At the end of the week Cass's condition was so serious that the Bartletts insisted on keeping the children at the farm. Myrna had proved a cheery, helpful little companion, and Edwin, while more difficult to handle, was picking up flesh and color, and was learning to run the car.
Cass's fever dragged on, going down one day only to rise higher the next. Seven weeks, eight weeks, nine weeks passed, and still no improvement.
Quin, trying to keep up his work at the factory on two or three hours' sleep out of the twenty-four, grew thin and haggard, and coughed more than at any time since he had left the hospital. During the long night vigils he made sporadic efforts to keep up his university work, but he made little headway.
"Go on to bed, Quin," Rose whispered one night, when she found him asleep with his head against the bed-post. "You'll be giving out next, and God knows what I'll do then."
"Not me!" he declared, suppressing a yawn. "You're the one that's done in. Why don't you stay down?"
"I can't," she murmured, kneeling anxiously beside the unconscious patient. "He looks worse to me to-night. Do you believe we can pull him through?"
She had on a faded pink kimono over her thin night-gown, and her heavy hair was plaited down her back. There were no chestnut puffs over her ears or pink spots on her cheeks, and her lips looked strange without their penciled cupid's bow. But to Quin there was something in her drawn white face and anxious, tender eyes that was more appealing. In their long siege together he had found a staunch dependence and a power of sacrifice in the girl that touched him deeply.
"I don't know, Rose," he admitted, reaching over and smoothing her hair; "but we'll do our darnedest."
At the touch of his hand she reached up and impulsively drew it down to her cheek, holding it there with her trembling lips against its hard palm.
The night was intensely hot and still. That afternoon they had moved Cass into Rose's room in the hope of getting more air from the western exposure; but only the hot smell of the asphalt and the stifling odor of car smoke came through the curtainless window. The gas-jet, turned very low, threw distorted shadows on the bureau with its medley of toilet articles and medicine bottles. Through the open door of the closet could be seen Rose's personal belongings; under the table were a pair of high-heeled slippers; and two white stockings made white streaks across the window-sill.