Cecilia Merritt, who was the fastest talker in Heatherton, had got this out before she was brought up by a queer sound, half gasp, half cry, from Theodosia. The latter looked as if someone had struck her a physical blow.
"Mercy, Dosia, you ain"t going to faint! I didn"t suppose you"d care.
You never seemed to care."
"Did you say," asked Theodosia thickly, "that Wesley was sick--dying?"
"Well, that"s what Phoebe said. She may be mistaken. Dosia Brooke, you"re a queer woman. I never could make you out and I never expect to. I guess only the Lord who made you can translate you."
Theodosia stood up. The sun was getting low, and the valley beneath them, ripening to harvest, was like a river of gold. She folded up her sewing with a steady hand.
"It"s five o"clock, so I"ll ask you to excuse me, Cecilia. I have a good deal to attend to. You can ask Emory if he"ll drive me to the station in the morning. I"m going out to Wes."
"Well, for the land"s sake," said Cecilia Merritt feebly, as she tied on her gingham sunbonnet. She got up and went home in a daze.
Theodosia packed her trunk and worked all night, dry-eyed, with agony and fear tearing at her heart. The iron will had snapped at last, like a broken reed, and fierce self-condemnation seized on her. "I"ve been a wicked woman," she moaned.
A week from that day Theodosia climbed down from the dusty stage that had brought her from the station over the prairies to the unpretentious little house where Wesley Brooke lived. A young girl, so like what Ogden Greene"s wife had been fifteen years before that Theodosia involuntarily exclaimed, "Phoebe," came to the door. Beyond her, Theodosia saw the white-capped nurse.
Her voice trembled.
"Does--does Wesley Brooke live here?" she asked.
The girl nodded.
"Yes. But he is very ill at present. n.o.body is allowed to see him."
Theodosia put up her hand and loosened her bonnet strings as if they were choking her. She had been sick with the fear that Wesley would be dead before she got to him. The relief was almost overwhelming.
"But I must see him," she cried hysterically--she, the calm, easy-going Dosia, hysterical--"I am his wife--and oh, if he had died before I got here!"
The nurse came forward.
"In that case I suppose you must," she conceded. "But he does not expect you. I must prepare him for the surprise."
She turned to the door of a room opening off the kitchen, but Theodosia, who had hardly heard her, was before her. She was inside the room before the nurse could prevent her. Then she stood, afraid and trembling, her eyes searching the dim apartment hungrily.
When they fell on the occupant of the bed Theodosia started in bitter surprise. All unconsciously she had been expecting to find Wesley as he had been when they parted. Could this gaunt, haggard creature, with the unkempt beard and prematurely grey hair and the hollow, beseeching eyes, be the ruddy, boyish-faced husband of her youth? She gave a choking cry of pain and shame, and the sick man turned his head. Their eyes met.
Amazement, incredulity, hope, dread, all flashed in succession over Wesley Brooke"s lined face. He raised himself feebly up.
"Dosia," he murmured.
Theodosia staggered across the room and fell on her knees by the bed.
She clasped his head to her breast and kissed him again and again.
"Oh, Wes, Wes, can you forgive me? I"ve been a wicked, stubborn woman--and I"ve spoiled our lives. Forgive me."
He held his thin trembling arms around her and devoured her face with his eyes.
"Dosia, when did you come? Did you know I was sick?"
"Wes, I can"t talk till you say you"ve forgiven me."
"Oh, Dosia, you have just as much to forgive. We were both too set. I should have been more considerate."
"Just say, I forgive you, Dosia,"" she entreated.
"I forgive you, Dosia," he said gently, "and oh, it"s so good to see you once more, darling. There hasn"t been an hour since I left you that I haven"t longed for your sweet face. If I had thought you really cared I"d have gone back. But I thought you didn"t. It broke my heart.
You did though, didn"t you?"
"Oh, yes, yes, yes," she said, holding him more closely, with her tears falling.
When the young doctor from Red b.u.t.te came that evening he found a great improvement in his patient. Joy and happiness, those world-old physicians, had done what drugs and medicines had failed to do.
"I"m going to get better, Doc," said Wesley. "My wife has come and she"s going to stay. You didn"t know I was married, did you? I"ll tell you the story some day. I proposed going back east, but Dosia says she"d rather stay here. I"m the happiest man in Red b.u.t.te, Doc."
He squeezed Theodosia"s hand as he had used to do long ago in Heatherton church, and Dosia smiled down at him. There were no dimples now, but her smile was very sweet. The ghostly finger of old Henry Ford, pointing down through the generations, had lost its power to brand with its malediction the life of these, his descendants.
Wesley and Theodosia had joined hands with their long-lost happiness.
The Story of an Invitation
Bertha Sutherland hurried home from the post office and climbed the stairs of her boarding-house to her room on the third floor. Her roommate, Grace Maxwell, was sitting on the divan by the window, looking out into the twilight.
A year ago Bertha and Grace had come to Dartmouth to attend the Academy, and found themselves roommates. Bertha was bright, pretty and popular, the favourite of her cla.s.smates and teachers; Grace was a grave, quiet girl, dressed in mourning. She was quite alone in the world, the aunt who had brought her up having recently died. At first she had felt shy with bright and brilliant Bertha; but they soon became friends, and the year that followed was a very pleasant one. It was almost ended now, for the terminal exams had begun, and in a week"s time the school would close for the holidays.
"Have some chocolates, Grace," said Bertha gaily. "I got such good news in my letter tonight that I felt I must celebrate it fittingly.
So I went into Carter"s and invested all my spare cash in caramels.
It"s really fortunate the term is almost out, for I"m nearly bankrupt.
I have just enough left to furnish a "tuck-out" for commencement night, and no more."
"What is your good news, may I ask?" said Grace.
"You know I have an Aunt Margaret--commonly called Aunt Meg--out at Riversdale, don"t you? There never was such a dear, sweet, jolly aunty in the world. I had a letter from her tonight. Listen, I"ll read you what she says."
_I want you to spend your holidays with me, my dear. Mary Fairweather and Louise Fyshe and Lily Dennis are coming, too. So there is just room for one more, and that one must be yourself.
Come to Riversdale when school closes, and I"ll feed you on strawberries and cream and pound cake and doughnuts and mince pies, and all the delicious, indigestible things that school girls love and careful mothers condemn. Mary and Lou and Lil are girls after your own heart, I know, and you shall all do just as you like, and we"ll have picnics and parties and merry doings galore._
"There," said Bertha, looking up with a laugh. "Isn"t that lovely?"
"How delightful it must be to have friends like that to love you and plan for you," said Grace wistfully. "I am sure you will have a pleasant vacation, Bertie. As for me, I am going into Clarkman"s bookstore until school reopens. I saw Mr. Clarkman today and he agreed to take me."
Bertha looked surprised. She had not known what Grace"s vacation plans were.
"I don"t think you ought to do that, Grace," she said thoughtfully.
"You are not strong, and you need a good rest. It will be awfully trying to work at Clarkman"s all summer."