University of Virginia Library

34. CHAPTER XXXIV.
IN RICHARD'S ROOM.

RICHARD had been sick for a week or more. As
is frequently the case, the baths did not agree
with him at first, and Mrs. Pry reported to Ethelyn
that the Governor was confined to his bed, and saw no

one but the doctor and nurses, not even “that bold Miss
Owens, who had been to Geneva for a bouquet, which she
sent to his room with her compliments.” This Mrs. Pry
knew to be a fact, and she repeated the story to Ethelyn,
who scarcely heard what she was saying for the many emotions
swelling at her heart. That Richard should be sick
so near to her, his wife,—that other hands than hers should
tend his pillow and minister to his wants,—did not seem
right; and when she recalled the love and tender care
which had been so manifest the time when he came home
from Washington and found her so ill, the wish grew strong
within her to do something for him. But what to do,—
that was the perplexing question. She dared not go openly
to him, until assured that she was wanted; and so there
was nothing left but to imitate Miss Owens and adorn his
room with flowers. Surely she had a right to do so much,
and still her cheek crimsoned like some young girl's as she
gathered the choicest flowers the little town afforded, and
arranging them into a most tasteful bouquet, sent them in
to Richard, vaguely hoping that at least in the cluster of
double pinks which had been Richard's favorite, there
might be hidden some mesmeric power or psychological influence
which should speak to the sick man of the wayward
Ethie who had troubled him so much.

Richard was sitting up in bed when Mary brought the
bouquet, saying “Miss Bigelow sent it, thinking it might
cheer him a bit. Should she put it in the tumbler near
Miss Owens'?”

Richard took it in his hand, and an exclamation of
delight escaped him as he saw and smelled the fragrant
pinks, whose perfume carried him first to Olney and Andy's
weedy beds in the front yard, and then to Chicopee, where,

in Aunt Barbara's pretty garden, a large plat of them had
been growing when he went after his bride. A high wind
had blown them down upon the walk, and he had come
upon Ethie one day trying to tie them up. He had plucked
a few, he remembered, telling Ethie they were his favorites
for perfume, while the red peony was his favorite for
beauty. There had been a comical gleam in her brown
eyes which he now knew was born of contempt for his
taste with regard to flowers. Red peonies were not the
rarest of blossoms,—Melinda had taught him that when he
suggested having them in his conservatory; but surely no
one could object to these waxen, feathery pinks, whose
odor was so delicious. Miss Bigelow liked them, else she
had never sent them to him. And he kept the bouquet in
his hand, admiring its arrangement, inhaling the sweet perfume
of the delicate pinks and heliotrope, and speculating
upon the kind of person Miss Bigelow must be to have
thought so much of him. He could account for Miss
Owens' gift,—the hot-house blossoms, which had not moved
him one-half so much as did this bunch of pinks. Miss
Owens had known him before,—had met him in Washington;
he had been polite to her on one or two occasions,
and it was natural that she should wish to be civil, at least
while he was sick. But the lady in No. 101,—the Miss
Bigelow for whom he had discarded boots and trodden on
tiptoe half the time since his arrival,—why she should care
for him he could not guess; and finally deciding that it was
a part of Clifton, where everbody was so kind, he put the
bouquet in the tumbler Mary brought and placed it on the
stand beside him. He was very restless that night, and
Ethie heard the watchman at his door asking if he wanted
anything.

“Nothing,” was the reply, and the voice, heard distinctly
in the stillness of the night, was so faint and sad that Ethie
hid her face in her pillow and sobbed, while the intense
longing to see him grew so strong within her that by morning
her resolution was taken to risk everything for the sake
of looking upon him again.

He did not require an attendant at night,—he preferred
being alone, she had ascertained; and she knew that his
door was constantly left open for the admission of fresher
air. The watchman only came into the hall once an hour
or thereabouts, and while Richard slept it would be comparatively
easy for her to steal into his room. Fortune
seemed to favor her, for when at nine the doctor, as usual,
came up to pay his round of visits, she heard him say, “I
will leave you something which never fails to make one
sleep,” and after two hours had passed she knew by the
regular breathing which, standing on the threshold of her
room, she could distinctly hear, that Richard was sleeping
soundly. The watchman had just made the tour of that
hall, and the faint glimmer of his lantern was disappearing
down the stairs. It would be an hour before he came
again, and now, if ever, was her time. There was a great
throb of fear at her heart, a choking sensation in her throat,
a shrinking back from what might probably be the result
of that midnight visit; and then, nerving herself for the
effort, she stepped out into the hall and listened. Everything
was quiet, and every room was darkened, save by the
moon, which at its full was pouring a flood of light through
the southern window at the end of the hall, and seemed to
beckon her on. She was standing now at Richard's door,
and she made no noise as she stepped cautiously across the
threshold and stood within the chamber. The window

faced the east, and the inside blinds were opened, while the
moonlight lay upon the floor in a great sheet of silver, and
showed her plainly the form and features of the sick man
upon the bed. She knew he was asleep, and with a beating
heart she drew near to him, and stood for a moment
looking upon the face she had not seen since that wintry
morning five years before, when, in the dim twilight, it had
bent over her, as if the lips would fain have asked forgiveness
for the angry words and deeds of the previous night.
The face was pale now, and thin, and the soft, brown hair
was streaked with gray, making Richard look older than he
was. He had suffered, and the suffering had left its marks
upon him so indisputably that Ethie could have cried out
with pain to see how changed he was.

“Poor Richard,” she whispered, softly, and kneeling by
the bedside she laid her hot cheek as near as she dared to
the white, wasted hand resting outside the counterpane.

She did not think what the result of waking him
might be. She did not especially care. She was his wife,
let what would happen,—his crring, but repentant Ethie.
She had a right to be there with him, and so at last she
took his hand between her own, and caressed it tenderly.
Then Richard moved, and moaning in his sleep seemed
to have a vague consciousness that some one was with
him; but the slumber into which he had fallen was too
deep to be easily broken. Something he murmured about
the medicine, and Ethie's hand held it to his lips, and
Ethie's arm was passed beneath his pillow as she lifted
up his head while he swallowed it. Then, without unclosing
his eyes, he lay back again upon his pillow, while Ethie
stood over him until the glimmer of the watchman's lamp
passed down the hall a second time, and disappeared

around the corner. The watchman had stopped at Richard's
door to listen, and Ethie had experienced a spasm of terror
at the possibility of being discovered; but with the receding
footsteps her fears left her, and she waited a half hour longer,
hoping that he might waken and recognize her. But
Richard did not waken, and at last, with a noiseless step,
she glided back to her chamber. She had decided to
write to her husband and take the consequences, and
all the next morning her door was locked while she
wrote to Richard a long, humble letter, in which all
the blame was taken upon herself, inasmuch as she had
made the great mistake of marrying without love. “But
I do love you now, Richard,” she said; “love you truly,
too, else I should never be writing this to you, and asking
you to take me back and let me try to make you
happy.”

It was a good deal for Ethie to confess that she had
been so much in fault; but she did it honestly, and when
the letter was finished she felt as if all that had been
wrong and bitter in the past was swept away, and a
new era in her life had begun. She would wait till
night, she said,—wait till all was again quiet in the hall
and in the sick-room, and when the boy came around
with the mail, as he was sure to do, she would hand
her letter to him, and bid him leave it in Governor
Markham's room. The rest she could not picture to
herself; but she waited impatiently for the long August
day to draw to its close, and joined the guests in the
parlor by way of passing the time, and appeared so
bright and gay that those who had thought her proud,
and cold, and reticent, wondered at the brightness of
her face and the glad, eager expression of her eyes. She

was pretty, after all, they thought, and even Miss Owens,
from New York, tried to be very gracious, and spoke
to her of Governor Markham, whose room adjoined hers,
and asked if she had seen him. Ethie did not care
to talk of him, and, making some excuse to get away,
left the room without hearing a whisper of the story
which was going the rounds of the Cure, and which
Miss Owens was desirous of communicating to some one
who, like herself, would be likely to believe it a falsehood.