Contrary to what the doctor and Susan expected, Constance came out of her dazed state in a few hours. She asked quickly if they had taken it away. When assured as to this, she seemed at ease and put no other questions. Although her mind was clear, she spoke little, and was apparently indifferent to everything. She asked, however, after a few days to be taken to her Beverly home. Kent made all the needed arrangements and went with them. This seemed to excite no surprise in the mind of Constance; she accepted everything in an apathetic way, and when Kent was leaving them at the end of their journey, said good-by listlessly and with no word of thanks. For a month or more she lost flesh and vigor daily, so that Susan thought that she would surely find the relief of death.
In August she began to recover her strength, but not her looks. She had lived many years in one, and, except for the still lovely eyes, had little left of her former beauty. The framework of her face was on a scale which needed the fullness of health, and this she had lost forever.
As she slowly regained her strength she turned anew to Susan for the only society she cared to have, and by degrees taxed more and more heavily the time and attention of the self-sacrificing sister. She began at last to read, or liked better to be read to; but never returned to her music, and never spoke of the Averills, or of Kent,—nor, indeed, of any one in St. Ann. Neither did she ever mention George Trescot. So long as she had been actively employed in thinking of means of ruining Greyhurst, she had asked of Susan no more attention and care than was easy and pleasant to give. When once her pursuit had ended, and one dominating idea had ceased to occupy her mind, she began to enlarge the boundaries of those despotic claims which the feeble or suffering sometimes make upon the unselfish. It is probable that Constance was not fully aware of this avarice of affection which caused her to accept or grasp and use the service of the sister, and to overesteem the love she herself gave in return. At first Susan looked upon it all as evidence of a revival of Constance’s former affection. She was unwilling to be alone, she desired no occupation, and would not ride or walk far. What she liked best was to sit in silence with Susan reading aloud to her in the garden, or to drive for hours in the carriage. To escape from her company was so difficult that Susan found only those hours her own in which Constance slept. At times she wondered whether or not this jealous absorption of a life would not soon or late have been applied to George Trescot.
As the warm summer days came and went, Susan was made to feel more and more plainly that she was becoming the slave of exactions which had in them something morbid. To her alarm, she began also to suspect that incessant care of a depressed and too dependent woman might prove to be a dangerous tax on health, and recognized at last with some alarm that she herself was consciously losing vigor.
When making vain efforts to assert her independence she was met by unlooked-for difficulties. In her uncle’s house, as the elder sister, Susan had exerted more or less authority; but now she had the feeling that Constance was, as indeed she looked, the older sister. By degrees Susan also learned that Constance relied on her misfortunes and her long illness to insure to her an excess of sympathetic affection and unremitting service. The discoveries thus made troubled the less selfish sister, and her good sense made plain to her that to permit limitless use of this form of devotion was to commit suicide of health and to sacrifice more than herself. There was one escape possible, and of this she knew that at some time she should have to speak, for her health and all that was once hers alone she felt were no longer to be risked without unfairness to one more dear to her than Constance. Over and over, when approaching this subject, her courage failed her.
When she chanced to mention, even in the most casual way, the man whom she had promised to marry, Constance said at once: “You must know, Susan,—you ought to know,—that I have no desire to hear of him, or of any one in St. Ann. I think you show small consideration for my feelings.” Although aware that her sister and Kent corresponded, and that letters came and went daily, she took no more interest in it than she did in whatever was outside of her own immediate and limited life. It was to Susan an almost inconceivable condition, and she was well aware that not only must it come to an end, but that to hear of her decision would be to Constance a painful awakening.
At last, when, in September, Constance seemed still better, Susan knew that she must speak out, and frankly. Constance furnished the opportunity. They were seated at evening in the garden above a quiet sea. Constance said: “I have been thinking, Susan, about the winter and what would be best for me. The doctor talks about Algiers. How would that do? It is time I made my plans. I do not suppose you care where we go, so long as we are together.”
For a moment Susan made no reply; then she said: “Let us put that aside for a moment. I have long wanted to talk to you, Conny, about another matter, but you have never been willing to listen. While you were so weak I felt that you must not be troubled by what I knew you must some day know. I am engaged to Reginald Kent, and we are to be married late in October. You must have known, Conny, that it would be.”
Constance heard her with an appearance of indifference.
“Oh, I saw there was something; but you cannot really mean to leave me. You are all I have, all I care for. It is simply out of the question. You must see that your duty lies with me.”
“Yes, dear, I see that; and we hope that you will live with us. Reginald is to have a parish near Boston.”
“I will never consent to it. Must I always be sacrificed?”
“If you mean that you will not consent to my marriage, you have no right to say that; if you mean not to live with us, I shall be sorry. I do not think that you should have spoken as you have done. You have had from me all that I could give, and, dear, you do not know how much you claim, nor do you seem to see that even with my sound health I am not fit to be and do what you expect of me—in fact, that it is I who am sacrificed.”
“Then you think I am selfish?”
“I think, dear, that in your sorrow and weakness you need more than I can give.”
“And you intend to marry that man and leave me?”
“I mean to marry Reginald Kent.”
“Then I shall find a companion and go abroad,” she said; and, rising, went away into the house.