Glasgow Ellen Anderson Gholson
The Builders
"Why, Anna Jeannette!" exclaimed the young man, with genial mockery. "This is a pleasure which I thought your worthy Bluebeard had forbidden me!"
"Get in, and I'll take you for a little drive. This is Miss Meade. You met her that night at Briarlay."
"The angel in the house! I remember." He smiled boldly into Caroline's face. "Well, Letty, I'd like to trade my luck for yours. Look at your poor uncle, and tell me honestly if I am not the one who needs to be nursed. Lend her to me?"
"I can't lend you Miss Meade, Uncle Roane," replied the child seriously, "because she plays with me; but if you really need somebody, I reckon I can let you have Mammy Riah for a little while."
Roane laughed while he bent over and pinched Letty's cheek. That he had a bad reputation, Caroline was aware, and though she was obliged to admit that he looked as if he deserved it, she could not deny that he possessed the peculiar charm which one of the old novels at The Cedars described as "the most dangerous attribute of a rake." "I could never like him, yet I can understand how some women might fall in love with him," she thought.
"No, I decline, with thanks, your generous offer," Roane was saying. "If I cannot be nursed by an angel, I will not be nursed by a witch."
Beneath his insolent, admiring gaze a lovely colour flooded Caroline's cheeks. In the daylight his manner seemed to her more offensive than ever, and her impulsive recognition of his charm was followed by an instantaneous recoil.
"I don't like witches," said Letty. "Do you think Miss Meade is an angel, Uncle Roane?"
"From first impressions," retorted Roane flippantly, "I should say that she might be."
As Caroline turned away indignantly, Angelica leaned over and gently patted her hand. "You mustn't mind him, my dear, that's just Roane's way," she explained.
"But I do mind," replied Caroline, with spirit. "I think he is very impertinent."
"Think anything you please, only think of me," rejoined Roane, with a gallant air.
"You bad boy!" protested Angelica. "Can't you see that Miss Meade is provoked with you?"
"No woman, Anna Jeannette, is provoked by a sincere and humble admiration. Are you ignorant of the feminine heart?"
"If you won't behave yourself, Roane, you must get out of the car. And for heaven's sake, stop calling me by that name!"
"My dear sister, I thought it was yours."
"It is not the one I'm known by." She was clearly annoyed. "By the way, have you got your costume for the tableaux? You were so outrageous at Mrs. Miller's the other night that if they could find anybody else, I believe that they would refuse to let you take part. Why are you so dreadful, Roane?"
"They require me, not my virtue, sister. Go over the list of young men in your set, and tell me if there is another Saint George of England among them?"
His air of mocking pride was so comic that a smile curved Caroline's lips, while Angelica commented seriously, "Well, you aren't nearly so good-looking as you used to be, and if you go on drinking much longer, you will be a perfect fright."
"How she blights my honourable ambition!" exclaimed Roane to Caroline. "Even the cherished career of a tableau favourite is forbidden me."
"Mother is going to be Peace," said Letty, with her stately manner of making conversation, "and she will look just like an angel. Her dress has come all the way from New York, Uncle Roane, and they sent a wreath of leaves to go on her head. If I don't get sick, Miss Meade is going to take me to see her Friday night."
"Well, if I am brother to Peace, Letty, I must be good. Miss Meade, how do you like Richmond?"
"I love it," answered Caroline, relieved by his abrupt change of tone. "The people are so nice. There is Mrs. Colfax now. Isn't she beautiful?"
They were running into Monument Avenue, and Daisy Colfax had just waved to them from a passing car.
"Yes, I proposed to her twice," replied Roane, gazing after Daisy's rose-coloured veil which streamed gaily behind her. "But she could not see her way, unfortunately, to accept me. I am not sure, between you and me, that she didn't go farther and fare worse with old Robert. I might have broken her heart, but I should never have bored her. Speaking of Robert, Anna Jeannette, was he really the author of that slashing editorial in the Free-Press?"
"Everybody thinks he wrote it, but it doesn't sound a bit like him. Wasn't it dreadful, Roane?"
"Oh, well, nothing is fair in politics, but the plum," he returned. "By the way, is it true about Blackburn's vaulting ambition, or is it just newspaper stuff?"
"Of course I know nothing positively, Roane, for David never talks to me about his affairs; but he seems to get more and more distracted about politics every day that he lives. I shouldn't like to have it repeated, yet I can't help the feeling that there is a great deal of truth in what the article says about his disloyalty to the South."
"Well, I shouldn't lose any sleep over that if I were you. No man ever took a step forward on this earth that he didn't move away from something that the rest of the world thought he ought to have stood by. There isn't much love lost between your husband and me, but it isn't a political difference that divides us. He has the bad taste not to admire my character."
"I know you never feel seriously about these things," said Angelica sadly, "but I always remember how ardently dear father loved the Democratic Party. He used to say that he could forgive a thief sooner than a traitor."
"Great Scott! What is there left to be a traitor to?" demanded Roane, disrespectfully. "A political machine that grinds out jobs isn't a particularly patriotic institution. I am not taking sides with Blackburn, my dear sister, only I'd be darned before I'd have acted the part of your precious Colfax. It may be good politics, but it's pretty bad sport, I should think. It isn't playing the game."
"I suppose Robert feels that things are really going too far," observed Angelica feebly, for her arguments always moved in a circle. "He believes so strongly, you know, in the necessity of keeping the South solid. Of course he may not really have attacked David," she added quickly. "There are other editors."
"I am sure there is not one bit of truth in that article," said Caroline suddenly, and her voice trembled with resentment. "I know Mr. Blackburn doesn't oppress his men because we've just been talking with the mother of a man who works in his plant. As for the rest, I was listening to him this afternoon, and I believe he is right." Her eyes were glowing as she finished, and her elusive beauty – the beauty of spirit, not of flesh – gave her features the rare and noble grace of a marble Diana. Her earnestness had suddenly lifted her above them. Though she was only a dark, slender woman, with a gallant heart, she seemed to Roane as remote and royal as a goddess. He liked the waving line of hair on her clear forehead, where the light gathered in a benediction; he liked her firm red lips, with their ever-changing play of expression, and he liked above all the lovely lines of her figure, which was at once so strong and so light, so feminine and so spirited. It was the beauty of character, he told himself, and, by Jove, in a woman, he liked character!
"Well, he has a splendid champion, lucky dog!" he exclaimed, with his eyes on her face.
For an instant Caroline wavered as Angelica's gaze, full of pained surprise, turned toward her; then gathering her courage, she raised her lashes and met Roane's admiring stare with a candid and resolute look.
"No, it is not that," she said, "but I can't bear to see people unjust to any one."
"You are right," ejaculated Roane impulsively, and he added beneath his breath, "By George, I hope you'll stand up for me like that when I am knocked."
CHAPTER X
Other Discoveries
IN the morning Letty awoke with a sore throat, and before night she had developed a cold which spent itself in paroxysms of coughing. "Oh, Miss Meade, make me well before Friday," she begged, as Caroline undressed her. "Isn't Friday almost here now?"
"In three days, dear. You must hurry and get over this cold."
"Do you think I am going to be well, Mammy?" They were in the nursery at Letty's bedtime, and Mammy Riah was heating a cup of camphorated oil over the fire.
"You jes' wait twel I git dish yer' red flan'l on yo' chist, en hit's gwinter breck up yo' cough toreckly," replied Mammy Riah reassuringly. "I'se done soused hit right good in dis hot ile."
"I'll do anything you want. I'll swallow it right down if it will make me well."
"Dar ain't nuttin dat'll breck up a cole quick'n hot ile," said the old woman, "lessen hit's a hot w'iskey toddy."
"Well, you can't give her that," interposed Caroline quickly, "if she isn't better in the morning I'm going to send for Doctor Boland. I've done everything I could think of. Now, jump into bed Letty, dear, and let me cover you up warm before I open the window. I am going to sleep on the couch in the corner."
"Hit pears to me like you en Marse David is done gone clean 'stracted 'bout fresh a'r," grumbled Mammy Riah, as she drew a strip of red flannel out of the oil. "Dar ain' nuttin in de worl' de matter wid dis chile but all dis night a'r you's done been lettin' in on 'er w'ile she wuz sleepin'. Huh! I knows jes ez much about night a'r ez enny er yo' reel doctahs, en I ain' got er bit er use fur hit, I ain't. Hit's a woner to me you all ain' done kilt 'er betweenst you, you and Marse David en Miss Angy, 'en yo' reel doctah. Ef'n you ax me, I 'ud let down all dem winders, en stuff up de chinks wid rags twel Letty was peart enuff ter be outer dat baid."
The danger in night air had been a source of contention ever since the first frost of the season, and though science had at last carried its point, Caroline felt that the victory had cost her both the respect and the affection of the old negress.
"I ain' never riz noner my chillun on night a'r," she muttered rebelliously, while she brought the soaked flannel over to Letty's bed.
"I hope it will cure me," said the child eagerly, and she added after a moment in which Mammy Riah zealously applied the oil and covered her with blankets, "Do you think I'd better have all the night air shut out as she says, Miss Meade?"
"No, darling," answered Caroline firmly. "Fresh air will cure you quicker than anything else."
But, in spite of the camphorated oil and the wide-open windows, Letty was much worse in the morning. Her face was flushed with fever, and she refused her breakfast, when Mammy Riah brought it, because as she said, "everything hurt her." Even her passionate interest in the tableaux had evaporated, and she lay, inert and speechless, in her little bed, while her eyes followed Caroline wistfully about the room.
"I telephoned for Doctor Boland the first thing," said Caroline to the old woman, "and now I am going to speak to Mrs. Blackburn. Will you sit with Letty while I run down for a cup of coffee?"
"Ef'n I wuz you, I wouldn't wake Miss Angy," replied the negress. "Hit'll mek 'er sick jes ez sho' ez you live. You'd better run along down en speak ter Marse David."
"I'll tell him at breakfast, but oughtn't Letty's mother to know how anxious I am?"
"She's gwine ter know soon enuff," responded Mammy Riah, "but dey don' low none un us ter rouse 'er twell she's hed 'er sleep out. Miss Angy is one er dem nervous sort, en she gits 'stracted moughty easy."
In the dining-room, which was flooded with sunshine, Caroline found the housekeeper and Blackburn, who had apparently finished his breakfast, and was glancing over a newspaper. There was a pile of half-opened letters by his plate, and his face wore the look of animation which she associated with either politics or business.
"I couldn't leave Letty until Mammy Riah came," she explained in an apologetic tone. "Her cold is so much worse that I've telephoned for the doctor."
At this Blackburn folded the paper and pushed back his chair. "How long has she had it?" he inquired anxiously. "I thought she wasn't well yesterday." There was the tender, protecting sound in his voice that always came with the mention of Letty.
"She hasn't been herself for several days, but this morning she seems suddenly worse. I am afraid it may be pneumonia."
"Have you said anything to Angelica?" asked Mrs. Timberlake, and her tone struck Caroline as strained and non-committal.
"Mammy Riah wouldn't let me wake her. I am going to her room as soon as her bell rings."
"Well, she's awake. I've just sent up her breakfast." The housekeeper spoke briskly. "She has to be in town for some rehearsals."
Blackburn had gone out, and Caroline sat alone at the table while she hastily swallowed a cup of coffee. It was a serene and cloudless day, and the view of the river had never looked so lovely as it did through the falling leaves and over the russet sweep of autumn grasses. October brooded with golden wings over the distance.
"I had noticed that Letty had a sort of hacking cough for three days," said Mrs. Timberlake from the window, "but I didn't think it would amount to anything serious."
"Yes, I tried to cure it, and last night Mammy Riah doctored her. The child is so delicate that the slightest ailment is dangerous. It seems strange that she should be so frail. Mr. Blackburn looks strong, and his wife was always well until recently, wasn't she?"
For a moment Mrs. Timberlake stared through the window at a sparrow which was perched on the topmost branch of a juniper. "I never saw any one hate to have a child as much as Angelica did," she said presently in her dry tones. "She carried on like a crazy woman about it. Some women are like that, you know."
"Yes, I know, but she is devoted to Letty now."
The housekeeper did not reply, and her face grew greyer and harsher than ever.
"No one could be sweeter than she is with her," said Caroline, after a moment in which she tried to pierce mentally the armour of Mrs. Timberlake's reserve. "She isn't always so silent," she thought. "I hear her talking by the hour to Mammy Riah, but it is just as if she were afraid of letting out something if she opened her lips. I wonder if she is really so prejudiced against Mrs. Blackburn that she can't talk of her?" Though Caroline's admiration for Angelica had waned a little on closer acquaintance, she still thought her kind and beautiful, except in her incomprehensible attitude to the old sewing woman in Pine Street. The recollection of that scene, which she had found it impossible to banish entirely, was a sting in her memory; and as she recalled it now, her attitude toward Angelica changed insensibly from that of an advocate to a judge.
"Oh, Angelica is sweet enough," said the housekeeper suddenly, with a rasping sound, as if the words scraped her throat as she uttered them, "if you don't get in her way." Then facing Caroline squarely, she added in the same tone, "I'm not saying anything against Angelica, Miss Meade. Our grandmothers were sisters, and I am not the sort to turn against my own blood kin, but you'll hear a heap of stories about the way things go on in this house, and I want you to take it from me in the beginning that there are a plenty of worse husbands than David Blackburn. He isn't as meek as Moses, but he's been a good friend to me, and if I wanted a helping hand, I reckon I'd go to him now a sight quicker than I would to Angelica, though she's my kin and he isn't."
Rising hurriedly, as she finished, she gave a curt little laugh and exclaimed, "Well, there's one thing David and I have in common. We're both so mortal shutmouthed because when we once begin to talk, we always let the cat out of the bag. Now, if you're through, you can go straight upstairs and have a word with Angelica before she begins to dress."
She went over to the sideboard, and began counting the silver aloud, while Caroline pushed back her chair, and ran impatiently upstairs to Mrs. Blackburn's room. At her knock the maid, Mary, opened the door, and beyond her Angelica's voice said plaintively, "Oh, Miss Meade, Mary tells me that Letty's cold is very bad. I am so anxious about her."
A breakfast tray was before her, and while she looked down at the china coffee service, which was exquisitely thin and fragile, she broke off a piece of toast, and buttered it carefully, with the precise attention she devoted to the smallest of her personal needs. It seemed to Caroline that she had never appeared so beautiful as she did against the lace pillows, in her little cap and dressing sack of sky-blue silk.
"I came to tell you," said Caroline. "She complains of pain whenever she moves, and I'm afraid, unless something is done at once, it may turn into pneumonia."
"Well, I'm coming immediately, just as soon as I've had my coffee. I woke up with such a headache that I don't dare to stir until I've eaten. You have sent for the doctor, of course?"
"I telephoned very early, but I suppose he won't be here until after his office hours."
Having eaten the piece of toast, Angelica drank her coffee, and motioned to Mary to remove the tray from her knees. "I'll get up at once," she said. "Mary, give me my slippers. You told me so suddenly that I haven't yet got over the shock."
She looked distressed and frightened, and a little later, when she followed Caroline into the nursery and stooped over Letty's bed, her attitude was that of an early Italian Madonna. The passion of motherhood seemed to pervade her whole yearning body, curving the soft lines to an ineffable beauty.
"Letty, darling, are you better?"
The child opened her eyes and stared, without smiling, in her mother's face.
"Yes, I am better," she answered in a panting voice, "but I wish it didn't hurt so."
"The doctor is coming. He will give you some medicine to cure it."
"Mammy says that it is the night air that makes me sick, but father says that hasn't anything to do with it."
From the fire which she was tending, Mammy Riah looked up moodily. "Huh! I reckon Marse David cyarn' teach me nuttin' 'bout raisin chillun," she muttered under her breath.
"Ask the doctor. He will tell you," answered Angelica. "Do you think it is warm enough in here, Miss Meade?"
"Yes, I am careful about the temperature." Almost unconsciously Caroline had assumed her professional manner, and as she stood there in her white uniform beside Letty's bed, she looked so capable and authoritative that even Mammy Riah was cowed, though she still grumbled in a deep whisper.
"Of course you know best," said Angelica, with the relief she always felt whenever any one removed a responsibility from her shoulders, or assumed a duty which naturally belonged to her. "Has she fallen asleep so quickly?"
"No, it's stupor. She has a very high fever."
"I don't like that blue look about her mouth, and her breathing is so rapid. Do you think she is seriously ill, Miss Meade?" Angelica had withdrawn from the bed, and as she asked the question, she lowered her voice until her words were almost inaudible. Her eyes were soft and anxious under the drooping lace edge of her cap.
"I don't like her pulse," Caroline also spoke in a whisper, with an anxious glance at the bed, though Letty seemed oblivious of their presence in the room. "I am just getting ready to sponge her with alcohol. That may lower her temperature."
For a moment Mrs. Blackburn wavered between the bed and the door. "I wish I didn't have to go to town," she said nervously. "If it were for anything else except these tableaux I shouldn't think of it. But in a cause like this, when there is so much suffering to be relieved, I feel that one ought not to let personal anxieties interfere. Don't you think I am right, Miss Meade?"
"I haven't thought about it," replied Caroline with her usual directness. "But I am sure you are the best judge of what you ought to do."
"I have the most important part, you see, and if I were to withdraw, it would be such a disappointment to the committee. There isn't any one else they could get at the last moment."
"I suppose not. There is really nothing that you can do here."
"That is what I thought." Angelica's tone was one of relief. "Of course if I were needed about anything it would be different; but you are better able than I am to decide what ought to be done. I always feel so helpless," she added sadly, "when there is illness in the house."
With the relinquishment of responsibility, she appeared to grow almost cheerful. If she had suddenly heard that Letty was much better, or had discovered, after harrowing uncertainty, the best and surest treatment for pneumonia, her face would probably have worn just such a relieved and grateful expression. In one vivid instant, with a single piercing flash of insight, the other woman seemed to look straight through that soft feminine body to Mrs. Blackburn's thin and colourless soul. "I know what she is now – she is thin," said Caroline to herself. "She is thin all through, and I shall never feel the same about her again. She doesn't want trouble, she doesn't want responsibility because it makes her uncomfortable – that is why she turns Letty over to me. She is beautiful, and she is sweet when nothing disturbs her, but I believe she is selfish underneath all that softness and sweetness which costs her so little." And she concluded with a merciless judgment, "That is why she wasn't kind to that poor old woman in Pine Street. It would have cost her something, and she can't bear to pay. She wants to get everything for nothing."
The iron in her soul hardened suddenly, for she knew that this moment of revelation had shattered for her the romance of Briarlay. She might still be fascinated by Mrs. Blackburn; she might still pity her and long to help her; she might still blame Blackburn bitterly for his hardness – but she could never again wholly sympathize with Angelica.
"There isn't anything in the world that you can do," she repeated gravely.
"I knew you'd say that, and it is so good of you to reassure me." Mrs. Blackburn smiled from the threshold. "Now, I must dress, or I shall be late for the rehearsal. If the doctor comes while I am away, please ask him if he thinks another nurse is necessary. David tells me he telephoned for an extra one for night duty; but, dear Miss Meade, I feel so much better satisfied when I know that Letty is in your charge every minute."
"Oh, she is in my charge. Even if the other nurse comes, I shall still sleep in the room next to her."
"You are so splendid!" For an instant Angelica shone on her from the hall. Then the door closed behind her, and an hour afterwards, as Caroline sat by Letty's bed, with her hand on her pulse, she heard the motor start down the drive and turn rapidly into the lane.
At one o'clock the doctor came, and he was still there a quarter of an hour later, when Mrs. Blackburn rustled, with an anxious face, into the room. She wore a suit of grey cloth, and, with her stole and muff of silver fox, and her soft little hat of grey velvet, she made Caroline think of one of the aspen trees, in a high wind, on the lawn at The Cedars. She was all delicate, quivering gleams of silver, and even her golden hair looked dim and shadowy, under a grey veil, as if it were seen through a mist.
"Oh, Doctor, she isn't really so ill, is she?" Her eyes implored him to spare her, and while she questioned him, she flung the stole of silver fox away from her throat, as if the weight of the furs oppressed her.
"Well, you mustn't be too anxious. We are doing all we can, you know. In a day or two, I hope, we'll have got her over the worst." He was a young man, the son of Mrs. Colfax's friend, old Doctor Boland, and all his eager youth seemed to start from his eyes while he gazed at Angelica. "Beauty like that is a power," thought Caroline almost resentfully. "It hides everything – even vacancy." All the men she had seen with Mrs. Blackburn, except her husband, had gazed at her with this worshipful and protecting look; and, as she watched it shine now in Doctor Boland's eyes, she wondered cynically why David Blackburn alone should be lacking in this particular kind of chivalry. "He is the only man who looks at her as if she were a human being, not an angel," she reflected. "I wonder if he used to do it once, and if he has stopped because he has seen deeper than any of the others?"
"Then it isn't really pneumonia?" asked Angelica.
He hesitated, still trying to answer the appeal in her eyes, and to spare her the truth if it were possible.
"It looks now as if it might be, Mrs. Blackburn, but children pick up so quickly, you know." He reached out his arm as he answered, and led her to the couch in one corner. "Have you some aromatic ammonia at hand, Miss Meade? I think you might give Mrs. Blackburn a few drops of it."
Caroline measured the drops from a bottle on the table by Letty's bed. "Perhaps she had better lie down," she suggested.
"Yes, I think I'll go to my room," answered Angelica, rising from the couch, as she lifted a grateful face to the young doctor. "A shock always upsets me, and ever since Mary told me how ill Letty was, I have felt as if I couldn't breathe."
She looked really unhappy, and as Caroline met her eyes, she reproached herself for her harsh criticism of the morning. After all, Angelica couldn't help being herself. After all, she wasn't responsible for her limited intelligence and her coldness of nature! Perhaps she felt more in her heart than she was able to express, in spite of her perfect profile and her wonderful eyes. "Even her selfishness may be due to her bringing up, and the way everyone has always spoiled her," pursued the girl, with a swift reaction from her severe judgment.
When Angelica had gone out, Doctor Boland came over to the bed, and stood gazing thoughtfully down on the child, who stirred restlessly and stared up at him with bright, glassy eyes. It was plain to Caroline that he was more disturbed than he had admitted; and his grave young features looked old and drawn while he stood there in silence. He was a thickset man, with an ugly, intelligent face and alert, nearsighted eyes behind enormous glasses with tortoise-shell rims.
"If we can manage to keep her temperature down," he said, and added as if he were pursuing his original train of thought, "Mrs. Blackburn is unusually sensitive."
"She is not very strong."
"For that reason it is better not to alarm her unnecessarily. I suppose Mr. Blackburn can always be reached?"
"Oh, yes, I have his telephone number. He asked me to call him up as soon as I had seen you."
After this he gave a few professional directions, and left abruptly with the remark, "I'll look in early to-morrow. There is really nothing we can do except keep up the treatment and have as much fresh air as possible in the room. If all goes well, I hope she will have pulled through the worst by Friday – and if I were you," he hesitated and a flush rose to his sandy hair, "I should be careful how I broke any bad news to Mrs. Blackburn."
He went out, closing the door cautiously, as if he feared to make any sound in the house, while Caroline sat down to wonder what it was about Angelica that made every man, even the doctor, so anxious to spare her? "I believe his chief concern about poor Letty is that this illness disturbs her mother," she mused, without understanding. "Well, I hope his prophecy will come true, and that the worst will be over by Friday. If she isn't, it will be a blow to the entertainment committee."
But when Friday came, the child was so much worse that the doctor, when he hurried out before his office hours, looked old and grey with anxiety. At eleven o'clock Blackburn sent his car back to the garage, and came up, with a book which he did not open, to sit in Letty's room. As he entered, Angelica rose from the couch on which she had been lying, and laid her hand on his arm.
"I am so glad you have come, David. It makes me better satisfied to have you in the house."
"I am not going to the works. Mayfield is coming to take down some letters, and I shall be here all day."
"It is a comfort to know that. I couldn't close my eyes last night, so if you are going to be here, I think I'll try to rest a few minutes."
She was pale and tired, and for the first time since she had been in the house, Caroline discerned a shade of sympathy in the glances they interchanged. "What a beautiful thing it would be if Letty's illness brought them together," she thought, with a wave of happiness in the midst of her apprehension. She had read of men and women who were miraculously ennobled in the crucial moments of life, and her vivid fancy was already weaving a romantic ending to the estrangement of the Blackburns. After all, more improbable things had happened, she told herself in one of her mother's favourite phrases.
At five o'clock, when Doctor Boland came, Blackburn had gone down to his library, and Caroline, who had just slipped into a fresh uniform, was alone in the room. Her eyes were unnaturally large and dark; but she looked cool and composed, and her vitality scarcely felt the strain of the three sleepless nights. Though the second nurse came on duty at six o'clock, Caroline had been too restless and wakeful to stay in her room, and had spent the nights on the couch by the nursery window.
"If we can manage to keep up her strength through the night – "
The doctor had already looked over the chart, and he held it now in his hand while he waited for a response.
"There is a fighting chance, isn't there?"
His face was very grave, though his voice still maintained its professional cheerfulness. "With a child there is always a chance, and if she pulls through the night – "
"I shall keep my eyes on her every minute." As she spoke she moved back to Letty's bed, while the doctor went out with an abrupt nod and the words, "Mr. Blackburn wishes me to spend the night here. I'll be back after dinner."
The door had hardly closed after him, when it opened again noiselessly, and Mrs. Timberlake thrust her head through the crack. As she peered into the room, with her long sallow face and her look of mutely inviting disaster, there flashed through Caroline's mind the recollection of one of her father's freckled engravings of "Hecuba Gazing Over the Ruins of Troy."
