"Oh, mamma, are you letting yourself brood over these things? Surely it is not wise? Let me put them away."
But Mrs. Franklin, gathering her poor treasures from Genevieve's touch, placed them herself in her secretary, which she locked. Then she began to walk to and fro across the broad room—to and fro, to and fro, her step feverishly quick.
After a minute, Genevieve followed her. "Mamma, try to be resigned. Try to be calm."
Mrs. Franklin stopped. She faced round upon her daughter-in-law. "You dare to offer advice to me, you barren woman? You tell me to be resigned? What do you know of a mother's love for her son—you who have never borne a child? You can comprehend neither my love nor my grief. Providential, is it, that you reached Raleigh in time? Providence is a strange thing if it assists you. For you have killed your husband—killed him as certainly as though you had given him slow poison. You broke up his life—the only life he loved; you never rested until you had forced him out of the navy. And then, your greed for money made you urge him incessantly to go into business—into business for himself, which he knew nothing about. You gave him no peace; you drove him on; your determination to have all the things you care for—a house of your own and a garden; chairs and tables; handsome clothes; money for charities" (impossible to describe the bitterness of this last phrase)—"these have been far more important to you than anything else—than his own happiness, or his own welfare. And, lately, your process of murder has gone on faster. For he has been very ill all winter (I know it now!) and you have not been near him; you have stayed here month after month, buying land with Ruth's money, filling your pockets and telling him nothing of it, adding to your house, and saying to yourself comfortably meanwhile that this wise course of yours would in the end bring him round to your views. It has brought him round—to his death! His life for years has been wretched, and you were the cause of the misery. For it was his feeling of being out of his place, his gradual discouragement, his sense of failure, that finally broke down his health. If he had never seen you, he might have lived to be an old man, filling with honor the position he was fitted for. Now, at thirty-nine, he is dead. He was faithful to you, you say? He was. And it is my greatest regret! I do not wish ever to see your face again. For he was the joy of my life, and you were the curse of his. Go!"
These sentences, poured out in clear, vibrating tones, had filled Genevieve with horror. And something that was almost fear followed as the mother, coming nearer, her eyes blazing in her death-like face, emphasized her last words by stretching out her arm with a gesture that was fiercely grand—the grandeur of her bereavement and her despair.
Genevieve escaped to the hall. Then, after waiting for a moment uncertainly, she hurried home.
When the sound of her footsteps had died away, Mrs. Franklin went to the secretary and took out again the dress and the top, the little shoes and the baby-curls; seating herself, she began to rearrange them. But her hands only moved for a moment or two. Then her head sank back, her eyes closed.
CHAPTER XVII
AS it happened, Horace Chase was the next person who entered the parlor. He was touched when he saw the old-looking figure, with the pathetic little heap in its lap. But when he perceived that the figure was unconscious, he was much alarmed; summoning help, he sent hastily for a doctor. After being removed to her own room, Mrs. Franklin was extremely restless; she moved her head incessantly from side to side on the pillow, and she seemed to be half blind; her mind wandered, and her voice, as she spoke incoherently, was very weak. Then suddenly she sank into a lethargic slumber. The doctor waited to see in what condition she would waken; for there were symptoms he did not like. Miss Billy, meanwhile, was installed as nurse.
Mrs. Kip, Maud Muriel, and Miss Billy had visited this house of mourning many times since the arrival of the funeral procession two days before, with the mother walking beside the coffin of her son. And now that this poor mother was stricken down, they all came again, anxious to be of use. Chase, who had always liked her gentle ways, selected Miss Billy.