"I could easily economize in the house. There are many things one can do without if one only thinks so."
Most of the time she lay still thinking. She turned over and over in her mind the old days, their routine, their precepts. She tried to excuse Basil, to find some flaw in his bringing-up. But she had had exactly the same bringing-up and she had always been obedient to her parents and to the laws of society and of God. The flaw must have been in him.
She thought of Mrs. Bent as a young girl with her pretty face. She had seemed, at least, superior to her father and her station. It was not perhaps her fault that she had gone astray, and helped others to go astray. She had not had any bringing-up, poor soul, except what she had given herself. But one could not excuse her, could not look lightly upon dreadful sin! Again Mary Alcestis heard that frantic pleading in the dark on Cherry Street, saw again Basil's bending face in the light of the dim street lamp.
"It would be best to go away," said Basil distinctly.
When, at last, she tried to go downstairs, she found herself unequal to the exertion. She rose, walked about the room, and returned as quickly as possible to bed, her knees trembling, darkness before her eyes. Then, at last, she consented to have Dr. Green prescribe for her. She could lie here no longer; she must be up and about her business, which was the defending of her house and her name from disgrace.
Dr. Green came, whistling softly, up the stairs and into her room. There he let his tall figure down into an armchair. His eyes were unusually bright, his hair had just been trimmed, his clothes were, comparatively speaking, smooth. He was really, thought Mrs. Lister, rather a handsome man.
He said that her illness was merely exhaustion due to the heat. He would send her some medicine and she must stay in bed for another week. He expected to go to Baltimore for a few days and she was upon no account to stir until he got back.
"You take life far too strenuously. I dare say you are saving 'Manda all the time."
When his taking of her pulse and his somewhat perfunctory inquiry about her symptoms were over, he did not go. The room was deliciously cool after the blazing heat through which he had walked and there was even a slight breeze, blowing in between the slats of the bowed shutters and swaying the curtains gently. 'Manda came presently with a tray and a glass of lemonade and he called down the blessings of Heaven upon her in his extravagant way.
When she had gone he asked Mrs. Lister, by way of opening a pleasant and soothing conversation, whether she had read Eleanor Bent's story.