When Matthew said at supper that he would drive to the station for her trunk, she asked whether she might go with him. She saw at once that Millie wished to go, but she could not yield her place. From the drug-store she would call the hospital and talk to Miss Knowlton—why had she not thought of it this morning? She could have cried with relief. She was sorry that Millie was disappointed, but she would make it up to Millie twenty times over.
The drug-store was crowded with customers for ice-cream and soda water, all of whom were trying to speak above a strident talking machine which ground out a lively song. Only a little man of one of the plain sects seemed anxious to hear the music at the same time that he was a bit disturbed by his own pleasure. The proprietor and the customers regarded Ellen curiously, but did not recognize her. When the telephone bell rang, all looked at her and ceased speaking, believing that she was calling a lover.
The talking machine, too, was silenced and she knew that every word could be heard through the thin booth. Miss Knowlton could not come to the telephone, but a message would be given her. Ellen inquired for Lanfair and was told in the optimistic tone characteristic of hospitals that he was entirely out of danger. She opened the door of the booth weakly and paid the charge. Matthew was waiting outside and she climbed into the wagon. She would have liked to tell him everything, but that was a weakness. He had, she surmised, enough to bear.
She was conscious of an added coolness in Millie's attitude, but to her weary mind it seemed unimportant. She laid her head upon the pillow which had been hers in childhood, and before the tears were dry upon her cheeks she was asleep.
But Millie's attitude was not unimportant. Her disposition was now thoroughly established; she was worn and sour and unhappy and she found pleasure only in believing herself ill-treated. She had never forgotten that Matthew had taken Ellen to the Kloster two years ago without inviting her, and the repetition of the offense was grossly insulting. It was not he whom she blamed, but Ellen. She would have been glad to believe that Ellen was deliberately trying to "come between" them.
The next day Ellen wrote to Stephen. She said that she had gone to the house in Harrisburg and had heard from Professor Mayne about his illness and that he was better. She had then come to her brother's. She had called the hospital and had heard that he was still better. She was sorry that he had been ill. An undefined feeling restrained her from speaking of Hilda.
In a week she had an answer from Miss Knowlton. Dr. Lanfair was improving and was glad that she was with her brother—that was the best place for her to be. He would be well enough in a day or two to leave the hospital, then he and Fickes and Miss Knowlton would go to the shore. Even though it was Miss Knowlton who wrote, Ellen did not visualize him as helpless. She cried at night, but by day she went quietly about innumerable tasks. The postscript of Miss Knowlton's letter was a "Finis" at the end of a story: "We hope that you will pay us a call on your way back to college."
She grew slowly and miserably aware of the domestic volcano over which she lived. Millie believed now with all her heart that she had come to make trouble; though Ellen's help lightened her tasks by more than half and enabled her to put on flesh she made it appear constantly, by devices difficult to describe, but known to all who are compelled to associate with women of her type, that she believed the help to be unwillingly given.
For a long time Ellen did not understand the exact source of this resentment. She laid her hand as of old on Matthew's shoulder; she walked with him about the farm on Sunday afternoons; she pored with him over calculations. Most foolishly of all she tried to improve the extraordinary speech of little Matthew.
The summer was intensely warm; through July the opening of an outer door brought heat like a leaping flame into one's face, and the nights were often one long wish for morning. Ellen grew gradually accustomed to the hard labor, to the rising before dawn, to the insufferable afternoons. She shared Matthew's anxiety about the harvest; it seemed that before the wheat crop was brought in destructive storms must break.