"I fear you are forgetting who I am," said she coldly.
"Oh, I know you're his mother, and all that," said Lutie, breathlessly. "I do not question your right to be with your son. That isn't the point. The nurse has ordered your daughter and me out of the room for awhile. It is the first wink of sleep he has had in heaven knows how long. So you cannot go in and disturb him, Mrs. Tresslyn."
Mrs. Tresslyn's hand fell away from the knob. For a moment she regarded the tense, agitated girl in silence.
"Has it occurred to you to feel—if you can feel at all—that you may not be wanted here, Miss Carnahan?" she said, deliberately cruel. She towered above her adversary.
"Will you be kind enough to come away from the door?" said Lutie, wholly unimpressed. "It isn't very thick, and the sound of voices may penetrate—"
"Upon my soul!" exclaimed Mrs. Tresslyn, staring. "Do you presume to—"
"Not quite so loud, if you please. Come over here if you want to talk to me, Mrs. Tresslyn. Nurse's orders, not mine. I don't in the least mind what you say to me, or what you call me, or anything, but I do entreat you to think of George."
Greatly to her own surprise, Mrs. Tresslyn moved away from the door, and, blaming herself inwardly for the physical treachery that impelled her to do so, sat down abruptly in a chair on the opposite side of the room, quite as far removed from the door as even Lutie could have desired.
Lutie did not sit down. She came over and stood before the woman who had once driven her out. Her face was white and her eyes were heavy from loss of sleep, but her voice was as clear and sharp as a bell.
"We may as well understand each other, Mrs. Tresslyn," she said quietly. "Or, perhaps I'd better say that you may as well understand me. I still believe myself to be George's wife. A South Dakota divorce may be all right so far as the law is concerned, but it will not amount to that"—she snapped her fingers—"when George and I conclude to set it aside. I went out to that God-forsaken little town and stayed there for nearly a year, eating my heart out until I realised that it wasn't at all appetising. I lived up to my bargain, however. I made it my place of residence and I got my decree. I tore that hateful piece of paper up last night before I came here. You paid me thirty thousand dollars to give George up, and he allowed you to do it. Now I have just this to say, Mrs. Tresslyn: if George gets well, and I pray to God that he may, I am going back to him, and I don't care whether we go through the form of marrying all over again or not. He is my husband. I am his wife. There never was an honest cause for divorce in our case. He wasn't as brave as I'd have liked him to be in those days, but neither was I. If I had been as brave as I am now, George wouldn't be lying in there a wreck and a failure. You may take it into your head to ask why I am here. Well, now you know. I'm here to take care of my husband."