Her heart bled. The child had been so caressed before, and was now an outcast. She remembered how she, too, had been neglected and shunned; but she was strong, and had never known petting, and her anger was stirred against the girls.
She tried to make it up to Elsie; but a change had come over the child, and she shrank from her friend. Meg knew Elsie felt ashamed, and she busied herself about the child to prove that the sorrowful time was not forgiven only, but forgotten also. She watched her opportunities to help the little one at her lessons; to put away her books, pencils, and other belongings. Elsie refused help, and avoided giving Meg those opportunities. The old clinging ways were gone. The chattering voice was hushed. A circle of ice seemed to surround the child.
Meg felt lonely and blank; and pity mingled with her desolateness. All the graceful radiance of childhood had gone from Elsie. Meg knew the change was due to remorse; the shyness of guilt was upon Elsie"s heart.
She longed to make the child smile and prattle again. As Elsie had longed for that foolish diamond, so Meg longed for Elsie"s smile and prattle.
April had come; there were violets and primroses in the woods about Moorhouse, and Miss Reeves announced that the Sat.u.r.day half-holiday might be spent afield. Meg determined that to-day she would conquer her pet"s shrinking--that she would win that laugh. She went to look for Elsie. She found her lying listlessly on a bench in the sunshine. As she approached Elsie turned her face away.
"We are going out into the country to pick flowers," said Meg, kneeling beside her.
Elsie did not answer, and made a little movement with her elbow as if to wave Meg away.
"We are not to walk two and two together like soldiers," Meg went on, taking no notice. "When we get to the woods we are to break up our ranks and run wild. You and I will hunt for violets together."
"I don"t want to go," said Elsie.
"You are not well, my pet," said Meg, patting the little hand.
"I am quite well," said Elsie harshly. "I do not want to go, that is all."
"Then I will not go either. I will stop with you," said Meg determinedly.
"No, no, no. I don"t want you to stop with me! I don"t want you!"
replied Elsie with hurried emphasis. "I want to be alone. Of all the girls you are the one I want most to be left alone by."
"Why do you hate me, Elsie?" asked Meg gently.
"I don"t hate you," replied Elsie, after a pause, in a faint, quavering voice. Then she added with labored utterance: "I am ashamed. Every time you look at me, every time you come near me, I am ashamed." Her voice gathered energy, while her breast heaved with tearless sobs. "The other girls look at me as if they were always thinking "She is a thief," and I don"t mind--their looks not half (sob, sob) so much--as--I mind--your kind look. It makes me think--of--my dreadful wickedness."
"I look at you like that because I love you so dearly," said Meg, seeking to draw the child to her.
Elsie struggled and sobbed, but at last she let Meg take her on her lap and lean her cheek down on her head. It seemed to Meg as if the circle of ice were broken. She did not know what to say that would soothe that stricken little conscience, and yet guide it. All she could do was to hold the sobbing child tight.
It was one of those beautiful days in spring when everything seems careless and fond. The trees rustled around them as if hushing the voice of sorrow. The flowers looked up with bright faces; the indulgent sunshine shed its broad light. Everything seemed so much in contrast with the grieving child that Meg could think of nothing but to set herself to make that little pale face smile again. The child used in her happier moments to be fond of playing a game of shop. Meg excelled in mimicking the various customers coming to buy. Taking her ribbon now from her throat she set it up for sale, and became in turns the querulous customer, the fat fussy customer, the French customer. As she gesticulated, shaking her fingers up in the air, shrugging her shoulders, and talking in French, bargaining, vowing it was _trop cher_, she acted her part so vividly that Elsie forgot her sorrow, and at last broke out into a laugh.
From that day Elsie clung to Meg. The girls continued to abstain from referring to the incident of the diamond, and Miss Pinkett was elaborately kind; but Elsie was reminded of her sin by the emphasis of absolution around her. She still shrank from the companionship of other girls. With Meg alone she was forgetful of the past. The tie between them was recognized, and during the const.i.tutional walks of the schoolgirls Elsie was allowed to leave her place among the younger ones and walk with her friend. These walks now lay toward the country, away from the village, where an outbreak of scarlatina was raging. In the blue-rimmed land, with its misty embattlement of downs outlined against the sky, through the shade and flicker of woods, through lanes sweet with the bravery of floral walls, the girls walked; and to Elsie Meg became the mouthpiece of nature. Those walks in the countryside were at this time the happy hours of Meg"s life. The sensitive little hand in hers, that responded so quickly to her own delight, helped the inspiration that came to her from the illusive cloudland overhead, from wooded aisles, spread with wild flowers, voiced with notes of birds and buzz of insects.
This part of Meg"s school-life came to an abrupt conclusion. One morning Elsie did not come down to breakfast. That evening she had a little fever, and the child"s throat was sore. The doctor came, and the word "scarlatina" was whispered. In a few days the school was empty of the girls. Meg alone remained as usual. Every precaution to prevent infection was taken by Miss Reeves, and Elsie was isolated.
A new anxiety now sprang up in Meg"s heart. Her thoughts were ever in the room at the top of the house, with the heavy curtains drawn before the door, from which distilled an acrid smell of disinfectants. Often Meg crept upstairs and listened. She watched every day for the doctor, to ask how Elsie was. The answers were always vague. In a few days the crisis would come. There was a tantalizing mystery in these replies, always followed by the injunction not to go near the child.
"Does she ever ask for me?" asked Meg.
"She is delirious, she would not know you," was the invariable answer.
One morning the news came that the crisis was past--delirium was over.
The news was good; yet the doctor"s face looked grave. Meg overheard him say to Miss Reeves that Elsie might sink from weakness. The child"s feebleness baffled him.
"When shall I see her?" asked Meg huskily.
"Not just yet," the doctor replied, patting her head.
That night a storm of wind raged outside. Meg listened to the howl of the wind, to the lashing of the trees bending their backs to the scourge. The doors creaked; Pilot was dragging at his chain. Meg"s thoughts were with Elsie. The contrast of her feebleness and the force raging outside seemed to haunt her. She fell asleep, and she dreamed that Elsie was dead. She saw her distinctly, a white, piteous figure lying very still, beaten down by some pitiless a.s.sailant who had left her there. Meg awoke with a start. The storm was over, but Elsie had called her.
"Meg, Meg, come!"
Was that cry part of her dream? She sat up rigid, her ears strained, every nerve on the alert, listening. Through the silence the call came again:
"Meg, Meg, come!"
She could not have told if she heard it with her physical ears. Elsie wanted her; that was all she knew. She was out of bed in a moment. A determination strong as had been that former idea of flight impelled her. She would see her pet. If she caught the infection and died, what mattered it? She would go to Elsie, the child wanted her.
A pale light flickered through the s.p.a.ce of windows left uncovered by the shutters. Meg made her way cautiously, yet swiftly. It seemed to her that Elsie knew she was coming, and that there was no time to be lost. A jet of gas was burning low in the pa.s.sage at the end of which was the curtained door. Meg lifted the heavy drapery. The scent of the carbolic grew more acrid. She pushed her head through the door that stood slightly ajar. The nurse, lying on a couch, was asleep. Meg at first could not see Elsie, but when she made a few steps inside the room she perceived the child.
Elsie"s eyes were turned toward the door, as if anxiously watching. As Meg entered she made a little ghostly gesture, as if trying to get up.
Meg was by her bedside in a moment. She had an impression that it was Elsie and yet not Elsie who was there. The beautiful hair was all cut off. The face was shrunk, a distressed expression rumpled the brow. The eyes were very bright and wide open. They seemed to Meg Elsie"s eyes looking at her from a distance. As she clasped the child in her arms she realized with despair that it was like clasping a small gasping phantom.
"I thought you would never come, Meg," Elsie murmured through her labored breathing.
"Oh, Elsie, I have wanted to come," whispered Meg, bringing her face close down to the pillow.
"I wanted you," whispered Elsie. "I kept saying, "Meg, Meg, come!""
"I heard you," said Meg.
"Heard me?" repeated the m.u.f.fled voice. "How could you hear me? I only whispered it. "Meg Meg, come!""
"But I heard you," said Meg, "and here I am, darling; here I am, and I will never leave you."
"I said," continued Elsie in that labored whisper, "if Meg comes the dreadful diamond will go."
"The dreadful diamond?" repeated Meg.
"It was always there; and sometimes it grew big, big, like a shining mountain, and put itself here." The spectral hand placed itself on the tiny chest. "It was heavy and cold--it pressed me down."
"It was a bad dream, my pet; not reality," said Meg soothingly.
"I saw it always, shining red, blue, and green. It shone in the dark as in the light, and sometimes it was like a great bright eye looking at me--always looking at me. It moved when I moved, and seemed to say, "You nearly had Meg turned away like a thief.""
"No, no; it was not you, it was I--I who did it all of my own free will," cried Meg, kissing the cold face that had become the emblem round which gathered her tenderest emotions.
"But it won"t come again, because you have kissed me. The kiss that is better than the diamond," said Elsie with a vague relief in her panting voice.
"It will never come again," repeated Meg, trying to still her sobs.
Elsie lay back apparently at peace. Suddenly she turned, and there was a flicker of the old trouble in her eyes.
"Do you think G.o.d, too, forgives me?"