Joan told her all there was to tell, from the blood on the handkerchief
that morning to the consultation in the afternoon. Elizabeth listened in
shocked silence.
At last she said: "It's awful, simply awful--and you were right all
along."
"Yes, I knew it; I don't know how."
"Joan, make your mother let me help to do the nursing; I'm not a bad
nurse, at least I don't think I am, and after all I'd be better than a
stranger, for the child knows me."
"They say she may live for some little time yet, but they can't be sure,
she may die very soon. Are you quite certain you want to help,
Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth stared at her. So it had come to this: Joan was not sure that
she would want to help in this extremity, was capable of supposing that
she could stand aside while Joan took the whole burden on her own
shoulders. Good God! how far apart they had drifted.
"I shall come to Leaside and begin to-morrow," was all she said.
4
Seabourne was genuinely shocked at the news. Of course they had all been
saying for months past that Milly was consumptive, but somehow this was
different, entirely different. People vied with each other in kindness
to the Ogdens, touched by Milly's youth and Mrs. Ogden's new grief.
Friends, and even mere acquaintances, inquired daily, at first; their
perpetual bell-ringing jangled through the house, tearing at the nerves
of the overstrained inmates. Still, all these people meant so well, one
had to remember that.
The Bishop of Blumfield wrote a long letter of sympathy and
encouragement, and Aunt Ann sent three woolly bed jackets that she had
knitted herself. Richard wrote his usual brief epistle to Joan, but it
was very kind; and Lawrence came to Leaside once a week, loaded like a
pack mule with practical gifts from Mrs. Benson.
Milly, thin and flushed in her bed upstairs, was pleased at the
attention she was receiving. She knew now that she was very ill and at
times spoke about dying, but Joan doubted whether she ever realized how
near death she was, for on her good days she would begin making
elaborate plans for the future, and scheming to get back to the College
as soon as possible.
She died in November after a violent hæmorrhage that came on suddenly
in the middle of the night. Beyond the terror of that hæmorrhage there
was nothing fearful in Milly's passing; she slept herself into the next
world with her cheek against the pillow, and even after she was dead
they still thought that she was sleeping.
She was buried in the local cemetery, near her father. There were
countless wreaths and crosses and a big chrysanthemum cushion with "Rest
in Peace" straggling across it in violets, from the students of
Alexandra House. A good many people cried over Milly's death,
principally because she had been so pretty and had died so young.
Seabourne was shocked and depressed over it all; it seemed like a
reproach to the place, the going out of this bright young creature. They
remembered how talented she had been, how much they had admired her
playing, and began telling each other anecdotes that they had heard
about her childhood. But Joan could not cry; her heart was full of
bitterness and resentment.
"She broke away," she thought. "Milly broke away, but only for a time;
Seabourne got her in the end, as it gets us all!"