"Mrs. Gregory!" came Mrs. O'Hara's voice from the stairway.
Gloria went out into the hall.
The nurse had changed into her white uniform and cap. She was
bending over the banisters.
"Your husband is calling for you," she said softly.
"I thought he was delirious. He didn't know anything a while ago,"
Gloria answered.
She did not want to go upstairs to Dick. She hated the thought of
seeing him breathe in that terrible, hurrying way. It frightened her.
The look of his face had frightened her this afternoon ... the skin
flushed, the eyes bright with fever. No, she was not going to go
upstairs and see him again, if there was any way out of it!
"Dr. Seymour told me to keep out of Mr. Gregory's room," she said to
the nurse. "He made me take all my things out of it, even!"
Mrs. O'Hara smiled gently.
"Dr. Seymour is still upstairs. He told me to call you himself," she
said.
With slow, reluctant feet Gloria went upstairs.
From behind the closed door of Dick's room she could hear a low
moaning sound. It was not like Dick's voice. And yet it was his
voice.
"Gloria," it said over and over.
With her hand on the knob of the door, Gloria turned and faced Mrs.
O'Hara, who had followed her upstairs.
"I can't go in!" she protested again. "I simply can't! You don't
know what you're asking of me..."
She darted across the hall and into the guest room, closing the door
behind her.
She threw herself down on the blue silk cover of the bed, covered her
ears with her hands to shut out the sound of Dick's moaning. But she
heard it, anyway. It went on and on in her brain ... "Gloria ...
Gloria ... Gloria..."
At last she got up and tapped on the door of the sick room, Mrs.
O'Hara opened it at once.
Gloria tiptoed into the room.
The silk curtains had been taken down. A newspaper shrouded the rosy
shade of the reading-lamp. A white towel had been laid on the top of
her own dressing-table. And on it was a whole row of bottles. A
hospital chart hung at the foot of Dick's bed.
And on it Dick lay, breathing in those short terrible gasps.
"Is he going to die?" Gloria whispered to Mrs. O'Hara.
Mrs. O'Hara studied Gloria with her serious eyes.
"How can I say?" she asked very gently. "He's a very sick man, Mrs.
Gregory, but I've seen worse cases than his ... Don't worry. Pray."
Gloria couldn't remember the last time she had prayed. It was so
long ago....
She had been so busy living life that she had forgotten all about the
Giver of Life!
She went lightly to the side of Dick's bed, and took his hot, dry
hand in hers.
At her touch Dick stirred. He half-opened his eyes.
"Rikky-Tikky-Tavy," she said, calling him the foolish little pet name
that no one but herself ever used for him.
He closed his eyes.
A feeling of pity swept over Gloria. Dick seemed so alone in his
pain--in his struggle to live.
Had she ever really given him any comradeship? Any happiness? She
wondered.
Of course, she had ... she told herself. She had been his wife. He
had had her kisses, hadn't he? He had held her in his arms ... and
what else was there to love but lovemaking?
... Dimly, Gloria knew that there was something else in Dick's love
for her. But what was it? Unselfishness, perhaps.
The sick man moved again. He was trying to say something.
Gloria bent her head to listen.
"Gloria," Dick moaned.
"Here I am," Gloria whispered. "Right here, Dick. Right here beside
you..."
She stroked his forehead. He put up both his hands and thrust her
away.
"I want Gloria," he moaned again. Gloria rose and turned away from
the bed. Angrily she faced Mrs. O'Hara.
"He doesn't even know me," she said. "Now don't ask me to come in
here again! Because I won't!"
Gloria went downstairs. She put on her hat and coat to go out of
doors. She felt that, somehow, she must get away from the sound of
Dick's voice moaning "Gloria ... Gloria." It kept repeating itself
over and over in her ears.
Gloria's impulse was always to escape the unpleasant things of
life--poverty, hard work and sickness. She hated them with all her
soul.
With a sigh of relief she opened the front door and went out.
Some one was coming up the walk. In the light that streamed out from
the hall door Gloria could see that it was Mother Gregory. Her face
was haggard with anxiety.
"What in the world has happened?" she asked, as she came up the front
steps. "Maggie says Ranghild has been phoning for me. I've been at
the church guild all afternoon, sewing."
"Dick's sick. Dr. John says that cold of his has developed into
pneumonia," answered Gloria. She followed her mother-in-law back
into the house.
Mother Gregory covered her face with her large capable hands, and
began to cry.
"Oh, my dear God!" she sobbed. And the very voice of prayer was in
her tone.
Gloria watched her in surprised silence. She wouldn't have believed
there was any tenderness or softness in Mother Gregory. She had
always thought that the love she had for Dick was the grim kind that
a Spartan mother might have had for her son.
Presently Mother Gregory dried her eyes and started for the stairs.
Halfway to the first landing she stopped and turned.
"There's something I've been wanting to say to you, Gloria, and I may
as well say it now," she said emphatically. "If Dick dies, remember,
it's you who've killed him! He's been all run down from worry for
weeks and weeks. Maggie's told me how you've worn him out with your
rowdy parties and your late hours! And just the other day he had to
come to his father for money to pay for some of your folderols! ...
If you had any brains you'd know that worry kills more people than
hard work ever does! ... It's no wonder to me..."
Her voice broke again, and she went on upstairs.
Gloria slammed the door behind her and went outdoors.
Her heart was filled with hate and anger toward her mother-in-law.
She walked along the lamp-lit streets thinking of cruel cutting
things she might have said to her, if she had only thought of them in
time! How she wished she had!
The streets were very quiet Scarcely any one passed. And as Gloria
wandered along, a sort of peace stole over her.
There was a hint of spring in the air. The town, itself, seemed to
be waiting for the caress of a divine hand that would waken buds on
the trees and early crocuses in the brown earth.
Gloria suddenly wanted some one to whom she could go with her
trouble--her misery.
Not her mother! ... she had never confided in her mother.
Not May Seymour--nor Stanley Wayburn, either. They were fair-weather
friends. There was no sympathy for any one in either of them. That
was a cinch!
Then Gloria thought of Lola Hough, shabby, neglected Lola, whom she
had hurt and insulted only yesterday.
Would Lola forgive her? Gloria knew she would.
And not only would she forgive her--she would probably have comfort
and understanding for her, too ... Lola was like that.
Trouble softened people and made them more human. And when it came
to trouble, Lola certainly had more than her share. In fact, trouble
was about all she did have!
Fifteen minutes later Gloria was ringing the bell of the old Hough
homestead.
Lola, herself, came to the door.
She was covered with a big flannel bath apron. And under one arm she
carried young Teddy Hough.
"Well, of all things; it's Gloria Gregory!" Lola cried. She smiled.
"I'm just on my way upstairs to put the babies to bed," she went on.
"Come along, and then we can talk in peace."
Lola seemed to know that Gloria had come because she was in trouble,
without being told.
Upstairs in the big front bedroom the twins, in nighties and red
bathrobes, were having bread and milk for their supper.
Before the grate fire a bath basin was waiting for young Teddy. On
the mantel shelf, his bottle of milk stood in readiness.
Gloria sank into an armchair covered with clean, faded cretonne.
With somber eyes she watched Lola bathe her baby.
"Isn't he a little old kewpie?" Lola laughed, as she took him out of
the tub and bundled him into his sleeping-bag.
In Gloria's opinion, Teddy was far too fat, but she didn't say so.
She knew that, in Lola's eyes, her three babies were beautiful as
cherubs.
Lola tucked them tenderly into their little beds and turned out the
light.
"Good night, baby birds," she said, softly closing the door.
Gloria followed her silently downstairs to the dining-room.
A cold supper was laid there for one. Sliced corned beef, bread and
butter, and a bowl of canned peaches.
Lola took an extra plate from the china closet.
"Stay and have a bite of supper with a lonesome woman," she begged.
"And while I'm boiling the water for the tea, you can tell me what's
on your mind. I can see that something's bothering you."
"Something? ... Everything!" Gloria cried. "My whole life's wrong
from start to finish, and I'm just beginning to find it out....
Lola, I'm married to a man I don't love."
Lola stared at her with wide-eyed astonishment.
"You don't care for Dick?" she asked incredulously. "Why, you must
be crazy, Gloria! Dick's the very nicest man I know...."
Gloria interrupted her with a harsh laugh.
"And not only that," she said, "but the man I do care about doesn't
give a snap of his fingers for me!"
"Who's the man? Any one I know?" Lola asked curiously.
"Yes, you know him. But I'm not going to say who he is," Gloria
answered, stubbornly, "so don't ask me!"
Lola was silent. She measured tea into the little brown pot on the
table. Her eyes were thoughtful.
"Oh, I see!" she exclaimed presently.
"What do you see?" Gloria asked.
"I see why you come to me with this story," Lola said. "I wondered
why you'd picked me.... It's Bill you're in love with, isn't it?"
Gloria threw back her head and laughed wildly. That Lola should
think she was in love with Bill Hough was too funny! ... Couldn't she
see that he was fat and middle-aged, and had puffs under his eyes?
... But that was the way with women who loved their husbands. They
thought everybody else was in love with them, too!
"Bill? Not in a million years!" Gloria answered soberly. "No, the
reason I told you about myself, Lola, is because you have more sense
than the rest of the girls I know. And you won't blab it all over,
either.... And I just had to tell somebody! What would you do if
you were I?"
Lola pondered.
"Well," she said at last, "if I were you, I'd go right home and tell
Dick about it. That's the only square thing for you to do, so far as
I can see."
Slowly Gloria shook her lovely head. Her eyebrows straightened into
a frown.
"Of course, I can't do that, with Dick so sick," she mused. "But
when he's better, I think I will tell him--that is, if he gets
better."
Lola set her cup down with a clatter.
"Do you mean to say Dick's sick?" she asked. She couldn't believe
her ears.
"I forgot to tell you. He's down with pneumonia," Gloria answered.
"That's why I had to get out of the house.... There's a nurse there,
and Mother Gregory, besides. And the whole place sounds and smells
like a hospital. Oh, it's awful!"
Lola gasped. For a minute she was speechless.
"Well, my advice to you is to get home as soon as you can!" she
cried, when she had found her voice. "The idea of leaving a sick
husband! Suppose Dick wants you and you aren't there? ... For
goodness' sake, Gloria, don't sit there! You've got to go home right
away!"
Dully, Gloria rose to her feet.
"I suppose I must," she sighed drearily. "But, gosh, how I hate to
go back there!"