When Constance came to herself she was in her own bed. It appeared
that she had been carried insensible into a drug store, and thence to
Lincoln Chambers, which were close at hand. A doctor presently
restored her to consciousness, but he gave imperative instructions that
she was to be kept absolutely quiet or he would not answer for the
consequences of the nervous shock. It was the second day before her
countenance expressed recognition of Mrs. Harrity, the pensioner who
looked after the children, and who sat sewing at her bedside. Even
then her senses shrank from every effort, and having learned by a
question or two that she had fallen, and that the children were well,
she lapsed into a comatose state. When she emerged from this she was
very weak, but her mind was clear. She could not bear the light,
however. Her eyes burned with a stinging pain whenever they
encountered it, and she was forced to submit to the physician's orders
that she remain in a dark room for a week.
Her first inquiry after her mind was able to focus itself was whether
word had been sent to the office. She was told that Loretta had done
this by telephone; that Mr. Perry had called promptly, and that the
roses on the table were from him. Mrs. Harrity seemed proud of the
visit and the gift.
"He told me to say you weren't to worry, and to take all the time you
need to get well. He's a pleasant-spoken gentleman, Mrs. Stuart, and
wanted to know everything the doctor had said."
Mrs. Harrity was proud also of the fact that Loretta had been summoned
to attend a new patient. She was proudest of all of a piece of
intelligence, or rather prophecy, which Loretta had let fall the day
after the accident, which she hastened to impart to Constance the first
moment the latter appeared able to take it in.
"She says as how you ought to get big damages from the railroad."
"But I'm not much hurt, am I?" asked Constance.
The dame perceived that she had not lived up to the doctor's orders.
Yet now she could conscientiously relieve her patient's natural
solicitude.
"Mercy, no. You've broken nothing. You're only shook up. And it
hasn't hurt your good looks a mite. But," she added, still
conscientious, "the doctor says it's your nerves, and nerves are most
as good as bones before a jury, especially if one has a smart lawyer
handy as you have."
Constance sat up in bed. Instead of being a comfort, as was intended,
the broad hint distressed her.
"I don't wish any damages. It was my own fault. I jumped before the
car stopped. It was very silly. I only want to get well."
The dread of a tedious convalescence was already haunting her reviving
faculties. Her absence from the office would be very inconvenient to
Mr. Perry, and confinement at home for more than a few days would prove
a disastrous inroad on her resources. She must hasten to recover.
Meantime Mrs. Harrity was looking blank at the reception accorded to
what she had supposed would be a nerve tonic to the sufferer. She
replied stanchly:
"She says different. She's ready to go on the stand and swear against
the company. You're all right, darling. Smell them flowers, and lie
down like a good girl. The doctor says you must keep still and not
talk." So saying, she pushed a little nearer the vase of roses, one of
which Constance had reached with her outstretched hand in the dark.
Constance's impulse had been to detach it from its fellows so as to
enjoy its fragrance at close range. But the larger opportunity
afforded her, or else the jogging of her purpose, changed her mind.
She bent forward and burying her face in the cool rose leaves inhaled
their rich perfume.
"It was very kind of him to send them," she murmured, as though in
monologue. Then appreciating for the first time her weakness she sank
back upon her pillow. She said to herself that he was such a friend
that he would make the best of her absence for a week and by the end of
that time she would be herself again. But what a fool she had been to
jump; to take such a risk, she a grown woman with children! She ought
to have known better; she was getting middle-aged, and she must be more
staid. Still it was some consolation to know she had not broken her
nose.
A note received from Mr. Perry twenty-four hours later and read to her
by her little daughter reassured her as to his indulgence in respect to
her absence. All her interest now became centred on a rapid recovery,
and she made sundry attempts to bring the doctor to book as to the date
when she would be able to resume work again, which he smilingly evaded.
She was conscious, however, of increasing bodily vigor, which was
comforting. The inability of her eyes to endure the light was her
chief discomfort, a condition which her physician appeared to her to
ignore, until he arrived one morning with a brother practitioner, who
proved to be an oculist, and who had brought with him some of the
apparatus of his specialty for the purpose of a diagnosis. Constance
could not bear the sphinx-like urbanities which followed the
examination. She felt possessed by a desire to have the exact
condition of affairs revealed to her. She lifted her head, and
addressing her own doctor, said:
"I should like to know the truth, please. Do not conceal anything. It
will be much worse for me to find out later that something has been
kept back."
The family physician looked at the specialist as much as to say that he
proposed to throw the burden on him, but he answered, "So far as your
general physical condition is concerned, you are practically well, Mrs.
Stuart. All the brain symptoms have disappeared, and there are no
lesions of any kind. It is now simply a question of nerves--and your
eyes. Dr. Dale can speak more authoritatively about the latter."
Dr. Dale, the oculist, a man in the prime of life, with precise methods
and a closely cut Van Dyke beard, hesitated briefly, as though he were
analyzing his patient, then said with courteous incisiveness--"It is a
question of nerves, as Dr. Baldwin has explained. The nerves affected
in your case are those of the eyes. Since you have expressed a wish to
know the exact state of affairs, I take you at your word, Mrs. Stuart.
I agree with you that it is more satisfactory to know the truth, and I
am glad to be able to assure you that by the end of six months, if you
give your eyes entire rest, their weakness will be cured, and you will
be able to use them as freely as before."
He had rather the air of conferring a benefit than of pronouncing a
sentence, and Constance received his statement in that spirit.
"Thank you," she said. "I will be as careful as I can."
"The condition of your cure," the specialist continued with polite
relentlessness, "is that you abstain from using them altogether."