A shiver passed through her, and Richard De Jarnette leaning over tucked the robe around her without speaking. Only once did he open his lips after that. Then, as if urged by the impetus of some kindred fear, he leaned forward and spoke to the coachman:
"Drive faster."
Mammy Cely met them at the door and took Margaret to her room, while Mr. De Jarnette went directly to Philip. He was possessed of a wild fear that the child might be dead when they got there. He wondered a little at Margaret's delay. Why did she not go directly to him? He understood it five minutes later when she came quietly in clothed in her sick-room garb. This was no visit. She had come to stay. He marveled to see her quiet contained manner. As she came in he moved instinctively toward the door, feeling himself an intruder in his own house. There seemed almost profanation in his witnessing the meeting between the two he had separated. But he did not go soon enough to miss Philip's glad cry, "Mama! oh, mama!" Nor Margaret's soothing answer, which was cheery as well, "Yes, dearest. Mama's come to stay now. There!... there!... Mama knows."
He closed the door softly behind him.
When Dr. Anderson and the night nurse got there Margaret was in control.
"I can hardly see any necessity for her staying," she said, when after the doctor's examination she had followed him down to the library where Richard was, for consultation. "With one thoroughly competent nurse to direct things and see that everything is right I would rather not have the other one around. I shall be with him all the time any way."
"With the second nurse here that will not be necessary," urged Mr. De Jarnette. "It is desirable to have you here, but between them they can do all the nursing and save you. That is why I got this second one."
"You have done all that money can do," Margaret said coldly, "but there are some things money cannot do. One of them is to fill a mother's place at a sick child's bed. I shall stay in Philip's room at night whether they wish it or not. I shall not leave him to the nurses, and they may as well understand it."
"I only meant to relieve her, if possible," explained Mr. De Jarnette to the doctor when she was gone.
"You can't very well relieve a mother when her child is sick, Mr. De Jarnette," the doctor said rather dryly. "It is in giving, not in saving herself that she finds comfort. Let her have her own way."