spread out her hands before the
blaze, as though her mind unconsciously sought relief from strain
in an habitual action. But her chattering teeth showed that she was
unconscious of its warmth.
She looked up at the countenance of La Belle Jardinière above the
fireplace. The mild gaze which had once held reproach now seemed to
bend down full of pitiful tenderness. Her bright, miserable eyes rested
on the placid figure.
“You don’t know,” she said slowly, “what I am praying for. If it were
a little child--_my_ little child--that I were asking for, you would
understand. You can only pity me, but you can never, never know!”
She turned and walked up and down the floor, her steps uneven with
anguish, her fingers laced and unlaced in tearless convulsion, and her
throat contracting with soundless sobs.
Lois watched her, her mind saying over and over to itself: “If she
would only cry! If she would only cry!” There was something more
terrible than tears in this inarticulate anguish. At last she went and
stood in Margaret’s way, clinging entreatingly to her. “Do let me help
you, dear! Lie down and let me cover you up and make you some tea! Do
please, dear!” She stopped, struck by the ashy pallor of her face.
“No, no, Lois. I can’t stay here! Think! He may be dying _now_! I
_must_ go to him! Oh, you have got to let me--they can’t forbid me
that. I was going to stay with him to-night, anyway. You know I was!
I can’t let him die! He _shan’t_! I’ll fight it off with him. I don’t
care what Dr. Faulkner says; I don’t care what you think! You mustn’t
say no, Lois! Oh, Lois, darling! I’ll die now, right here, if you
don’t.” She dropped on her knees at Lois’s feet, catching her hand and
kissing it in grovelling entreaty.
“You know I’ll have to let you, if you ask like that!” cried Lois. “I’m
only thinking of you--and of him,” she added. “You know if you should
break down----”
“But I won’t--I won’t!” A gulping hiccough strained her, and Lois
poured out a glass of water for her hastily, and stood over her while
she swallowed it in choking mouthfuls.