Eleanor made no answer; she did not wish to be rude, but she had no words. It was before the days when the reporter penetrated through the boudoir of the writer or artist into the more secret regions of his work-room to watch hands flitting above a typewriter, or to photograph preoccupation at a flower-laden mahogany desk. Eleanor blushed as though she had been asked to describe the process of putting on her clothes.
Her silence did not suggest to Mrs. Scott the propriety of stopping.
"What are you going to do, Miss Bent?"
"What do you mean, Mrs. Scott?"
"I mean are you going to bury your talent in Waltonville or are you going into the great world? I hear that women are going into all the fields of men. Perhaps you will be a reporter and write us all up!"
"I have no plans for anything of that kind."
"You speak as though Waltonville were a cemetery, Mrs. Scott," said Thomasina.
"Where did you get the idea for your little story?" persisted Mrs. Scott.
It was clear now that Eleanor was being baited. Even Mrs. Lister felt sympathy. Eleanor's cheeks flamed; their color could be seen even in the dim light. Thomasina was about to answer, when Dr. Green interposed.
"Out of her head, Mrs. Scott, where all authors that are worth while get theirs. That's where Shakespeare got his and where Basil Everman got his. Their heads are differently stocked from ours. You don't suppose they have to see everything they write about, do you? Mrs. Lister, I have been deeply interested in Basil Everman. I suppose it is too much to hope for—but is it possible that anything else will turn up?"
"I'm afraid not," answered Dr. Lister. "There is a chance of something in other magazines of the time, but I fancy they have been pretty carefully gone over in that hope."
Mrs. Scott, never long quiet, turned to Mrs. Lister.
"Cora had a letter from Richard."
"Did she?" said Mrs. Lister. "That was nice."
She spoke smoothly, but a sudden pang of sympathy for Eleanor shot through her heart. Eleanor must love Richard, could not do otherwise. His caring for Cora became suddenly undesirable; his tragedy had lifted him above her. Mrs. Lister was glad now that he was going away, to win fame, to separate himself from Waltonville. He could never emancipate himself from Mrs. Scott if he were her son-in-law. That fate she could not wish any one, least of all her dear child. The occasion of his letter to Cora was the return of a book long since lent him and forgotten.
"I told him he must write at once and explain why he had kept it so long," explained Mary Alcestis simply.
Eleanor moved suddenly closer to Mrs. Lister.
"I read about Basil Everman," said she hurriedly. "I was mortified to see my poor story published in the same magazine with his. I think he was wonderful. It makes Waltonville seem like a different place when one realizes that he lived here. It must have been wonderful to be with him, to help him. There is a poem about 'a brother, a sister, anything to thee!' My mother says she remembers him well. I think she knew him quite well and admired him very much. I told her she ought to come to you and talk to you about him."
"Yes," said Mrs. Lister faintly.
It seemed to her that she went on saying "yes" interminably. She saw tearful Mrs. Bent, laying her hand on Richard's coach, her little gray-eyed daughter clinging to her and staring round-eyed at the other baby. She had not described this incident in full either to Dr. Lister or to Richard. She could not confess how sharply she had refused to talk to Mrs. Bent; how she had backed away, literally pulling the coach from under her hand; how eyes and voice had expressed horror and anger. It was not likely, whatever her daughter might think, that Mrs. Bent would approach her again! But equally dreadful things had happened. She looked at poor Eleanor now as she had looked at her mother; then she rose to go. The next morning she stayed in bed, waiting for the blow to fall.
CHAPTER XVIII MRS. LISTER HAS TWO CALLERS
Mrs. Lister would not at first see Dr. Green. She insisted that she was only tired and that she would be out of bed and downstairs by to-morrow. She had been like this after her father and Basil had died, and she had recovered then without the help of a doctor. It was her mind and not her body which was ailing and there was no medicine for her mind.
Nor should Richard be sent for. She answered the suggestion impatiently.
"I am only too thankful that he is away. I want him to be away. I used to want him to be here always and to have this house when we are gone and marry Cora Scott and have little children, but now I believe the best thing for him is to stay away. I think I did wrong to dissuade you when you had the call from the New York College, papa. We would have plenty for him, wouldn't we, even if he doesn't succeed with his music?"
Dr. Lister laughed.
"Don't add that to your other worries, Mary Alcestis! Richard is not the kind to fail."
"I could easily economize in the house. There are many things one can do without if one only thinks so."
Most of the time she lay still thinking. She turned over and over in her mind the old days, their routine, their precepts. She tried to excuse Basil, to find some flaw in his bringing-up. But she had had exactly the same bringing-up and she had always been obedient to her parents and to the laws of society and of God. The flaw must have been in him.
She thought of Mrs. Bent as a young girl with her pretty face. She had seemed, at least, superior to her father and her station. It was not perhaps her fault that she had gone astray, and helped others to go astray. She had not had any bringing-up, poor soul, except what she had given herself. But one could not excuse her, could not look lightly upon dreadful sin! Again Mary Alcestis heard that frantic pleading in the dark on Cherry Street, saw again Basil's bending face in the light of the dim street lamp.
"It would be best to go away," said Basil distinctly.
When, at last, she tried to go downstairs, she found herself unequal to the exertion. She rose, walked about the room, and returned as quickly as possible to bed, her knees trembling, darkness before her eyes. Then, at last, she consented to have Dr. Green prescribe for her. She could lie here no longer; she must be up and about her business, which was the defending of her house and her name from disgrace.
Dr. Green came, whistling softly, up the stairs and into her room. There he let his tall figure down into an armchair. His eyes were unusually bright, his hair had just been trimmed, his clothes were, comparatively speaking, smooth. He was really, thought Mrs. Lister, rather a handsome man.
He said that her illness was merely exhaustion due to the heat. He would send her some medicine and she must stay in bed for another week. He expected to go to Baltimore for a few days and she was upon no account to stir until he got back.
"You take life far too strenuously. I dare say you are saving 'Manda all the time."
When his taking of her pulse and his somewhat perfunctory inquiry about her symptoms were over, he did not go. The room was deliciously cool after the blazing heat through which he had walked and there was even a slight breeze, blowing in between the slats of the bowed shutters and swaying the curtains gently. 'Manda came presently with a tray and a glass of lemonade and he called down the blessings of Heaven upon her in his extravagant way.
When she had gone he asked Mrs. Lister, by way of opening a pleasant and soothing conversation, whether she had read Eleanor Bent's story.
"Yes," answered Mrs. Lister.
"Did you think it was a good story?"
Mrs. Lister answered with a fainter "yes." She was determined to give poor Eleanor her due; indeed, "Professor Ellenborough's Last Class" was not nearly so "wild" as she expected. Then she ventured a question.
"Dr. Green, if a person has talent, is it likely to be inherited, or does it spring up of itself?"
Dr. Green, strange to say, flushed scarlet. Mrs. Lister grew panic-stricken. What had she said? What did he know? What might she not have put into his head? She wished that he would go, she became suddenly afraid of her own tongue. He began a lengthy dissertation upon the laws of heredity as laid down by scientists. Some one among Eleanor's ancestors had certainly had brains and had used them. She had a very good mind; she might go far if she could be brought to value her talent as it should be valued; if she could be persuaded to hold it higher than any marital experience, for instance.
"I do not think marriage is for every one," agreed Mary Alcestis. "There are some people who do not seem equal to its demands."
Dr. Green sniffed the pleasant air.
"I think Eleanor would be equal to it. I meant it would probably ruin her career. I think the majority of young people have been tricked, trapped, by the instinct to mate."
"Oh!" said Mary Alcestis. "I don't agree with you."
"She ought to have new experiences of life," went on Dr. Green. "She should get out of this back water into the fuller current." He was rather pleased with his metaphor.
A gleam of hope illuminated Mrs. Lister's despair.
"Perhaps we could help," she said eagerly. "Her mother must have found her education and her clothing rather expensive. She always wears such very pretty clothes. And she takes lessons from Thomasina, and I hear—I hear she has a very fine piano. If we could do anything in a quiet way for her, I am sure Dr. Lister would be willing. I—we should be very, very glad."
"I think there is no lack of money," said Dr. Green.
Then with a promptness which indicated to Mrs. Lister a connection in his mind between the two subjects, he began to speak of Basil Everman.
"Your brother must have been a very brilliant person."
Mary Alcestis's body moved with a slight convulsive motion under the bed-covers.
"He was a dear little boy," said she. "He and Thomasina Davis and I used to play together."
"His death was a calamity," said Dr. Green. "But I needn't tell you that, for no one could value him as highly as you do, naturally. But it was a pity, a very great pity. I suppose we will have a book about him some day. Eleanor Bent might do such a piece of work when she's older. Biography is far more interesting and far harder to do well than fiction. Eleanor—"
"Did you say you were going to Baltimore?" asked Mrs. Lister faintly.
Dr. Green pulled out his watch.
"I am going to Baltimore in exactly one half-hour and I have a satchel to pack. Good-bye and do as I tell you."
Mrs. Lister lay in a cold perspiration. Eleanor writing a book about Basil! She tried to grip the smooth sheet drawn tightly over the smooth mattress; finally she put both hands over her face. She forgot Basil, she forgot Richard, she forgot everything except a prayer that she might not scream.
Thomasina came in the front door as Dr. Green went out. She was told by him that Mrs. Lister was only exhausted by the heat, that company would do her good, and that she, Thomasina, should go upstairs and stay as long as she could. She glanced about as she went through the hall, her mind filled with pleasant recollections of the former dwellers in the high-ceilinged rooms. A friendship handed down from generation to generation as was hers with the Everman family was rare and precious.
She laid her rose-colored parasol on the hall table and went slowly up the stairs. When she had almost reached the top, she heard the sound of a smothered sob, and remembered with a pang the days when she had sat with Mary Alcestis beside her father's coffin. Poor Mary Alcestis had had a good deal to bear. What could be the matter now? Surely, surely nothing could have happened to Richard! Thomasina hastened her steps.
Mrs. Lister lay face downward, her cheek pressed deep into the pillow. Her hands were clenched above her head and the bed shook with the violence of her weeping. She had now passed the limit of endurance.
Thomasina went close to the ample bed with its quivering figure.
"Mary Alcestis, I am here and I will stay with you. If it does you good to cry, I'll stand guard, so cry away."
Thomasina bowed one shutter a little more closely and closed the door and then sat down in the chair which Dr. Green had left. There could be nothing the matter with Richard, or Dr. Green would have told her.
Mrs. Lister did not, as Thomasina suggested, have her cry out. She tried at once to control herself, and succeeded bravely with her tears. But the hysterical impulse was not spent. It would have been better if she had continued to weep, but instead she began to talk, and having begun, could not stop.
She told Thomasina the whole story of Basil from the day of his birth as though Thomasina had never seen or heard of him.
"We did everything we could for him, father and I—everything. I felt I must make up mother's loss to him. We—"
"Everything except understand him," said Thomasina to herself.
"We prayed—that is father did—with him, and talked with him, and labored with him, and watched for him."
"But did not sympathize with him," said Thomasina, again to herself.
"But when it came to Margie Ginter, oh, Thomasina! it was too hard with father the president of the college and so admir—"
"To Margie Ginter!" repeated Thomasina.
"Oh, hush, Thomasina! Do not speak so loud! I have never talked about it with you, because it was my own brother, and I wanted you to think as well as you could of him, and because we have never talked about such things. But you must know, Thomasina!"
"I know nothing!"
"I mean you will have to know, because it is creeping out."
"Creeping out!" Thomasina's voice was horror-struck. "What is creeping out?"
"He began to go with Margie Ginter here. He walked with her in the evenings and he used to go often to the tavern. You know how we used to run past the tavern, Thomasina!"
"This is madness, Mary Alcestis!"
"It is not. I saw them and heard them. I was coming home from your house and I heard them. She was pleading with Basil to help her and he said it would be best to go away. She was crying, and I followed them down Cherry Street. I felt I must know so as to tell my father. It was very dark and a storm was coming, but I followed them nevertheless."
"Followed them?"
"It was my duty. Don't look at me like that, Thomasina! Do you suppose I would believe anything against Basil I didn't have to believe? I never loved any one more than him—not even Richard, you know that. I have had this hanging over me for years. You haven't had much experience with trouble or sorrow or you would understand better than you do. And then this dreadful Mr. Utterly from New York determined to pry into our affairs. It is a wonder that I am living to-day, indeed it is!"
"Basil did nothing that could not be published to the world!" said Thomasina sharply. "What is the matter with you? What are you afraid of? Have you repeated this to any one else?"
"You know me better than that," said Mrs. Lister with dignity. "You have been my companion since we were children. How can you ask such a question?"
"But what do you mean? What is there to suspect about Basil? What is creeping out?"
"You are so sharp-witted about many things, Thomasina. You know so much more than I do in so many ways. You know what I mean and yet you pretend that you do not!"
"I do not know what you mean!"
"Even Mr. Utterly saw that Eleanor Bent has eyes like Basil and he never saw her but once or twice. You can't fail to see it! And there is this writing!"
Thomasina always sat quietly, but now she seemed to have turned to stone. After a long time Mary Alcestis took her hands from her eyes and looked up.
"You look at me as though I were a fool and wicked, too, Thomasina."
Thomasina made no answer, but continued to stare with a face as white as Mrs. Lister's sheets. Mrs. Lister sat up suddenly in bed.
"I hear some one downstairs, I believe it is Dr. Lister. Will you tell him, Thomasina, that I am trying to sleep?"
Thomasina rose quickly.
"You are a fool, Mary Alcestis," said she slowly.
"Oh, Thomasina!" Mary Alcestis laid herself down.
"This is an invention of your own brain. Shame upon you, Mary Alcestis!"
Mrs. Lister now covered her face with the sheet.
Thomasina went out and closed the door. The astonishment in her eyes had changed to a sick horror. She held feebly to the hand rail as she descended the steps. For the first moment in her life she looked old. She heard Dr. Lister moving about in his study, but she did not deliver Mary Alcestis's message. It made no difference to her whether or not Mary Alcestis was disturbed in her sleep.
Forgetting to raise her sunshade, she crossed the sunniest spaces of the campus without feeling the heat, and went down the street past her own gateway to Dr. Green's office. There she waited, sitting straight in a small stiff chair until black Virginia, in answer to her ring, entered from a distant quarter of the house. Virginia blinked away the last drowsiness of her mid-morning nap as she looked admiringly at Thomasina.
"Doctor's gone away, Miss Thomas'."
"Where to?"
"Baltimore."
"I saw him less than an hour ago."
"Yessum, but he went to the train like a cyclone."
"When will he be back?"
"Couple o' days, I guess. Was yo' sick, Miss Thomas'?"
Thomasina rose unsteadily.
"No."
"Shall I write anything on the slate?"
"No, thank you, Virginia."
"Can I get you a glass o' water, Miss Thomas'?"
"No, thank you."
With a dragging step, Thomasina proceeded on her way. She opened her door and entered the hall and looked up the broad stairway toward the second floor. The stairway seemed very steep, and she stepped quickly into her parlor and shut the door and sat down in the nearest chair. By this time she looked like death.
CHAPTER XIX MRS. LISTER OPENS AN OLD BUREAU
Mrs. Lister lay motionless for many moments after Thomasina had left. Exhausted both mentally and physically she was for a little while dull to her own woes. She should not have talked to Thomasina, but neither should Thomasina have responded as she did. Thomasina had put her in the wrong, she had not acted like a friend.
"As though I made it up!" sobbed Mary Alcestis. "What does she think I am?"
Once more she dropped into a doze which was not so much physical as mental. She dreamed that a dreadful danger threatened them all, like the collapse of the solid Lister house, and under the impression of the dream she stepped from bed without being fully awake. Once on her feet, she understood its significance and determined to carry out that which she had long intended. She felt under the edge of the bed for her slippers and put them on and wrapped round her a capacious dressing-gown. Locomotion, tried at first warily, proved easier than she expected. Opening the door, she stood still and listened. Dr. Lister was doubtless comfortable in the conviction that she was asleep and would consequently be lost in his book until dinner-time.
Opening the door more widely, she stepped out into the hall. She was not accustomed to stealing about her own house and her weakness and the throbbing of her heart terrified her. But with the foresight of one accustomed to sly deeds, she closed the door softly. If her husband came upstairs he would think that she was asleep and he would not disturb her. She went stealthily along the hall to the stairway and stopped once more. There were certain steps that creaked so that they could be heard all over the house, but she knew which steps they were and with painful care stepped over them. Her dressing-gown got in her way and almost tripped her, and she steadied herself by the aid of the banister and stood for a long time trembling.
"I shall say I am going to find something I need," she planned. "I have a perfect right to go into my own attic."
But mercifully she heard no sound nearly as loud as the throbbing of her own heart. Each step made her feel weaker and more miserable as it lifted her into the hot darkness of the third-story hall with its smell of dry wood and camphor and other faintly odorous objects. The shutters were closed tight and the blinds were drawn, but through them and through the roof the sun penetrated until the air was furnace-heated. She gasped, feeling a sharp pain in her head, but she moved on, her hand against the wall, to the door of Basil's room.
There she turned the key and entered. The temperature was higher than that of the hall and the odors stronger and more significant. Each simple article of furniture, the narrow bed, the high, old-fashioned bureau, the little washstand with its Spartan fittings, a single chair, a little table, the old trunk, all was as it had been for twenty years. In it was no life or reminder of life; it was empty, terrible as an old burial vault.
She did not open a window and thereby admit a breath of saving though heated air; her purpose must be quickly accomplished and admitted of no discovery and no interruption. She believed that if any one should come upon her suddenly at this moment she would die of shock. She went directly to the old bureau and opened the upper drawer. There, each garment wrapped in paper with a little piece of camphor in its folds, lay specimens of Basil's clothes going as far back as a little winter coat discarded when he was five. How often had she wept over them! How speedily her husband or Thomasina would have consigned them to the flames, refusing to connect a human life with the garments of the past, now so grotesque!
Thrusting her hand beneath the lower layer, she brought out a key and with it opened the second drawer. Then she stood very still. The drawer was not filled to the top, but held only a few large, thick old tablets in a pile, a few books, a small handful of letters, a half-dozen pens and pencils, a little penwiper and a half-dozen packages of paper thickly covered with writing in a small, delicate hand.
She lifted the tablets and, trembling, turned the yellowed pages, also covered with close writing. She lifted the packages of paper and laid them softly back. When she took the letters in her hand, tears ran down her cheeks. Here was her father's handwriting, here her own, here even her mother's. Only once had Mrs. Everman left her home, and it was then, upon the occasion of a funeral in her family, that she had written to her children. That he had kept this letter, which, when it came, he had been too young to read, or even to understand, was a redeeming, a consoling incident in Basil's life. The little penwiper moved her most strongly. She remembered when it was made, what scraps of her own dresses composed it; she laid it carefully away.
But she treated the relics of Basil's mind with no such tenderness. She lifted one of the packages of manuscript in her hands. She was not mad or wicked, poor Mary Alcestis, she was only devoted to what was seemly and right. This was a duty which she owed Basil, a duty which she should have performed long ago. Persons changed their opinions as they grew older and he, could he have survived, would have come to regret those stories of love and crime and hate which he had written, which would now so cruelly reveal his soul. Had not Mr. Utterly confirmed all her own convictions on this point? Loving Basil, she would do exactly as she knew he would wish her to do! She would do it quickly. Certain remarks of Dr. Lister's in other connections made her fear that he would be not upon her side and that of Basil's good, but upon the side of Basil's youth. Standing tall, loosely wrapped in her long robe, she looked for once in her life heroic, like a sybil or prophetess. Her hands grasped the paper and she tried to tear the whole across.
But the paper was still tough in spite of its age and she had to lay the package down and take a few sheets at a time. The slow process made her nervous; it seemed hours since she had come into the room. She tore the half-dozen sheets across, then dropped them into the pitcher on the little washstand. When she had finished she would carry them downstairs. 'Manda had a good fire at this time of day.
She lifted six other sheets and tore them across. She remembered dimly the story of the manuscript of some famous and important book accidentally fed day after day to the fire. But that was a great work of philosophy or history or theology, it was not anything like poor Basil's stories! She saw as she proceeded a few clear words, "Hunger knows no niceties and passion no laws," and she shuddered. They could not too soon perish, these utterances of Basil's sad, uncontrolled youth!
Suddenly she began to feel faint. She remembered again the story of the bride locked into the great chest. But that was nonsense! Dr. Lister would soon find her. Was he not coming, did she not hear steps, a voice, did she not feel—not a hand touching her—but a breath upon her cheek? Thomasina had said—what was it Thomasina had said?
She pushed the drawer shut, all but a crack, then she moved slowly and with dignity toward Basil's bed. She would lie down and after a little rest strength would return. Then she would go on, tearing the papers into finer and ever finer bits.
CHAPTER XX BASIL'S ROOM HAS A NEW VISITOR
Dr. Lister read the "Times" and "Public Opinion" until he heard 'Manda setting the dinner-table. Then he folded his papers, glanced out through the pleasant medium of dim green light under his awning, raised his arms above his head in a motion which relieved cramped muscles, yawned, and wondered about Mary Alcestis. Reproaching himself because he had not gone directly to her side when he came in, he went upstairs.
He found her door closed and upon listening with his ear against the frame, felt confident that he heard a gentle breathing. He opened the door, holding the knob so that it should make no noise, and looked into the darkened room. When his vision reached the bedspread, turned down over the bed's foot, he withdrew. What Mary Alcestis needed was sleep. She needed also absence from these familiar scenes. He determined that he would propose a journey, much as he disliked leaving his pleasant home in summer. They might go and bring Richard home, all returning by way of Niagara Falls; they might even take him directly to New York and see him settled there. By next summer he would look back on his miseries with astonishment at himself. Youth was so resilient; it changed and forgot, thank God! Tiptoeing downstairs Dr. Lister ate his dinner, still more reassured by 'Manda's statement that her mistress had given orders early in the morning that she was not to be disturbed.
As he sat alone at his meal, he thought of Basil who had so often sat here looking over the broad meadow toward the creek where he, like Richard, had fished when he was a little boy. How pleasant it was to be safe and alive, with friends, bodily comforts, good books; how dreadful to be struck down, cut off from life and sunshine and work. How sad to be forgotten, to have no place in the memory of man, even in the minds of one's contemporaries. His thoughts turned from Basil's life to his own. What had he done to be remembered except by a few persons connected with him by ties of blood? A few short texts edited, a few boys and girls taught a little Greek! Alas, during the most of his adult years he had been satisfied to get merely his academic work done and to make no further effort. This house, he believed, with all its soft comforts had been bad for him; he had had so many more plans, so many high ambitions when he was a struggling young man, before Mary Alcestis had begun to pillow his existence. He saw once more Basil in this quiet house. How he must have filled it with unrest and discontent!
When he had finished his dinner, he went to his wife's door. Again he was certain of the breathing which was restoring her to herself.
As he descended the stairs he heard a strange and startling sound, a loud, thin twang metallic and musical. He had forgotten that the old piano gave occasional expression to a complaint over the misery and dreariness of age and felt for an instant his flesh creep. Then, smiling at himself, he went on to his study.
But he could not read. The musical vibration lingered in the air, disturbing him. He even walked into the parlor and laid his hand on the red cover of Basil's old piano. He hoped that it would make no such sound again, he felt that it would disturb him greatly. He walked about uneasily and then returned to his study and got out of the lower drawer of his desk some old notes. He had once made plans for a translation of the "Medea," he had even begun it—was it now too late to snatch a little fame from the passing years? He turned over his old notes eagerly, then more slowly. But his taste had changed as had his handwriting and the lines seemed stiff, the whole stilted and poor. Young faces seemed to smile at him. Poetry, even in translation, was for the Basils and not for him. Medea did not companion with Mary Alcestis! He lay down to his afternoon nap.
At four o'clock he woke with a start. He had been wandering in a deep cave and great waters fell and rushed about him. Sometimes delicious peace and coolness encircled him; again he struggled in a steaming bath. Rousing, he remembered suddenly that he was a man of family with a sick wife whom he had not seen for a good many hours. He went rapidly toward the stairway and for the third time approached the closed door. This time he did not stop to listen, but rapped and turned the knob. To his astonishment, Mary Alcestis was not there. Moreover, the covers lay over the foot of the bed just as they had lain in the morning, and he saw now that the drapery was not merely the spread, but sheet and blanket as well. Was it possible that the bed could have been empty when he looked before?
At once he went from room to room. She had doubtless sought greater coolness in another spot. Richard's room—she was not there, one guestroom, another—she was nowhere. He remembered the attic and went toward the steps.
"Mary Alcestis!" he called.
The echoes of his own voice answered him. She could not be so mad as to sit in Basil's room on a day like this! He took the steps in bounds.
He found her on Basil's bed. Her eyes were open and she greeted him with a feeble smile.
"I called you, Thomas, but I guess you didn't hear."
"Why, Mary Alcestis! What are you doing here? How long have you been here?"
"Not so very long." The statement was true so far as Mary Alcestis knew. She thought that she had slept a little while. "I came up to get something I wanted and I found I hadn't strength to get back. You will help me, won't you?"
Dr. Lister lifted the window and thrust open the shutter, pushing hard to free it from the vines. It was like an oven out of doors, but the air there was at least better than this!
"I am afraid the flies will come in, Thomas," protested Mary Alcestis in a stronger voice.
"Let them!" said Dr. Lister. "Of course I didn't hear you! I have been again and again to your door and I thought you were asleep and that sleep was the best medicine for you. Come, my dear, you must try to get downstairs at once. This atmosphere is enough to sicken a well person."
"I—I came up on an errand. I didn't mean to stay long." Mary Alcestis's eyes sought the bureau. Had she closed the drawer? "Then I grew faint, I guess, from the heat. If I had a little food I would feel stronger, then I could walk downstairs. Does 'Manda have lunch ready?"
Dr. Lister's eyes had followed her glance, had seen the slightly open drawer, the key in the lock. It was easy to guess the nature of her employment, the old mournful, brooding inspection of Basil's property! He saw also a scrap of paper on the floor. Had Basil left papers?
"Lunch is over," said he. "Mary Alcestis—" but this was not the time for questioning. He went down to the kitchen and brought back a cup of broth, which she drank slowly. She looked no more with anxiety at the bureau and he saw that the drawer was closed and the key gone from the lock. In a few minutes she made her way downstairs with the aid of his arm and sank upon her bed. Her eyes were heavy.
"How lovely it is here! If I can get a good nap, I'll feel much better. Then," said Mary Alcestis to her soul, "I shall finish what I began."
Before Dr. Lister had covered her she was asleep. He went out and closed the door and straightway climbed the third story steps. He had never wondered what was in the old bureau, he naturally avoided thinking of it at all. Now a suspicion had entered his mind, rousing his curiosity. There was, he was convinced, some object here which his wife did not wish him to see, something which helped to keep grief alive, some mystery which had better be at once probed. He did not believe that even yet she had told him everything about her brother.
In the upper drawer lay the neat packages of Basil's clothing, he felt of each one—here was no mystery. The second drawer was locked, but access to it was easy since he had only to lift out the upper drawer. But there was a wooden partition between them. Had Mary Alcestis carried the key away with her? He explored among the paper bundles. Slipped into one, he found the key.
When he had opened the locked drawer, he stood for a long time motionless before it. He saw the tablets, the sheaves of paper, the small parcel of old letters, the little penwiper, the pens and pencils. First he took up one of the pens, holding it in his hand and staring at it. After a while he took up a tablet and turned back the cover. He read the first page, bringing it close to his somewhat nearsighted eyes. At the bottom, he whispered what he read aloud as he turned the page:
He read on. The moments passed. The dreaded enemies anticipated by Mary Alcestis drifted in at the window and out again, and at last the campus clock struck five. Supper in the Lister house was early. He began to turn the pages rapidly and five or six at a time. They were covered with close writing; here and there were bars of music with Greek words between them.
He took up another of the thick books. Here, closely copied, was "Bitter Bread"; here were other titles—"The Dust of Battle" with an explanatory sentence beneath it: "The fire of hell shall not touch the legs of him who is covered with the dust of battle in the road of God." Here was "Obsession," here "Victory," here "Shame." He opened the third book, saw poetry and blinked eyes which had begun to ache. He saw loose sheets of paper, and the string which had held them. When he put the string round them, he saw that some had been taken out of the package. He opened the other drawers—they contained only more camphor-scented, carefully wrapped packages of clothing. He went prowling about, he lifted the pillows from the bed, he looked into the pitcher on the little washstand. From it he dipped the fragments of paper and laid them on the bureau. "Passion makes its own laws"—he read, seeing exactly what Mary Alcestis had thought and what she had begun to do. Oh, miserable Mary Alcestis!
His coat had capacious pockets. These he filled and went to his study. He emptied the contents into the drawer which contained his own meager original work. Then he went back to the third story, fastened the window and the drawer, and, locking the door, carried the key and the remaining manuscripts away with him.
At nine o'clock that evening he stepped quietly from the side door of his study across to Dr. Scott's room in Recitation Hall where he saw a light. Mrs. Lister had wakened, had taken more broth, and again slept peacefully. Her intention to destroy Basil's manuscript brought peace to her mind. She would have lost that peace suddenly and completely could she have seen her husband as he appeared before Dr. Scott, his spectacles awry, his face flushed, his eyes burning.
Dr. Lister had complete confidence in Dr. Scott's judgment and in his sense of honor. It was necessary to lay a certain matter before one whose judgment was sound and who could be entirely trusted, and he was grateful because he had such a friend.
"Will you come to my study for a few minutes?" he asked.
Dr. Scott rose at once. There was a stealthy appearance in their advance. Dr. Scott looked back over his shoulder toward his house. If his wife saw him from the porch she would be just as likely as not to call to him; not because she wanted him or needed him, but because she was curious. When they reached the Lister house safely, Dr. Lister explained in a low tone that Mrs. Lister was not well and was asleep. He opened the door quietly and tiptoed into his study and then closed the door into the hall.
"Scott—" he began and paused. Now that he was about to impart his discovery, it seemed melodramatic, impossible.
"Yes?" said Dr. Scott. He had sat down on the side of the desk opposite Dr. Lister's chair. His eye fell upon the old books with their close writing and he wondered whether Lister had called him to consult him about compositions of his own. He had hoped for something more interesting, but after all, what could excite a man more than conviction of his own powers? Dr. Scott wondered how he would get out of an uncomfortable situation. Then, at Dr. Lister's words, he felt the blood beating through his wrists and in the vein in his neck.
"I have found a quantity of manuscript belonging to Basil Everman. I did not know until this afternoon that it existed. It has been stored away for many years as having no value beyond that of a souvenir of Basil for whom Mrs. Lister—" his voice changed a little. He had not quite forgiven Mary Alcestis—"for whom Mrs. Lister had a very deep affection. I wish to have your opinion of them before I speak to her about their value, of which she has, I am sure, no conception."
Dr. Scott reached across the table. His motion was swift, eager, unlike him. He might have been said to pounce, hawk-like, upon the old books and papers and his hand shook as he touched first of all one of the unbound sheaves. He shielded his eyes from the glare of the lamp, his figure relaxed, became motionless, except for the turning of pages.
Dr. Lister sat at first quietly, one knee thrown over the other, his foot swinging. After a while his guest looked up at him, in his face intense annoyance amounting almost to disgust. He tried to cover this revelation of his inner feeling, but was too late.
"Don't mind saying just what you think," said Dr. Lister. "Nothing in the world would be so unfortunate as for us to set too high a value upon Basil's writings."
But it was not Basil's writings which annoyed.
"I wish you would stop swinging your foot!"
Dr. Lister looked astonished, then he laughed. He went upstairs to glance in upon a sleeping Mary Alcestis. All compunctions had now departed from his breast. When he came back to the study, Dr. Scott asked a question.
"How old was he?"
"About twenty-five."
"Incredible!"
He bent again over Basil Everman's writing. Dr. Lister opened a notebook and read for a few minutes and laid it down, surfeited with Basil Everman. He crossed the hall and walked up and down the long parlor. When he went back within reach of Dr. Scott's whisper, he heard, "It seems to me you've come perilously near committing a sort of murder. What was his family about?"
"They thought him a little wild. That is between you and me, Scott."
"Wild!" repeated Dr. Scott, and still again, "Wild!"
Again Dr. Lister started upon a promenade through the parlor where Basil had walked, past the old piano, under the old portraits.
When he came back to the study, Dr. Scott had ceased reading.
"I forgot my glasses," said he. "I've read myself almost blind. And anyway, I can't read any more. Two hours of this is like two hours of Euripides; it takes life out of you. Was he really here, in this house, in Waltonville?" Dr. Scott drew the word out to a dreary length.
"Do you think anything can be made of them?"
"My dear Lister! You know and I know that they can be published as they stand. There are lines which might be annotated, but that is all. They are unique, priceless. They help to redeem the nation from charges such as Utterly's. He was right about them in the wildest of his extravagance."
Dr. Lister thrust his hands into his pockets.
"It would help Mrs. Lister to see that they should be published if—"
"She will surely publish them with pride and joy!"
"I didn't mean that exactly as it sounded. I mean, she would, I am sure, be glad if you would arrange to select, to edit—that is if—when they are published."
Dr. Scott put his hand again between his eyes and the light. If he could have chosen a task from all the tasks in the world, barring the greater work of the creative writer, it would have been such a task as this. He rose and slipped his hand into the front of his coat. In this position he had received Mrs. Scott's "Yes." This moment was to be classed with that; it was later to be placed above it in quality and in importance.
"I should count myself the most fortunate of men," said he. "I envy Mrs. Lister her relationship to Basil Everman. I wish—" The hall clock had begun to strike and he paused to count the strokes. "It is time for me to go. When can this work begin? There are only six more weeks of vacation."
His eagerness made Dr. Lister uneasy.
"When I have talked it over with Mrs. Lister I will let you know at once," said he.
Then, having closed the door behind his friend, he stood thinking deeply.
CHAPTER XXI A QUESTION PUT TO RICHARD
Mary Alcestis did not dream, as she lay comfortably in her bed the next morning breathing the cooler air and watching the shadows on the wall, that there moved about her house a plotter against her peace far more dangerous than an enemy from without. She thought that her husband looked at her with unusual gravity and she was touched by his solicitude, not suspecting that he searched her face for signs of recovery in order that he might deal her a cruel blow.
At the end of the second day she rose and sat by her window looking out over the pleasant greensward and recalling the hours when she had sat there with tiny Richard beside her. She felt happier; it did not seem rational that Mrs. Bent would speak now after having been silent for so many years, especially if poor Basil were allowed to sink once more into oblivion. When his manuscripts were really destroyed, she believed that the course of life would be again smooth.
Dr. Lister, coming in, took her hand and found it cool; he looked into her eyes and saw that they were bright and clear, and thereupon began what he had to say.
"My dear, there is a matter which we shall have to discuss." He spoke cheerfully, having decided that a cheerful air would help Mary Alcestis.
"Yes," said she, thinking of Richard's music. She was prepared to grant Richard anything.
"It concerns Basil."
She gave a little cry.
"Oh, papa, can you not let Basil rest! If any one should pursue and hound me after I was dead as people pursue and hound Basil, I should not rest in my grave! Let us not talk about him! I was just thinking how Richard used to lie there in his crib and how sweet he was. He was always a lovely boy. I am sorry that I opposed him and I am willing to give up entirely. I told you that!"
"We cannot put Basil aside," said Dr. Lister.
"I suppose that something dreadful happened while I was sick. I ought not to have gone to bed. Perhaps she has been here or that young girl. Perhaps that young girl has known all along. Oh, I hope Richard has made her no promises. I hope—"
"You are working yourself into a dangerous condition of excitement. Will you hear what I have to say quietly, or shall I go away and finish another time?"
"You had better say it now."
"This has to do with Basil alone. When you lay on the bed in his room, I saw your eyes turn toward the bureau. I connected your uneasiness with something in the open drawer. When I came back from the kitchen with your broth, the drawer was closed, the key gone; then I was sure. I do not like mysteries, so I went upstairs and looked again."
"The drawer was locked!"
"Yes, my dear, but I found the key."
Mrs. Lister's cheeks paled, then crimsoned. She looked now at her husband, now out the window, saying nothing. She expected to feel a terrible indignation, but she waited in vain. Instead she felt a deep relief. If she had only obeyed her husband long ago and had destroyed all Basil's possessions, she would have been far happier. Now Dr. Lister might destroy them, all his clothes, his childish toys, his youthful writings, and she need think of them no more. At last her grief was stale, she wished to think no more of Basil.
"I found in the bureau a great many manuscripts of Basil's."
"Tear them up," said Mary Alcestis. "You know you advised me long ago to destroy everything. I had just begun when I fainted."
"I never advised you to tear up any writings."
"You said Basil's 'things.'"
"I meant Basil's clothing, you know that. Did you not suspect, after Mr. Utterly was here, that these papers might be valuable?"
Mary Alcestis made no answer.
"These writings of Basil's can never be destroyed. It would be like murder."
"But who will ever read them?" she wailed. "I cannot bear to. Basil had such strange ideas. And Richard will not care for them, poor Richard. He thinks Basil ruined his life. It is dreadful how things can go on and on!"
"Other persons will care for them."
"Other persons! What other persons?"
"All persons who care for good literature," answered Dr. Lister steadily.
Mrs. Lister turned head and shoulder so that she could look into his eyes.
"You would not think of having them published!"
"Without any question I should have them published!"
"He was only a boy." She began in a trembling voice her first skirmish. "They are surely not worth publication. We might prize them, but others wouldn't. Do you not see that, papa?"
"He was more than a boy and he was an extraordinarily fine writer of English. Why, mother, his very ghost would cry out upon us! Do you suppose he spent his days and nights, writing and polishing in order that his compositions might lie in an old bureau in an attic? We should be traitors to him!"
"I would rather be a traitor to him in that way than be responsible for publishing his—his sins!" cried Mrs. Lister wildly. "If his writings are really good, people would come flocking about us like wolves. That Mr. Utterly reminded me of a wolf. They would ferret things out, they would—"
"From whom would they ferret anything out?"
"They might make her believe it was her duty to tell. If Mr. Utterly talked to her he might persuade her. He would tell her it was an honor. Oh, I could not endure it!"
"Mother, that is sheer nonsense!"
Mrs. Lister turned a still more direct gaze into her husband's eyes.
"It is not your affair. You have nothing to do with it. You had no right to unlock Basil's bureau. You—" she bowed her head on the arm of her chair. "Oh, Thomas, forgive me! I don't know what I'm saying. I think of Richard. I don't care about Basil. I have cherished his memory and I have had only misery and shame. I think about Richard and his children and the good name of my dear father. Don't let us bring this matter to light! I beseech of you, dear Thomas!"
Dr. Lister took the hand which sought his. He almost yielded to this desperate pleading. Did anything in the world really matter as much as this? Would Basil's fame survive more than a few generations? Would a publisher even consider the bringing out of the work of a man so long gone? Was it not better that he should remain dead than that his sister's heart should ache?
Then Dr. Lister saw in Basil's handwriting certain clear sentences, certain lines of verse. His face crimsoned.
"I have shown Basil's compositions in confidence to Scott," said he, firmly.
Mary Alcestis began to cry.
"He thinks they are admirable, mother." Dr. Lister drew an unwilling head to his shoulder. "My dear, let me take this burden from you. I have taken other burdens, and I should have borne this long ago."
"He could see nothing derogatory to Basil in them?" sobbed Mary Alcestis.
"Nothing. He would be outraged by such a suggestion. He would arrange them, edit them, and write a life of Basil from the information you gave him and in a certain sense under your direction."
"In a certain sense?" repeated Mary Alcestis, warily.
"He would do no prying. He would use the material you gave him and ask no questions. He would consult no one but you and perhaps Thomasina whose recollection of Basil should have value."
"I told her," sobbed Mrs. Lister. "I think I had a sort of hysteria. I didn't know what I was saying."
"What did she say?"
"She said I was a fool."
Dr. Lister could not restrain a smile.
"That was a hard word from Thomasina. I should think it would have done you good."
"It didn't," said Mrs. Lister.
"If Scott could do this work, he would do it admirably and I believe it would be the greatest satisfaction of his life. I think he might even forget Mrs. Scott for a while."
"It has come upon me too suddenly. Richard should be consulted. It is Richard whom it most concerns."
"I shall write to Richard."
"I must see what you write!"
"Surely."
Dr. Lister helped Mary Alcestis to bed, then he stated his views to Richard and also her views and Dr. Scott's views. In the morning he read her the letter.
"I think you are a little hard on Basil," said she and wept.
In four days Dr. Lister had an answer. The envelope contained two sheets.
"Dear Mother," read one, "I am willing for you and father to do as you think best about Basil Everman's writings." On the other sheet Richard had written, "Dear Father, I do not give a hang for Basil Everman. Do as you please."
Dr. Lister jumped. Richard! Smiling broadly, he started upstairs to show both letters; then he returned from the hall and dropped Richard's note to him in fine pieces into the waste-paper basket.
"I must be losing my mind!" said he.
CHAPTER XXII A CONFIDENCE BETRAYED
When she returned from Mrs. Lister's bedside, Thomasina sat for a long time looking into her garden. The light shimmered above the flower-beds, the plants were drooping. The air even in her cool room was heavy and hard to breathe.
Summoned to lunch, she ate only enough to prevent alarmed inquiries from 'Melia, then she went upstairs. She took off her dress and put on a cool and flowing gown and lay down upon her couch and closed her eyes. After a while she rose and opened a drawer in her bureau and took out a little inlaid box, and from it lifted a package of letters. She did not read them or even open the package, but looked at them and laid them back. Once more she lay down upon her couch and hot tears rolled from under her eyelids and out upon her cheeks. After a long time she fell asleep.
In the morning she went again to Dr. Green's office. She rang the bell and entered and sat down to wait Virginia's pleasure, almost certain that Dr. Green had not come back. When Virginia appeared, lithe and shapely and deliberate of motion, Thomasina had reached a point which she seldom allowed herself even to approach. Virginia looked in consternation at her flushed face.
"You sure you not sick, Miss Thomas'?"
"No, Virginia. Has the doctor come?"
"No, Miss Thomas'."
"Virginia"—Thomasina could be no longer restrained—"why don't you keep the doctor's office in better order? Look at that corner. And at that!"
Virginia leaned against the door.
"Don't believe doctor he could find things if it was too clean, Miss Thomas'. Could I get you something—glass of water or something? You look all wore out."
Thomasina smiled faintly. The race disarmed anger.
"No, I thank you."
She started to Dr. Green's office on a third morning. As she was about to leave her door she saw the doctor entering the gate.
"I got back on the nine o'clock train," he explained. "This morning Virginia came early—early, if you please—to tell me that you have been twice to my office. She suspects all sorts of afflictions. Surely you are not ill!"
Thomasina led the way into her parlor and sat down upon her throne-like chair. Her pale face wore both a judicial and an embarrassed air.
"You should have a wife, Dr. Green. Virginia should be taken in hand, dealt with, commanded, bullied."
"I agree with you. You are thinking of my office. I suppose when I'm away, Virginia's 'on the town' as she says."
"But a wife could make a fine girl of Virginia."
Dr. Green looked at Thomasina with faint astonishment. It was not like her to assume so intimate and bantering an air.
"I hope there is nothing serious the matter. What are your symptoms? Do you not think it is the intense heat that has affected you?"
"The heat never troubles me. It is a patient of yours who worries me. I mean Mrs. Lister."
"Mrs. Lister! there's no reason to worry about her. There was nothing seriously wrong with her when I went away and I found no message when I got back."
"They wouldn't send a message about this. Her trouble is not to be cured by medicine, it is of the mind."
Dr. Green pursed his lips and frowned. He was surprised at Thomasina and was prepared to give her his most earnest attention. She would not speak to him in this fashion without good reason. He rested his arms on the arms of his chair and leaned forward, his hands clasped lightly. Whatever his origin, he was a person of distinguished presence, and, except in the matter of order in his office, of fastidious taste.
"Well, Miss Thomasina," said he in his clear, deliberate, well-modulated voice.
When Thomasina began to speak in a high tone, as though she were forcing herself a little, he frowned again; as she went on a dull color stole into his cheek and his motionless figure seemed to stiffen. He might well blush to hear so extraordinary a betrayal of confidence.
"Dr. Green, Basil Everman, Mrs. Lister's brother, about whom we have recently heard so much and of whom you and I spoke upon one occasion, was a good man, but he was a genius, and it is the common fate of geniuses to be misunderstood. They are often denied by their friends the possession of common and sometimes of moral sense. Basil wore flowing neckties at a period when neckties were small; he used well-selected words when the rest of mankind were indifferent to their speech; he drew sometimes a parallel from the classics—consequently Waltonville thought him queer. You know Waltonville's attitude of mind?"
"Perfectly."
"But he did worse, he did not always come to meals on time, or go, candle in hand, in solemn procession to bed when the rest of the family went, old Dr. Everman in his white stock, Mary Alcestis looking tearfully back over her shoulder, hoping in terror that Basil might at that moment be heard on the porch. They attributed to him strange motives and stranger acts. They watched him, were embarrassed for him, apologized for him. They thought of him, in moments of unusual charity, as not quite sound. They thought in other moments a good deal worse of him. Basing their opinion on stupid coincidences, they blamed upon him actual crimes. They did not wish to believe these things of Basil. Over what she really believes is true, Mrs. Lister has been for many years breaking her heart. It is that which ails her, and not the heat."
"How foolish!" said Dr. Green, leaning back in his chair. "Let the past bury its dead. Middle life, you see, with no mental exercise. How very foolish!"
"But the dead aren't buried, they are in our midst, and as long as Eleanor Bent is in sight, Mrs. Lister must worry her heart out."
"Eleanor Bent!" repeated Dr. Green, bending forward once more. "What has she to do with it?"
Thomasina looked down at the floor. She hesitated; perhaps remembering at this moment that she had never before betrayed the confidence of a friend. Perhaps it was because she had a sickening conviction that her whole course in this matter was that of a fool.
"The Listers have imagined—at least Mrs. Lister has from these stupid coincidences—has imagined it for years, weeping over it in secret—that Eleanor Bent is her brother Basil's daughter."
"Extraordinary!" said Dr. Green slowly. "Does any one else have this notion?"
"I think not. Basil was as much forgotten as though he had never been born."
"What are these coincidences?"
"Mrs. Lister saw the two together, followed them, indeed, and says that Margie Ginter was clinging to Basil's arm and pleading with him and crying. In the second place, he went away from Waltonville about the time that the Ginters went. In the third, Eleanor has in Mrs. Lister's eyes a strong resemblance to him. Then there is this writing."
"Writing?" queried Dr. Green.
"Yes, Eleanor's writing. What is more likely than that she should have inherited talent from Basil Everman?"
"The fact that her work bears not the remotest resemblance to his has nothing to do with the question, I presume?"
"Writing is writing," answered Thomasina in her lightest tone. She waited for a word from Dr. Green, but none came. "Margie Ginter was a good girl, I have always believed," she went on. "She was in a dreadful position here. If Basil had anything to do with her, it was to help her in some fashion. He was—" Thomasina did not go on with her sentence; it seemed difficult for her to say what he was. "As for the resemblance, Eleanor has gray eyes and so had he, and a light step and so had he, but others have bright eyes and a light step."
Dr. Green still said nothing. He seemed to give each sentence of Thomasina's careful consideration.
"It is a pity for Mary Alcestis to have worried for so many years." Her voice seemed to lose its strength.
"One can't do much for a woman as foolish as that," said Dr. Green. "I should say she deserves to have the punishment exactly suited to her case."
"It is a pity, too, for little Mrs. Bent," went on Thomasina.
"What no one knows will not hurt Mrs. Bent."
"No one knows now," answered Thomasina. "But Mary Alcestis told me. She is in a hysterical condition and there is no telling to whom she may break out. It would be most unfortunate to have this pried out of her by—well, say by Mrs. Scott."
Again Dr. Green was silent.
"It's a pity, too, for Eleanor," said Thomasina.
"I think it very unlikely that Mrs. Lister will let such a mad tale become public—you say it is a mad tale."
"It is a pity for Richard, too."
"Richard least of all," answered Dr. Green. "I can't see how he would be affected."
"Then you have not been watching the young people."
"I don't understand you."
"I mean that Richard is evidently in love with Eleanor and that his mother has found it out—therefore his absence and her tears."
"Is Eleanor in tears?" Dr. Green's tone sharpened.
"Yes, a part of the time Eleanor is in tears."
"She had better cry than think of marrying," declared Dr. Green. "Such a match would be the end of her work. It would be the greatest mistake, it would be a calamity. She has every prospect of success. I do not believe that she can be seriously impressed with that silky mother's boy. If she is, let her get over it!"
"You have always taken a great interest in her."
"Yes," answered Dr. Green. "I have. She has possibilities."
"I saw by accident your check for her piano," said Thomasina. "It lay on the desk in the company's office."
"Did you?" asked Dr. Green coolly. His tone could have been no more severe if Thomasina had opened and read one of his letters. "What did you conclude from that?"
Thomasina did not answer his question.
"It is worst of all for Basil Everman," said she. "When one thinks of him, it becomes monstrous. Doesn't it seem so to you, Dr. Green?"
Green rose to his feet. He met Thomasina's eyes coolly.
"Miss Thomasina—"
Thomasina lifted her hand.
"What I concluded was simply that you knew more about Mrs. Bent and her daughter than the rest of us," said she. "I am sure that Eleanor has an honorable paternity and Mrs. Bent a history that could be safely revealed. But one could not go to her and ask her!"
"From your own account the danger of this myth becoming public is so small as to be almost negligible. Since Mrs. Bent and her daughter are not likely to stay in Waltonville, it is wholly negligible. As for my connection with the Bents—it is this—I believe that Eleanor has a mind of great promise. I have tried to influence her and I shall continue to try."
"I am sorry that I told you," said Thomasina faintly.
"There is no reason that you should be," said Dr. Green. "If Mrs. Lister needs any further attention I shall have her case already diagnosed."
When he had gone, Thomasina sat down in her high-backed chair. Her face was deathly pale, her hands lay limply in her lap, her eyes were closed. Suddenly she sat upright.