"Coming!" called Nance, hurrying down the steps. "Oh, Molly, what do you think of me for taking out the children and almost drowning Mildred? And while that was going on, little Dodo came within an ace of tumbling out of the carriage on his precious sleepy head! You will never trust them with me again."
"Nonsense! Mildred is old enough not to try to get in boats alone, and as for Dodo, Aunt Mary always said: "Whin chilluns grows up "thout ever gittin" a tumble, they is sho" to be idjits.""
"Well, then, my real duty was to let him tumble," laughed Nance. "What do you want with me, honey? I am very busy."
"Not too busy to come in and talk with me a little while," insisted the wily Molly, putting her arm around her friend"s waist and leading her to the library door.
"I do want to talk to you a moment," agreed Nance. "Molly, I am going away for a few weeks." They had reached the door, which was ajar, and Andy, ensconced in the sleepy-hollow chair dear to the professor"s bones, could plainly hear the conversation.
"Going away! You are going to do no such thing."
"I must. There is no use in asking me why--you know why---- It is too hard for me and there is no use in pretending it is not."
"But, Nance----"
"I have begun to pack and I will go to-morrow."
Instead of the hospitable protestations characteristic of Molly, that young housewife said not a word, but giving her friend a little push towards the fireplace, she grabbed up Mildred and rushed from the room, closing the door after her.
CHAPTER VIII
A DAMP COAT
Andy undoubled himself with alacrity and sprang from the sleepy-hollow chair. His stern face was softened and filled with a boyish eagerness.
"Oh, Nance! Can"t you forgive me?"
"Excuse me, Dr. McLean, I did not know you were still here," and Nance turned to leave the room.
Andy with long strides reached the door first and with his back against it held out beseeching hands.
"Yes, I"m here and am going to stay here----"
"Well, I am not! Please let me pa.s.s." Nance was filled with a righteous indignation against Molly at having played this trick on her.
"But, my dear, I must tell you what a fool I have been----"
"That is not necessary. I know."
Andy laughed. Nance had a laconic way of putting things that always tickled his humor.
"Now you sound like yourself, honey, but oh, please act like yourself!
The real Nance Oldham could not be so cruel as to go off without letting me explain--I have no excuse--there could be none for my blind rage and jealousy--none unless loving you too hard could be called one. Will you listen to me?"
"I shall have to unless I stop up my ears, since you stop up the doorway." Nance was very pale and trembling. Two years of suffering could not be done away with in a moment and the girl had surely suffered.
"Couldn"t we sit down and let me tell you?"
"We could!"
Andy eagerly directed Nance to the sofa, but she sedately seated herself in a small isolated sewing rocker. Andy accepted the amendment and placed his chair as near to hers as the frigid atmosphere around her permitted.
"Before I explain I must apologize. I would have done it the very day after that awful row we had, the very moment after it, if I had not thought you hated me."
"And now?"
"And now I am going to apologize and explain, whether you hate me or not. I could do it lots better if you would let me hold your hand while I am doing it," but Nance drew Molly"s knitting from a bag hung on the back of the chair and declared her hands were otherwise occupied. Molly had reached the purling end of a sleeveless sweater and no doubt would be glad of Nance"s expert a.s.sistance.
"Nance, there never has been any other woman in my life but you, you and my mother. You know perfectly well from the time I met you, when I was at Exmoor College and you were here at Wellington, that you were the only girl in the world for me. I had a kind of notion in my fool brain that I was going to be the only man in the world for you. When we were engaged I thought I was, but when I realized that Dr. Flint was paying you such devoted attention, at your home constantly----"
"My father"s physician!"
"Yes, I know,--but, honey, you see you were way up there in Vermont and I was down in New York and I was hungry for you all the time, and when your father died I thought you would pick right up and come to me--I knew nothing of your mother"s determination to stay with you--nothing of her illness--nothing but that you were staying in the same town with Flint and I must go back to New York. You did not tell me."
"Well, hardly, after the way you raged and tore! I felt if you could rage that way we had better separate."
"But, my dear, I"ll never rage that way again--I"ve learned my lesson.
Can"t you forgive me?" Nance was silent.
"I love you just as much as I always did,--more, in fact. When little Mildred Green told me you had let her fall in the water because you were so busy with your husband, I wanted to die that minute. Of course I thought it was Flint. How could I know the child was playing a game with you? Nance, do you hate me as much as you did that terrible day two years ago?"
"Yes!" Nance"s answer was very low but Andy heard it.
"Well, then, there is no use in saying any more," he sprang to his feet, his face grey with misery.
"I didn"t hate you then at all--nor do I now."
"Oh, Nance, don"t tease me! Can you forgive me?" and poor Andy sank on his knees and bowed his head on her knees.
Nance"s arms were around him in a moment. She hugged his sandy head to her bosom with one hand and patted his back with the other while he gave a great sob.
"Andy McLean, you are still wringing wet. Get up from here this minute and take off that coat and let me dry it! And your shirt is damp, too!
My, what a boy! Here, sit right close to the fire and dry that wet sleeve."
Andy meekly submitted in a daze. Nance"s motherly att.i.tude and sudden melting were too much for him. The coat was hung by the fire to dry while the young doctor stood helplessly by in his shirt sleeves.
"And now, Andy, I"m going to apologize to you and ask you to forgive me," declared Nance, stoutly trying to go on with her knitting.
But Andy firmly took it from her and possessed himself of those busy hands.
"I was worse than you--when you said those hard things to me they hurt like fury--you didn"t know how they did hurt, but I did, and I should not have done the same thing to you. I said worse things to you than you did to me,--at least I tried to."
"You did pretty well," said Andy whimsically, pressing one of the imprisoned hands to his lips.