"I will send Helen at once," replied the physician. He felt that he had offered his subtlest and most artistic prescription. More than most wives are valued, Dr. Thorne loved his.
But as he went downstairs a black frown caught him between the brows.
In the course of an hour he managed to dispatch a messenger to the court-house. Sixty patients clamored for him, but he wrote the note twice over, sitting in his buggy, before he sent the third copy:—
DEAR AVERY,—Your wife has suffered one of the attacks whose nature I explained to you some time ago. I found her condition serious, indicating a marked weakness of the heart. I consider that she had a narrow escape. You would not forgive me if I did not tell you, that you may govern your movements accordingly.
Yours as ever,
ESMERALD THORNE.
Jean Avery lay with closed eyes, quite still, and smiling tranquilly. Only the invalid mistress of a home knows how to value the presence of another lady in a household where children and servants fill the foreground, and where, as Dr. Thorne once put it, "every care as fast as it arises is taken to the bedside of the patient." The ever-womanly arrived with Mrs. Thorne. In the repose which came with her coming, and did not go with her going, the sick woman lay sheltered for the remainder of the day. Her face, her voice, her motions, expressed the touching gratitude of one who has long since learned not to look beyond the bounty of temporary relief. Mrs. Thorne noted this; she noticed everything.
The telephone called towards noon, ringing rapidly and impatiently—operators, like horses, were always nervous under Marshall Avery's driving; and when an anxious message from the court-house reached the wife, she said, "Dear Helen!" as if it had been Helen's doing. And when they told her that Mr. Avery asked how she was, and would get home by mid-afternoon, and at any moment if she needed him, and would not leave her again that day, and that he sent his love to her and begged her to be careful for his sake, her breath fell so short with pleasure that they took fright for her.
"My husband is so kind to me!" she panted. Then her color came—a tidal wave, and her pulse, which had been staggering, fell into step and began to march strongly.
"But this is a miracle!" cried the doctor's wife.
"Love is always a miracle," Jean Avery said. Then she asked to have her hair arranged, and wanted an afternoon dress, and lace, and would have a bracelet that her husband gave her, and the turquoise pin he liked, and begged to be told that she looked quite well again, for "Marshall hates to see me ill!"