“Well, I think the old chap is going to pull through after all; but it was a mighty close squeak.”
Meanwhile, the messenger who had been sent out to Willow Bluff to apprise Virginia of her father’s accident returned with the information that Virginia had left the day before, to stay with friends, and could not possibly get home till next day. It was decided to telegraph for her; and in the meantime the doctors advised that Mr. Bascom be left quietly in his bed at the new “rectory,” and be moved home next day, after having recovered some of his lost strength. Mrs. Betty and Mrs. Burke took turns in watching by the invalid that night, and it might have been observed that his eyes remained closed, even when he did not sleep, while Mrs. Burke was in attendance, but that he watched Mrs. Betty with keen curiosity and wonder, from between half-closed lids, as she sat at the foot of his bed sewing, or moved about noiselessly preparing the nourishment prescribed for him by the doctors, and which the old gentleman took from her with unusual gentleness and patience.
It was Mrs. Burke who, having learned of the time when Virginia was expected to return home, drove out to Willow Bluff with Mr. Bascom, and assisted in making him comfortable there before his daughter’s 259 arrival. He volunteered no word on their way thither, but lay back among his cushions and pillows with closed eyes, pale and exhausted—though the doctors assured the Maxwells that there was no cause for anxiety on the score of his removal, when they urged that he be left in their care until he had regained more strength.
It was a white and scared Virginia who listened to Hepsey’s account of all that had happened—an account which neither over-stated the Bascoms’ debt to the Maxwells nor spared Virginia’s guilty conscience.
When she found that her father had been the guest of the Maxwells and that they had played the part of good Samaritans to him in the tent in which the Senior Warden had obliged them to take refuge, she was thoroughly mortified, and there was a struggle between false pride and proper gratitude.
“It is very awkward, is it not, Mrs. Burke?” she said. “I ought certainly to call on Mrs. Maxwell and thank her—but—under the circumstances––”
“What circumstances?” asked Hepsey.
“Well, you know, it will be very embarrassing for me to go to Mr. Maxwell’s tent after what has happened between him and—my father.”
“I’m not sure that I catch on, Virginia. Which happenin’ do you mean? Your father’s cold-blooded 260 ejection of the Maxwells from their house, or Mr. Maxwell’s warm-blooded sacrifice to save your father’s life? Perhaps it is a bit embarrassing, as you call it, to thank a man for givin’ his blood to save your father.”
“It is a more personal matter than that,” replied Virginia, gazing dramatically out of the window. “You don’t quite seem to appreciate the delicacy of the situation, Mrs. Burke.”