With his hand in Harriet’s the Major followed to the end.
Nor was he going to die. There was deeper knowledge of life yet for the woman by him to learn.
Afterward, Doctor Ransome drove Alexina home in his buggy, where she and the voluble, excited Katy packed some things for Harriet.
“And Miss Harriet never to let us hear a word, and Maggie and me never closing our eyes all the night, Miss Alexina,” Katy said.
And Harriet Blair a person usually so observant and punctilious about everything!
“And Mr. Blair, he asked where you were, Miss Harriet and you, when he came, and then he dressed and went to the party he was going to take you to, as if nothing had happened. And the Father came this morning and talked, but Mr. Blair hardly said a word, and when they left the priest went one way and Mr. Blair he went the other.”
Doctor Ransome came in his buggy and took Alexina back. On reaching the infirmary they found that Major Rathbone’s sister from Bardstown, who had been sent for, had arrived. Alexina had not known that he had a sister until she found her in the room next to the Major’s, with Harriet.
She was childlike and small and was looking at Harriet, helpless and frightened. She was, it proved, twenty-three years old, and a widow with two children.
“And Stevie takes care of us,” she explained. “Stevie” was the Major; “us” was herself and the babies.
She had brought both the babies. “I couldn’t leave them and come, you know,” she said.