"Rose, my sweet," she said, her voice a song of love and tenderness, "would you think me deserting you, if I went to New York to-morrow?"
Rosamund half divined something of her meaning; she took Eleanor's face between her palms, looking into the eyes that were glowing as she had never seen them.
"Eleanor!" she cried.
Mother Cary gave a low laugh of delight. "Here, Timmy," she said, "you come with Ma Cary an' see what I got in the pantry!"
XXIII
During the first week of Ogilvie's illness Rosamund went once or twice to the house at the Summit where he lay. Doctor Blake had heard the story of the fire, and in the deliberate courtesy of his manner Rosamund suspected a veiled distrust; she imagined that he was wondering, whenever he looked at her, what manner of woman it was for whom Ogilvie had risked his life, and whether she were worthy of his possible sacrifice. She told herself that she would have felt the same, in his place; while, in her humility, she secretly reiterated her own unworthiness. But she knew herself guiltless of actual blame or wrong-doing, and found it hard to endure Doctor Blake's scrutiny, which seemed both to accuse and weigh and find wanting. Yet even that was easier to bear than the tolerant manner of the young woman in the white dress and coquettish cap, who came out of Ogilvie's room to assure her, with the tolerant air that seems to be an attribute of street-car conductors, policemen and trained nurses, that there was really no immediate prospect of change in the patient's condition, as pneumonia had to run its definite course.
For all the longing of her heart, and for all the courage with which she started out, Rosamund allowed herself to be snubbed into retreat. Mother Cary alone braved the authoritative one whenever she pleased, or whenever Pap would take her across the valley; and it was on the ninth night after the fire that she did what Rosamund and Ogilvie always declared to be the most merciful and courageous act of all her beautiful life.
"Now," she said, after supper, when Pap had gone out to the barn to harness the horse for his nightly pilgrimage, "Now, honey, this bein' the night when he'll come to, or—when he'll come to, surely—don't you think he ain't goin' to come to, 'cause he is—and you're goin' over with Pap to be there!"
Rosamund rose from her place beside the table, her hands clasped against her heart, pale, then flushed, then pale again.