“I’ll take you at your word,” she answered.
“Good. Now sit down and toast your toes before this blaze. By Jove, is there anything like blazing logs and soft lamplight? They spell h-o-m-e, don’t they?” and Hadyn glanced around the cosy room as though to him, at least, it held the sweetest elements of home a man could ask for.
Softly the little clock ticked the moments and hours away as they sat there together, talking over a hundred little happenings of the past years, now and then glancing over to the Bee-hive. But all was quiet. A dim light shone in Mammy’s bedroom, and in the Bee-hive Jean’s shaded electric light cast a faint halo upon the snow which continued to whirl by the window, although the wind had died down a little and the storm seemed less violent. Shortly after ten Constance went out to the kitchen to see that the storm-bound maids were comfortable. Cots had been placed in the laundry for them, and they were probably far better off than they would have been in their own home.
“Now, are you sure you will be comfortable?” she asked Hadyn when she returned to the library. He glanced about the room, at the cheerful fire and the divan, with its numberless pillows, and smiled significantly. “Only trouble is, I may be too comfortable,” he said. “But you need not worry,” as a slight shade of doubt crossed Constance’s face. “I won’t go to the Land o’ Nod. But you must, so good-night, little girl. Go on upstairs and sleep well. I know just what that room looks like; I shall never forget the night you gave it up to me. If I had known it a little sooner, I should not have let you do so, although the memory of it has been one of the sweetest ones of my life. Good-night.”
“Good-night, Hadyn, and—thank you a thousand times.”
If Haydn held the slender fingers an extra moment, and looked earnestly into the beautiful eyes raised to his, he was hardly to be blamed.
Turning to the book shelves, he selected a book and went back to his chair before the fire. Eleven and twelve were struck by the clock on the mantle shelf, but all was quiet in the little cottage at the foot of the garden. Then came three single strokes in succession; twelve-thirty, one, one-thirty. Hadyn remembered no more. His wild struggle through the storm earlier in the evening, the silent house, the warmth, the luxurious depth of the Morris chair had all conspired against his resolutions, and three o’clock was striking when he started wide awake with a sense of calamity at hand and the deepest contrition in his heart—an hour and a half blotted out as though they had never been!
[CHAPTER XII—Of the Shadow.]
As the night wore on, Mrs. Carruth and Mammy grew more and more anxious for their patient. The severe weather told upon him in spite of the even temperature of the cottage, and he suffered as a man upon the rack. With the intense pain came higher temperature, and by one o’clock Mrs. Carruth began to see that further medical advice was imperative; something more than they could do must be done for Charles, for he could not endure such torture for many more hours. Furthermore, his breathing had become very labored, and Mrs. Carruth feared the worst from that symptom. Without saying anything to Mammy she slipped noiselessly into the Bee-hive, meaning to ’phone to Dr. Black. In that little sanctum all was snug and quiet. Noiselessly removing the receiver, she tried to call up central. There was no response, and a shadow fell across her face. Then she tried her own home, but without result; the storm had completely disorganized the entire service. She was sorely troubled and about to slip back to Charles, when Jean’s face appeared at the top of the stairway, and she called softly:
“Mother, is Charles worse?”