She looked at him in a blind sort of way. His words made only a hazy
impression; but neither of the men could know that.
"Believed in me?" she echoed, smiling faintly. "Why, did you?"
"Yes," said Francis with a concentrated fury that reached even her
confused senses. "But I never will again! I thought--I was beginning
to think--you were the sort of woman you said. But you're just a
flirt. Any man is better than the one you're married to."
"I--I think you want me to go," she said, trying to see him. She could
see two Francises, as a matter of fact, neither of them clearly.
"Yes, I do. Either of these men you've befooled can see you on your
way. And I'll start divorce proceedings, or you may, immediately."
He said more than that; but that was all she could get. The words hurt
her, in spite of their lack of meaning. Francis hated her; he thought
she was a bad girl, who never kept her word. And she wasn't.
"I--I want to be good," she said aimlessly, as she had said to
Pennington a little earlier. "I"--she lost the thread again--"I'll go."
She rose, dropping the cup and saucer on her knee, and not stopping to
pick them up. She caught hold of the doorpost to carry her in, and
dropped down on a seat inside. It was not that she was weak, but she
felt giddy. She wondered again if it was the swamp. Probably. She
finally made her way back to her own room, mixed herself some spirits
of ammonia and took it, and sat down to pull herself together. Through
the wooden partition she could hear the furious voices of the men on
the porch outside. She wondered if Francis would say more dreadful
things to her while he took her over in the side-car. She hoped not.
Presently the dizziness departed for a few minutes, and she tried to
pack. She did not seem able to manage it. If she was allowed to stay
at the Lodge with the O'Maras, she could send Peggy over to gather up
her things. Yes, that would be the best way to do.
She pinned on her hat and drew her cloak around her, just as she was,
and came out. Pennington and Francis were standing up, facing her, and
having a quarrel which might last some time.
"I'm ready," she said weakly.
She knew she should have stood up there, and told Francis how unkind
and unjust and bad-tempered and jealous he was, and defend herself from
his accusations. But she was too tired to do it; and besides, words
seemed so far away, and feelings seemed far away, too. Francis and the
work at the cabin and Pennington, with his kind, plump, rueful face,
and even the O'Maras and Logan, seemed suddenly unreal and of little
account. The only thing that really mattered was a chance to go
somewhere and lie down and sleep. Perhaps she could lean back a little
in the side-car as he took her over.
Francis broke off short in what he was saying, and went without looking
at her toward the place where he kept his motor-cycle. Perhaps he
thought that it did not matter, now, whether he left her with
Pennington or not.
Pennington, for his part, turned around--he had been standing so that
his back was toward her--and began to speak. Marjorie thought he was
saying something to the effect that he was very sorry that he had made
this trouble for her, and that he had been trying to explain; and
thought he could make Francis hear reason when he had cooled off.
"It doesn't really matter," she said wearily. "Only tell him to hurry,
because I'm--so--sleepy."
She sank into the chair where she had been sitting before Francis
appeared, and leaned back and shut her eyes. Pennington, with a
concerned look on his face, came nearer her at that, and looked down at
her, reaching down to feel her pulse. She moved her hand feebly away.
"Francis--wouldn't like it," she said; and that was the last thing she
remembered distinctly, though afterwards when she tried she seemed to
recall hearing Pennington, very far off in the distance, calling
peremptorily, "Ellison! Ellison! Come here at once!"
She wondered faintly why Pennington should want to hurry him up. It
was about this time that she quietly slipped sidewise from her chair,
and was in a little heap on the veranda before he could turn and catch
her, or Francis could respond to the summons.
"This is what you've done," was what Pennington said quietly when
Francis reappeared. He did not offer to touch Marjorie or pick her up.
Francis flung himself down on his knees beside his wife. Then he
looked up at Pennington, with a last shade of suspicion in his eyes.
"What do you think it is?" he asked. "Is she really fainting?"
"You young fool, no!" said Pennington. "She's ill."
"Ill!" said Francis, and gathered her up and laid her on the settee at
the other end of the porch. "What's the matter, do you think? Is it
serious?"
His words were quiet enough, but there was a note of anguish in his
voice which made Pennington sorry for him in spite of himself. But he
did not show much mercy.
"It is probably overwork," he said. "We've all done what we could to
spare her, but a child like this shouldn't be put at drudgery, even to
satisfy the most jealous or selfish man. You've had a china cup, my
lad, and you've used it as if it was tin. And it's broken, that's all."
Francis looked down at Marjorie, holding her head in his arms. It lay
back limply. Her eyes were half open, and her heart, as he put his
hand over it, was galloping. Her cheeks were beginning to be scarlet,
and her hand, when he reached down and touched it, burned. He looked
up at Pennington with an unconscious appeal, unmindful of the older
man's harsh words.
"Do you think she'll die?" he asked.
"I have no way of knowing. If she does, you have the consolation of
knowing that you've done what you could toward it."
"Oh, my God, don't, Pennington!" cried out Francis, clutching Marjorie
tighter unconsciously. "It's as true as gospel. But let up now. Get
somebody. Do something, for heaven's sake! You know about medicine a
little, don't you?"
"Take her inside and put her to bed," Pennington commanded shortly.
"I'll take your motor-cycle and go for Mother O'Mara. I can get a
doctor from there by to-morrow, perhaps."
Francis gathered the limp little body up again without a word. Only he
turned at the door for a last appeal.
"Can't you tell at all what it is?"
"Fever, I think. She's caught malarial fever, perhaps. She wouldn't
have done if she'd been stronger. Take her in."
So Francis carried his wife over the threshold, into the little brown
room he had decked for her so long ago, and laid her down again. Her
head fell back on the pillow, and her hands lay as he dropped them. He
stood back and looked at her, a double terror in his heart. She would
never love him again. How could she? And she would die--surely she
would die, and he had killed her.
"I'm--going," she said very faintly, as a sleep-talker speaks. She was
not conscious of what she said, but it was the last straw for Francis.
He had not slept nor eaten lately, and he had worked double time all
day to keep his mind from the state of things, ever since he had
brought her back. So perhaps it was not altogether inexcusable that he
flung himself on the floor by the bedside and broke down.
He was aroused after awhile by the touch of Marjorie's hand. He lifted
his head, thinking she had come to and touched him knowingly. But he
saw that it was only that she was tossing a little, with the
restlessness of the fever, and his heart went down again.
He pulled himself up from the bedside, and went doggedly at his work of
undressing her and putting her to bed.
She was as easy to handle as a child; and once or twice, when he had to
lift or turn her in the process of undressing, he could feel how light
she was, and that she was thinner. She had always been a little thing,
but the long weeks of work had made her almost too thin--not too thin
for her own tastes, because, like all the rest of the women of the
present, she liked it; but thin enough to give Francis a fresh pang of
remorse. He felt like a slave-driver.
When he had finished his task, he stood back, and wondered if there was
anything else he could do before Pennington came back with Mrs. O'Mara,
and with or without a doctor. He felt helpless, and as if he had to
stand there and watch her die. He got water and tried to make her
drink it--ineffectually--he filled a hot water bottle and brought it
in, and then thought better of it. She had a fever already. Then he
thought of bathing her in cold water; but he could not bring himself to
do that. He had already done enough that she would hate him for, in
the way of undressing her. He must never tell her he had done
that. . . . But she would hate him anyway. So he ended by sitting
miserably down on the floor beside her, and waiting the interminable
hours that the time seemed until the others returned.
He had expected Mrs. O'Mara to reproach him, as Pennington had, as
being the person to blame for Marjorie's state. But the dear soul,
comforting as always, said nothing of the sort. She said very little
of any sort, indeed; she merely laid off the bonnet and cloak she had
come in, and went straight at her work of looking after Marjorie. Only
on her way she stopped to give Francis a comforting pat on the shoulder.
"It's not so bad but it might be worse," she said. "Anybody might git
them fevers without a stroke of work done. An' she's young an' strong."
Francis looked up at her in mute gratitude from where he sat.
"An' now clear out, lie down and rest, down on the couch or annywhere
ye like, till I see what's to be done to this girl," she went on.
He went out without a word, and sat down on the window-seat, where the
banjo lay, still, and picked it up mechanically. He could see
Marjorie, now, with it in her hands, singing to it for the men--or,
sometimes, just for him. How gay she had been through everything, and
how plucky, and how sweet! And just because she was gay he had thought
she was selfish and fickle, and didn't care. And because she had never
said anything about how hard the work was, he had thought--he could
forgive himself even less for this--that it wasn't hard. Looking back,
he could see not one excuse for himself except in his carrying her off.
That might have worked all right, if he could have kept his temper. He
let his mind stray back over what might have been; suppose he had
accepted Logan's following her up here as just what it was--the whim of
a man in love with Marjorie. Suppose he had believed that Pennington
could kiss his wife's hand without meaning any harm; suppose, in fine,
that he had believed in Marjorie's desire and intention to do right,
even if she had been a coward for a few minutes to begin with?
Then--why, then--
By this time, perhaps, he could have won her back. If he had not laid
down the law to her--if he had not put her to the test. What business
had a man in love to make terms, anyhow? It was for him to accept what
terms Marjorie had chosen to make for him.
He flung himself down on his knees by the window-seat, heedless of any
one who might come or go.
"Oh, God," prayed Francis passionately, as he did everything. "Give me
another chance! Let her get well, and give me one little chance then
to have her forgive me! I don't care what else happens if that only
does!"
He did not know how long he knelt there, praying with such intensity
that he sprang aside when some one touched him on the shoulder.
"She's goin' to be all right in the long run," said Mrs. O'Mara. "I
gev' her a wee drink o' water, an' she kem to herself fur a minute.
An' I says, 'Me dear, where did ye git yer fever?' An' she says, 'The
swamp, I think. Don't I have to travel to-day? I'm in bed.' An' I
says, 'Not to-day nor anny day till ye want, me child,' and she turns
over an' snuggles down like a lamb. An' I've sponged her off with cool
water, an' she feels better, though she's off agin, an' I'm afraid the
fever'll be runnin' up on us before the doctor can git here."
"You mean she isn't sensible now?" demanded Francis, whose eyes had
lighted up with hope when she began to speak.
"Well, not so's ye could talk to her. An' ye might excite her. Them
they loves does often."
"Then I wouldn't," said Francis recklessly. "Oh, Mother O'Mara, I've
been such a brute----"
"Hush, hush now, don't ye be tellin' me. Sure we're all brutes wanst
in awhile. Ye feel that way because the child's sick. Now go out and
watch fer the doctor, or do annything else that'll amuse ye."
He obeyed her as if he were a little boy. He was so miserable that he
would have done what any one told him just then--if Logan, even, with
his cane and his superciliousness, had given him a direction he would
probably have obeyed it blindly.
Mrs. O'Mara went back to the sick-room. How much she knew of the
situation she never told. But Peggy was not a secretive person, and
Peggy had arrived at a point with Logan where he told her a good deal,
if she coaxed. They never got it out of the old lady, at any rate.
Marjorie was quieter, but still not herself. Mrs. O'Mara, who was an
experienced nurse, did not like the way she had collapsed so
completely. She was afraid it was going to be a hard illness, and she
knew Francis was breaking his heart over it.
"Still it may be a blessin' in a way," she said half aloud. "You never
can tell in this world o' grief and danger. I wonder has she people
besides Mr. Francis. They've never either of them said."
The doctor came and went, and Monday morning dawned, when Francis had
to go to work whether or no. And Pennington quietly took over
Marjorie's duties again, and the men tiptoed up to the cabin where she
lay, and asked about her anxiously, and young Peggy came over and took
turns with her mother in the nursing, and Logan, much more robust and
tanned than he had been in several years of New York life in heated
apartments, came with her and sat on the porch waiting till she came
out; and Francis saw him there, and thought nothing of it except that
he was grateful to him for being interested in Marjorie.
He realized now that it was all he need ever have thought. But he
realized so many things now, when it might be too late!
The days went on relentlessly. Finally they decided to send for her
cousin, the only relative she had. Francis was a little doubtful as to
the wisdom of this, for he knew that Marjorie had never been very happy
with her cousin, but it was one of those things which seem to have to
be done. And just as they had come to this resolution; a resolution
which felt to Francis like giving up all hope, Marjorie took a little
turn for the better.
It was not much to see. She was a little quieter, that was all, and
the nursing did not have to be so intensive. Mrs. O'Mara and Peggy did
not feel that they had to sit with her all the time; there were periods
when she was left alone. Francis felt more bitterly than anything else
that he had to go on with his work, instead of staying in the house
every moment, but it was better for him. He would have driven the
O'Maras mad, they told him frankly, walking up and down, looking
repentant. Peggy was not quite softened to him yet; but the older
woman was so sorry for him that any feelings she may have had about the
way he had behaved were swallowed up in sympathy.
"And it isn't as if he weren't gettin' his comeuppance, Peg," she
reminded her intolerant young daughter. "Sure annything he made her
suffer he's payin' for twice over and again to that."
"And a very good thing, too," retorted Peggy, who was just coming off
duty, and casting an eye toward the window to see where Logan was. He
was exactly where she wished, waiting with what, for him, was
eagerness, to go off through the woods with her.
"I suppose, now ye've a man trailin' ye, there's nothin' ye don't
know," said her mother. "And him a heretic, if not a heathen itself.
I've only to say to ye, keep yer own steps clean, Peggy."
"He is a heathen--he doesn't believe a blessed thing; he said so
himself!" said Peggy with what sounded like triumph. "The more reason
for me to convert him, poor dear! Empty things are easier filled than
full ones. If he was like them in there, with a religion of his own, I
wouldn't have a show. But as it is, I have my hopes."
"Oh, it's converting him you are! Tell that to the pigs!" said her
mother scornfully. "And now go on; I suppose you're taking a prayer
book and a rosary along with you in that picnic basket."
"No," said Peggy reluctantly. "I'm softening his heart first."
She had the grace to giggle a little as she said it, and the O'Mara
sense of humor rode triumphant over both of them then, and they parted,
laughing. Francis, entering on one of his frequent flying trips from
work to see how Marjorie was, felt as if they were heartless.
Mrs. O'Mara, at the sight of his tired, unhappy young face, sobered
down with one of her quick Irish transitions.
"Ah, sure now it's the best of news. The doctor's been, and he says
she's better. So it won't be necessary to send after the old aunt or
cousin or whatever, that ye say she wasn't crazy over. Come in an' see
her."
Francis, a new hope in his heart, tiptoed into the little brown bedroom
where Marjorie lay. It was too much to hope that she would know him.
She had been either delirious or asleep--under narcotics--through the
days of her fever. And once or twice when she had spoken rationally,
it had never been Francis who had happened to be near at the time.
She lay quite quietly, with her eyes shut, and her long lashes trailing
on her cheeks. When Francis came in she opened her eyes as if it was a
trouble to make that much effort. She was very weak. But she looked
at him intelligently, and even lifted one hand a little from the
coverlet, as if she wanted to be polite and welcome him. He had been
warned not to make any fuss or say anything exciting, if this should
come; so he only sat down across from her and tried to speak naturally.
"Do you know me, Marjorie?" he asked, trying to make his voice sound as
it always sounded. But it was a little hoarse.
She spoke, in a thread of a voice, that yet had a little mockery in it.
She seemed to have taken things up where she dropped them.
"Yes, thank you. You're my sort of husband. This--this is really too
bad of me, Francis. But, anyway, it was your swamp!"
Just the old, mocking, smiling Marjorie, or her shadow. But it did not
make him angry now; it seemed so piteous that he should have brought
her to this. The swamp faded to nothingness as a cause of her illness
when he compared it to his own behavior.
"Marjorie," he asked, very gently so as not to disturb her, "would it
be too exciting if I talked to you a little bit about things, and told
you how sorry I was?"
"Why--no," she said weakly, shutting her eyes.
"I was wrong, from start to finish," he said impetuously. "I'm sorry.
I want you to forgive me."
"Why, certainly," she said, so indifferently that his heart sank. It
did not occur to him that he had never said that he cared for her at
all.
"Is there anything I could get you?" he asked futilely as he felt.
"I'd like to see Mr. Pennington. He was kind to me."
"Marjorie, Marjorie, won't you ever forgive me for the way I acted?"
"Oh, yes," she said, lying with shut eyes, so quiet that her lips
scarcely moved when she talked. "I said so. But you haven't been
kind. It's like--don't you know, when you get a little dog used to
being struck it gets so it cowers when you speak to it, no matter if
you aren't going to strike it that time. I don't want to be hurt any
more. I don't love Pennington--he's too funny-looking, and awfully
old. But he was kind--he never hurt my feelings. . . ."
She spoke without much inflection, and using as few words as she could.
When she had finished she still lay there, as silent and out of
Francis's reach as if she were dead. He tiptoed out with a sick
feeling that everything was over, which he had never had before. She
was so remote. She cared so little about anything.
He went back to work, and told Pennington that Marjorie wanted to see
him. When the day was over he returned to the cabin again, and found
Mrs. O'Mara on duty once more. Pennington sat by Marjorie, holding her
hand in his, and speaking to her occasionally. Francis looked at him,
and spoke to him courteously. Pennington smiled at him, and stayed
where he was. Marjorie, Mrs. O'Mara said, seemed to cling to him, and
his presence did her good. And--she broke it as gently as she
could--though the patient was on the road to getting well now, she was
disturbed by his coming in and out. She seemed afraid of him.
Francis took it very quietly. After that he only came to the bedroom
door to ask, and stepped as softly as he could, so that she would not
even know he had been there. And time went on, and she got better, and
presently could be dressed in soft, loose, fluffy things, and lie out
on the veranda during the warmest part of the day, and see people for a
little while each. It was about this time that Francis went to sleep
at the bunk-house.
"Why doesn't Francis ever come to see me?" she asked finally. "There
are a great many things I want to know about."
Pennington, whom she had asked, told her gently.
"We thought--the physician thought--that he upset you a little when you
were beginning to be better. He is staying away on purpose. Would you
like to see him?"
"Yes, I think I would," she said. "Can Peggy come talk to me?"
Peggy could, of course. She came dashing up, from some sylvan nook
where she had been secluded, presumably with Logan, fell on Marjorie
with hearty good-will and many kisses, and demanded to know what she
could do.
"I--I want to see Francis and talk to him about a lot of things," said
Marjorie, "and I thought perhaps if you'd get me a mirror and a little
bit of powder, and----"
"Say no more!" said Peggy. "I know what you want as well as if you'd
told me all. I'll be out in a minute with everything in the world."
She returned with her arms full of toilet things, and for fifteen
minutes helped Marjorie look pretty. She finished by brushing out her
hair and arranging it loosely in curls, with a big ribbon securing it,
like Mary Pickford or one of her rivals. She touched Marjorie's face
with a little perfume to flush it, and draped her picturesquely against
the back of the long chair, with a silk shawl over her instead of the
steamer rug which Mrs. O'Mara, less artistic than utilitarian, had
provided.
"There," she said, "you look like a doll, or an angel, or anything else
out of a storybook. Now I'll get Francis."