At the breakfast the professor was irritably anxious. "I wish I knew of
some way of getting at Montague this morning; he ought to have a
telephone put in!"
"You know why he doesn't," said Frances gently.
"I couldn't sleep last night, thinking of him."
The cup Frances held clattered in her trembling hands. Sleep! She
remembered the big fire, the bright light she had kept all the night;
she remembered how she had walked her room, had undressed, gone to bed,
gotten up, dressed again, and sat by the fire shaking like the trees
outside before the heavy blasts; remembered how she had resented the
blue of the sky, and the rose of the sunrise flushing the east, while
far off the fringe of heavy clouds fled away, when she flung open the
shutters to the morning; and how every moment since she had held
herself tense, listening, straining, for the tragedy she felt the night
held.
"That old woman might attend to the 'phone," said her father, going back
to his grievance. Montague had said long ago that with his all morning
and all afternoon absences from the house while his work took him from
field to vineyard, from vineyard to mountain-top, a telephone was
useless.
"I think I'll call up Frazier," he said at last, as he pushed back his
chair, "he's near and might know."
"Father, you must not; he would never understand his trying to reach
home last night."
"Neither do I!"
"You'll hear soon enough, if there's anything to hear."
"I shall be uneasy until I do."
Uneasy! Frances worked that morning as she had never done in her life,
swept, dusted, cleaned from one room to another. Susan would not have
allowed the labor for an hour; Roxie was glad enough to get it done for
her. Frances worked, piling up the moments, worked, and yet heard every
footstep in the corridor outside; at each fresh footfall her heart beat
to suffocation, then as they died away she drew long breaths and turned
to her tasks. At last, beyond the noon, the telephone rang. Frances had
the receiver at her ear, before the ringing stopped.
"Hello!" she called, "who is it?"
"Frazier!" The receiver almost fell from her hand.
"Well!" and over the long distance wire faintly was coming, "that old
woman, Susan, sent a boy over here just now, and said to 'phone you to
come out there right away and bring the doctor!"
"Bill," said the girl to herself, with a sobbing sigh of relief.
"All right!" she called, "I'll come at once!"
"Bill is worse," she told herself, as with trembling hands she rang up
first the stables, and then the doctor.
The doctor would go; she would call for him at once.
Before she turned away, her father opened the door.
On his face she saw the tragedy she awaited.
"Montague is drowned!" he cried. "My God!" for Frances had gone down in
a heap on the hall floor, the receiver swinging from side to side where
she wrenched it as she fell. "Susan! Roxie! bring me some water!"
"No!" Frances was struggling upright, "let me go, father! I don't want
anything!" to Roxie; "go on!" she waved her back to the kitchen
impatiently. "How did you hear?" she whispered as the scared darkey shut
the door behind her.
"His horse was found this morning, dripping, spent, riderless." The
professor was white as his daughter. "I--I must telegraph his father!"
"Don't!" pleaded Frances, "don't; he might be safe yet somewhere!"
The professor cut her short with a motion of his hand. "If he were,
don't you suppose we'd know! And he left my house!" he said bitterly.
Frances' head drooped.
"What will his father think of me?" he added.
It was not of others' words she was thinking; it was what her own heart
was telling her in great heavy throbs. "You have killed him! You killed
him!"
She put her hands up dully to her ears, but the sound was only the
louder.
"Frances!" Something in her face, her heavy drooping as she started up
the stair frightened her father, "What are you going to do?"
"I am going out to Susan's; she sent for me to bring the doctor out."
"You'd better let him go alone."
"I'm sure Susan wants me, or she would never have given such a message.
If there is anything I can do for her I ought to do it!" Her broken
sentences were spoken from the stair as she went up.
When she came down the trap was waiting. Her father went out with her,
put her into the vehicle and tucked the robes about her. The world was
flooded with sunshine, the grass down in the folds of the hills was
vividly green, the tree-tops, gray and brown, were tossing softly; the
professor thrust a bill in his daughter's hand. "Tell the doctor to get
whatever he thinks Susan might need."
Frances had one last word. "Don't telegraph yet!" she begged.
It seemed a senseless thing, but he did as she pleaded. The afternoon
was full of duties for him. He went through them mechanically and before
he was done had a sharp message from the doctor, "Come out at once!"
Frances had driven around for the doctor, told him briefly what she
feared for Susan, gave her father's message, and then, white and dumb,
had no other word to say through their drive. The doctor, glad of an
hour's quiet, lounged in his seat, as they made what speed they could
through heavy mud and mire and great pools of water; the dull sodden
fields and green patches of winter wheat and far-off hazy mountains
claimed scarce a glance, but once or twice he looked curiously at the
face of the girl by his side. He had held her, a new-born babe, known
every phase of her childhood and girlhood, and it cut him to the heart
to see that stricken look. He had his own dread of the cause likewise;
for the tragedy the professor told was one which had stirred the town.
Soon as they glimpsed the cabin, they saw Susan's spare figure standing
on the step, the door closed behind her, while she strained her anxious
eyes for help.
She hurried to the trap. While the doctor fumbled with his medicine
case, Frances sprang out on the other side. She hastened at once to the
door; she did not even hear Susan's anxious "Honey, maybe yuh'd bettah
not go in dyar!"