第31章

Once," she went on, "I thought I had everything clear before me; but now I seem only to have made confusion of my life. Yes," she added drearily, "it was foolish and wicked, and it was perfectly useless, too. I can't escape from the consequences of what I did. It makes no difference what he believed or any one believed. I drove them on to risk their lives because I thought myself so much better than they; because I was self-righteous and suspicious and stubborn. Well, I must bear the penalty: and oh, if I could only bear it alone!" With a long sigh she took back the burden which she had been struggling to cast off, and from which for a time she had actually seemed to escape. She put away her hat and shawl, and stood before the glass, smoothing her hair. "When will it ever end?" she moaned to the reflection there, rather than to her mother, who did not interrupt this spiritual ordeal. In another age, such a New England girl would have tortured herself with inquisition as to some neglected duty to God;--in ours, when religion is so largely humanified, this Puritan soul could only wreak itself in a sense of irreparable wrong to her fellow-creature.

When she went out she met Miss Gleason half-way down the corridor to Mrs.

Maynard's door. The latter had a book in her hand, and came forward whispering. "She's asleep," she said very sibilantly. " I have read her to sleep, and she's sleeping beautifully. Have you ever read it?" she asked, with hoarse breaks from her undertone, as she held up one of those cheap library-editions of a novel toward Grace.

"Jane Eyre? Why, of course. Long ago."

"So have I," said Miss Gleason. "But I sent and got it again, to refresh my impressions of Rochester. We all think Dr. Mulbridge is just like him. Rochester is my ideal character,--a perfect conception of a man: so abrupt, so rough, so savage. Oh, I like those men! Don't you?" she fluted. "Mrs. Maynard sees the resemblance, as well as the rest of us.

But I know! You don't approve of them. I suppose they can't be defended on some grounds; but I can see how, even in such a case as this, the perfect mastery of the man-physician constitutes the highest usefulness of the woman-physician. The advancement of women must be as women.

'Male and female created he them,' and it is only in remembering this that we are helping Gawd, whether as an anthropomorphic conception or a universally pervading instinct of love, don't you think?"

With her novel clapped against her breast, she leaned winningly over toward Grace, and fixed her with her wide eyes, which had rings of white round the pupils.

"Do tell me!" she ran on without waiting an answer. "Didn't you go with Mr. Libby because you hoped it might storm, and wished to take the same risk as Mrs. Maynard? I told Mrs. Alger you did!"

Grace flushed guiltily, and Miss Gleason cowered a little, perhaps interpreting the color as resentment. "I should consider that a very silly motive," she said, helplessly ashamed that she was leaving the weight of the blow upon Miss Gleason's shoulders instead of her own.

"Of course," said Miss Gleason enthusiastically, "you can't confess it.

But I know you are capable of such a thing--of anything heroic!

Do forgive me," she said, seizing Grace's hand. She held it a moment, gazing with a devouring fondness into her face, which she stooped a little sidewise to peer up into. Then she quickly dropped her hand, and, whirling away, glided slimly out of the corridor.

Grace softly opened Mrs. Maynard's door, and the sick woman opened her eyes. "I was n't asleep," she said hoarsely, "but I had to pretend to be, or that woman would have killed me."

Grace went to her and felt her hands and her flushed forehead.

"I am worse this evening," said Mrs. Maynard.

"Oh, no," sighed the girl, dropping into a chair at the bedside, with her eyes fixed in a sort of fascination on the lurid face of the sick woman.

"After getting me here," continued Mrs. Maynard, in the same low, hoarse murmur, "you might at least stay with me a little. What kept you so long?"

"The wind fell. We were becalmed."

"We were not becalmed the day I went out with Mr. Libby. But perhaps nobody forced you to go.

Having launched this dart, she closed her eyes again with something more like content than she had yet shown: it had an aim of which she could always be sure.

"We have heard from Mr. Maynard," said Grace humbly. "There was a despatch waiting for Mr. Libby at Leyden. He is on his way."

Mrs. Maynard betrayed no immediate effect of this other than to say, "He had better hurry," and did not open her eyes.

Grace went about the room with a leaden weight in every fibre, putting the place in order, and Mrs. Maynard did not speak again till she had finished. Then she said, "I want you to tell me just how bad Dr.

Mulbridge thinks I am."

"He has never expressed any anxiety," Grace began, with her inaptness at evasion.

"Of course he has n't," murmured the sick woman. "He isn't a fool!

What does he say?"

This passed the sufferance even of remorse. "He says you mustn't talk," the girl flashed out. "And if you insist upon doing so, I will leave you, and send some one else to take care of you."

"Very well, then. I know what that means. When a doctor tells you not to talk, it's because he knows he can't do you any good. As soon as George Maynard gets here I will have some one that can cure me, or I will know the reason why." The conception of her husband as a champion seemed to commend him to her in novel degree. She shed some tears, and after a little reflection she asked, "How soon will he be here?"

"I don't know," said Grace. "He seems to have started yesterday morning."

"He can be here by day after to-morrow," Mrs. Maynard computed. "There will be some one to look after poor little Bella then," she added, as if, during her sickness, Bella must have been wholly neglected. "Don't let the child be all dirt when her father comes."