第30章

Grace went to her own room to lay aside her shawl and hat, before going to Mrs. Maynard, and found her mother sewing there.

"Why, who is with Mrs. Maynard?" she asked.

"Miss Gleason is reading to her," said Mrs. Breen. "If she had any sort of active treatment, she could get well at once. I couldn't take the responsibility of doing anything for her, and it was such a worry to stay and see everything going wrong, that when Miss Gleason came in I was glad to get away. Miss Gleason seems to believe in your Dr. Mulbridge."

"My Dr. Mulbridge!" echoed Grace.

"She talked of him as if he were yours. I don't know what you've been saying to her about him; but you had better be careful. The woman is a fool." She now looked up at her daughter for the first time. "Why, what is the matter with you what kept you so long? You look perfectly wild."

"I feel wild," said Grace calmly. "The wind went down."

"Was that all? I don't see why that should make you feel wild," said her mother, dropping her spectacles to her sewing again.

"It was n't all," answered the girl, sinking provisionally upon the side of a chair, with her shawl still on her arm, and her hat in her hand.

"Mother, have you noticed anything peculiar about Mr. Libby?"

"He's the only person who seems to be of the slightest use about here; I've noticed that," said Mrs. Breen. "He's always going and coming for you and Mrs. Maynard. Where is that worthless husband of hers? Has n't he had time to come from Cheyenne yet?"

"He's on the way. He was out at his ranch when Mr. Libby telegraphed first, and had to be sent for. We found a despatch from him at Leyden, saying he had started," Grace explained.

"What business had he to be so far away at all?" demanded her mother.

It was plain that Mrs. Breen was in her most censorious temper, which had probably acquired a sharper edge towards Maynard from her reconciliation with his wife.

Grace seized her chance to meet the worst. "Do you think that I have done anything to encourage Mr. Libby?" she asked, looking bravely at her mother.

"Encourage him to do what?" asked Mrs. Breen, without lifting her eyes from her work.

"Encouraged him to--think I cared for him; to--to be in love with me."

Mrs. Breen lifted her head now, and pushed her spectacles up on her forehead, while she regarded her daughter in silence. "Has he been making love to you?"

"Yes."

Her mother pushed her spectacles down again; and, turning the seam which she had been sewing, flattened it with her thumb-nail. She made this action expressive of having foreseen such a result, and of having struggled against it, neglected and alone. "Very well, then. I hope you accepted him?" she asked quietly.

"Mother!"

"Why not? You must like him," she continued in the same tone. "You have been with him every moment the last week that you have n't been with Mrs.

Maynard. At least I've seen nothing of you, except when you came to tell me you were going to walk or to drive with him. You seem to have asked him to take you most of the time."

"How can you say such a thing, mother?" cried the girl.

"Did n't you ask him to let you go with him this afternoon? You told me you did."

"Yes, I did. I did it for a purpose."

"Ah! for a purpose," said Mrs. Breen, taking a survey of the new seam, which she pulled from her knee, where one end of it was pinned, towards her chin. She left the word to her daughter, who was obliged to take it.

"I asked him to let me go with him because Louise had tortured me about making her go out in his boat, till I could n't bear it any longer. It seemed to me that if I took the same risk myself, it would be something; and I hoped there would be a storm."

"I should think you had taken leave of your senses," Mrs. Breen observed, with her spectacles intent upon her seam. "Did you think it would be any consolation to him if you were drowned, or to her? And if," she added, her conscience rising equal to the vicarious demand upon it, "you hoped there would be danger, had you any right to expose him to it? Even if you chose to risk your own life, you had no right to risk his." She lifted her spectacles again, and turned their austere glitter upon her daughter.

"Yes, it all seems very silly now," said the girl, with a hopeless sigh.

"Silly!" cried her mother. "I'm glad you can call it silly."

"And it seemed worse still when he told me that he had never believed it was going to storm that day, when he took Louise out. His man said it was, and he repeated it because he saw I did n't want her to go."

"Perhaps," suggested Mrs. Breen, "if he was willing to deceive her then, he is willing to deceive you now."

"He didn't deceive her. He said what he had heard. And he said it because he--I wished it."

"I call it deceiving. Truth is truth. That is what I was taught; and that's what I supposed I had taught you."

"I would trust Mr. Libby in anything," returned the daughter. "He is perfectly frank about himself. He confessed that he had done it to please me. He said that nothing else could excuse it."

"Oh, then you have accepted him!"

"No, mother, I haven't. I have refused him, and he is going away as soon as Mr. Maynard comes." She sat looking at the window, and the tears stole into her eyes, and blurred the sea and sky together where she saw their meeting at the horizon line.

"Well," said her mother, "their that is the end of it, I presume."

"Yes, that's the end," said Grace. "But--I felt sorry for him, mother.