Frequently these panics occurred at night, when she suddenly found herself awake in the black loneliness, remembering Channing. Then she would jump out of bed and run into her husband's room, a distraught, white ghost of a figure, and climb in beside him to hide her head in the ready refuge of his shoulder.
"Nightmares again?" he would ask.
And she, nodding, buried her head deeper, while he held her close and silent until her shuddering ceased, and he knew by her light breathing that she was asleep there in his arms.
Perhaps it was a comforting that worked both ways, for Philip sometimes had nightmares of his own.
One day Jacqueline, after lunch with her mother, was glancing over the numerous magazines that littered the reading-table, when she came across something which riveted her attention. Kate, getting no answer to a twice-repeated question, looked over her shoulder to see what she was reading. On the front page she saw a picture of Percival Channing, with a notice of his new book, just published.
"He finished it without me after all, you see," said Jacqueline faintly. "He—he said he couldn't."
Kate made no comment. The mention of Channing always embarrassed her quite as much as it did Jacqueline. Her duplicity in the matter of his disappearance weighed heavily on her conscience, and she longed for the time to come when she could make full confession and be absolved. She wondered if the time had come already, since Jacqueline spoke of him of her own accord.
"I suppose I ought to be proud to have helped at all with such a book as that," went on the girl, haltingly. "It says here it is the greatest book he has ever written.—And I'm in it, Mother. It's a great honor, isn't it?"
"It's a great impertinence," exclaimed Kate.
Jacqueline flushed. "Mummy, dear, you've never been quite fair to Mr. Channing, and—it's not like you. If you realized how much I—I cared for him, you would be fairer.—Mother, I want to tell you something, now that it's all done and over."