It was nearly dark when Lloyd awoke. Some one was tapping at the door. Before she could find her voice to say Come in, Mrs. Walton was standing beside her. It was as if a burst of sunshine had suddenly brightened the dull November twilight. Lloyd started to scramble up, but Mrs. Walton insisted on her lying still. Sitting down on the side of the bed, she began stroking her hot forehead with soft, motherly touches.
"I had a conversation with Doctor Wells over the telephone about that affair in the paper," she began. "He told me what a state you were in about it, so I immediately wrote to your mother a full explanation and sent it off on the two o'clock train, stamped 'special delivery.' She'll get it as soon as the paper, so put your mind at rest on that point. Now I've come over to tell you something I found out about you the other day. You don't even know it yourself. You'll be surprised and glad, I'm sure. It's quite a story, so I shall have to begin it like one.
"One blustery day last week an old farmer stopped at Clovercroft and asked to see Miss Katherine. It proved to be Magnolia Budine's father. He had been there once before with a crock of apple-butter, which he brought as a sort of thank-offering to Katherine because she had made Magnolia so happy about the costume and the picture she took of her in it.
"Katherine said he would have made a striking picture himself as he stood there with his slouched hat pulled over his ears, a blue woollen muffler wound around his neck, and an enormous bronze turkey gobbler in his arms. He wouldn't go in at first, but finally stepped inside out of the wind, still holding the turkey in his arms.
"It seems that there is a man living on his place who used to be an old neighbour of the Budines when they lived near Loretta. This man has been unable to work for some time, and is occupying the cabin free of rent. He has a daughter about sixteen who is very ill. She is Magnolia's best friend, and the child was afraid that Roney, as he called her, was going to die. She wanted her picture above all things, and anything that Magnolia wants the old fellow evidently makes an effort to get for her. He seems completely wrapped up in her. So there he stood with his best bronze gobbler in his arms and tears in his eyes, wanting to know of Katherine if it would be a sufficient inducement for her to drive over with him and take the sick girl's picture.
"She told him she never took pictures for pay, and said she would be glad to do it for nothing if it were not such a bleak day that she was afraid to ride so far in the cold. He was greatly distressed at his failure to persuade her to go, for he was afraid that Roney might die before the weather changed, and then his little girl would be so grieved that she would never get over it. Katherine was so touched by the old fellow's disappointment that she relented, and told him she would risk the cold if I would be willing to go with her. They came by for me, and I went.
"Oh, Lloyd, I wish you could have seen that poor, bare room where Roney was lying. It was clean, but so pitifully bare of all that is bright and comfortable. I looked around and saw not a picture except an unframed chromo tacked over the mantel, till my eyes happened to rest on the old wooden clock. There behind its glass door, swinging back and forth on the pendulum, was your picture; the Princess with the dove."
Lloyd raised herself on one elbow. "My pictuah!" she cried, in astonishment. "How did it get there?"
"That is what I couldn't help asking Roney. I wish you could have seen her face light up as she looked at it. 'That's my Princess, Mrs. Walton,' she said. 'Magnolia gave it to me. You don't know how she has helped me through the long days and nights. Of course I can't see her in the dark, but every time the clock ticks I know she is swinging away there, saying, "For love—will find—a way."'
"I found that Roney's case is one for the King's Daughters to take in hand. She has a small annuity left her by her mother's family; that is all her father and she have to live on. That will stop at her death, and it is her one anxiety that in spite of all her pain she may hang on to life in order that her father may be provided for. The King's Daughters sent for a specialist to come out and examine her. He says she can be cured, so next week we are to move her into Louisville to a hospital for treatment.