"But this is postmarked San Francisco," I said faintly.
Lillian laughed shortly. "My dear little innocent!" she said, "it would be the easiest thing in the world for her to send this envelope enclosed in one to some friend in San Francisco, who would re-direct it for her."
"I never thought of that," I said, flushing. "But, oh! Lillian, if he did not go away with her, what possible explanation is there of his leaving like this?"
"Yes, I know, dear," she returned. "It"s a mystery, and one in the solving of which I seem perfectly helpless. I do wish someone would drop from the sky to help us."
XLII
DAYS THAT CREEP SLOWLY BY
It was not from the sky, however, but from across the ocean that the help Lillian had longed for in solving the mystery of d.i.c.ky"s abandonment of me, finally came. It was less than a week after the receipt of Grace Draper"s message, that Lillian and I, sitting in her wonderful white and scarlet living room, one evening after little Marion had gone to bed, heard Betty ushering in callers.
"Betty must know them or she wouldn"t bring them in unannounced,"
Lillian murmured, as she rose to her feet, and then the next moment there was framed in the doorway the tall figure of Dr. Pett.i.t. And with him, wonder of wonders! the slight form, the beautiful, wistful, tired face of Katharine Sonnot, whose ambition to go to France as a nurse I had been able to further.
"My dear, what has happened to you?" Katherine exclaimed solicitously.
"I received no answer to my letter saying I was coming home, so when I reached New York, I went to Dr. Pett.i.t. He thought you were at Marvin, but when he telephoned out there, Katie said you had had a terrible accident, and that you had left Marvin. I was not quite sure, for she was half crying over the telephone, but I thought she said "for keeps.""
She stopped and looked at me with a hint of fright in her manner. I knew she wanted to ask about d.i.c.ky"s absence, and did not dare to do so.
"Everything you heard is true, Katherine," I returned, a trifle unsteadily, as her arms went around me warmly. I was more than a trifle upset by her coming, for a.s.sociated with her were memories of my brother-cousin, Jack Bickett, who had gone to the great war when he had learned that I was married, and of whose death "somewhere in France," I had heard through Mrs. Stewart.
"Where is your husband?" Dr. Pett.i.t demanded, and there was that in his voice which told me that he was putting an iron hand upon his own emotions.
Now the stock answer which Lillian and I returned to all inquiries of this sort was "In San Francisco upon a big commission." It was upon my lips, but some influence stronger than my will made me change it to the truth.
"I do not know," I said faintly. "He left the city very abruptly several weeks ago, sending word in a letter to Mrs. Underwood that he would never see me again. It is a terrible mystery."
Dr. Pett.i.t muttered something that I knew was a bitter anathema against d.i.c.ky, and then folded his arms tightly across his chest, as if he would keep in any further comment. But I had no time to pay any attention to him, for Katherine Sonnot was uttering words that bewildered and terrified me.
"Oh! how terrible!" she said. "Jack will be so grieved. He had so hoped to find you happy together when he came home."
Was the girl"s brain turned, I wondered, because of grief for my brother-cousin"s death? I had known before I secured the chance for her to go to France that she was romantically interested in the man who had been her brother"s comrade, although she had never seen him. And from Jack"s letters to Mrs. Stewart, I had learned of their meeting in the French hospital, and of the acquaintance which promised to ripen--which evidently had ripened--into love.
I looked at her searchingly, and then I spoke, hardly able to get the words out for the wild trembling of my whole body.
"Jack grieved?" I said. "Why! Jack is dead! We had the notice of his death weeks ago from his friend, Paul Caillard."
I saw them all look at me as if frightened. Dr. Pett.i.t reached me first and put something under my nostrils which vitalized my wandering senses. I straightened myself and cried out peremptorily.
"What is it, oh! what is it?"
I saw Katherine look at Dr. Pett.i.t, as if for permission, and the young physician"s lips form the words, "Tell her."
"No, dear. Jack isn"t dead," she said softly. "He was missing for some time, and was brought into our hospital terribly wounded, but he is very much alive now, and will be here in New York in two weeks."
I felt the pungent revivifier in Dr. Pett.i.t"s hand steal under my nostrils again, but I pushed it aside and sat up.
"I am not at all faint," I said abruptly, and then to Katherine Sonnot. "Please say that over again, slowly."
She repeated her words slowly. "I should have waited to come over with him," she added, "for he is still quite weak, but Dr. Braithwaite had to send some one over to attend to business for the hospital. He selected me, and so I had to come on earlier."
So it was true, then, this miracle of miracles, this return of the dead to life! Jack, the brother-cousin on whom I had depended all my life, was still in the same world with me! Some of the terrible burden I had been bearing since d.i.c.ky"s disappearance slipped away from me.
If anyone in the world could solve the mystery of d.i.c.ky"s actions, it would be Jack Bickett.
Dr. Pett.i.t"s voice broke into my reverie. I saw that Lillian and Katherine Sonnot were deep in conversation. The young physician and I were far enough away from them so that there was no possibility of his low tones being heard. He bent over my chair, and his eyes were burning with a light that terrified me.
"Tell me," he commanded, "do you want your husband back again. Take your time in answering. I must know."
There was something in his voice that compelled obedience. I leaned back in my chair and shut my eyes, while I looked at the question he had put me fairly and squarely.
The question seemed to echo in my ears. I was surprised at myself that I did not at once reply with a pa.s.sionate affirmative. Surely I had suffered enough to welcome d.i.c.ky"s return at any time.
Ah! there was the root of the whole thing. I had suffered, how I had suffered at d.i.c.ky"s hands! As my memory ran back through our stormy married life, I wondered whether it were wise--even though it should be proved to me that d.i.c.ky had not gone away with Grace Draper--to take up life with my husband again.
And then, woman-like, all the bitter recollections were shut out by other memories which came thronging into my brain, memories of d.i.c.ky"s royal tenderness when he was not in a bad humor, of his voice, his smile, his lips, his arms around me, I knew, although my reason dreaded the knowledge, that unless my husband came back to me, I should never know happiness again.
I opened my eyes and looked steadily at the young physician.
"Yes, G.o.d help me. I do!" I said.
Dr. Pett.i.t winced as if I had struck him. Then he said gravely:
"Thank you for your honesty, and believe that if there be any way in which I can serve you, I shall not hesitate to take it."
"I am sure of that," I replied earnestly, and the next moment, without a farewell glance, a touch of my hand, he went over to Katherine, and, in a voice very different in volume than the suppressed tones of his conversation to me, I heard him apologize to her for having to go away at once, heard her laughing reply that after the French hospitals she did not fear the New York streets, and then the door had closed after the young physician, whose too-evident interest in me had always disturbed me.
I hastened to join Lillian and Katherine. I did not want to be left alone. Thinking was too painful.
"Just think!" Katherine said as I joined them, "I find that I"m living only a block away. I"m at my old rooming place--luckily they had a vacant room. Of course, I shall be fearfully busy with Dr.
Braithwaite"s work, but being so near, I can spend every spare minute with you--that is, if you want me," she added shyly.
"Want you, child!" I returned, and I think the emphasis in my voice rea.s.sured her, for she flushed with pleasure, and the next minute with embarra.s.sment as I said pointedly:
"I imagine you have some unusually interesting and pleasant things to tell me, especially about my cousin."
But, after all, it was left for Jack himself to tell me the "interesting things." Katherine became almost at once so absorbed in the work for Dr. Braithwaite that she had very little time to spend with us. There was another reason for her absence, of which she spoke half apologetically one night, about a week after her arrival.
"There"s a girl in the room next mine who keeps me awake by her moaning," she said. "I don"t get half enough sleep, and the result is that when I get in from my work I"m so dead tired I tumble into bed, instead of coming over here as I"m longing to do. The housekeeper says she"s a student of some kind, and that she"s really ill enough to need a physician, although she goes to her school or work each morning.
I"ve only caught glimpses of her, but she strikes me as being rather a stunning-looking creature. I wish she"d moan in the daytime, though.
Some night I"m going in there and give her a sleeping powder. Joking aside, I"m rather anxious about her. Whatever is the matter with her, physical or mental, it"s a real trouble, and I wish I could help her."
The real Katherine Sonnot spoke in the last sentence. Like many nurses, she had a superficial lightness of manner, behind which she often concealed the wonderful sympathy with and understanding for suffering which was hers. I knew that if the poor unknown sufferer needed aid or friendship, she would receive both from Katherine.