Then she sat and fed ice to Molly and tried to keep her still. It is a fearful thing to feel the close, clinging touch of a person we are shrinking from. It was a hot, drowsy afternoon. The clock on the parlour mantel ticked with maddening reiteration. It seemed hours before Dr. Ransome came. Then a moment later Celeste returned. Molly flung her arms out to the old woman.
“He’s dead, mammy,” she wailed; “Jean’s dead; the letters came after you went—and I’m afraid, I’m afraid of it, I’m afraid to die!”
It was to Celeste Molly had to tell it. The daughter listened with a sudden resentment towards Celeste.
Molly was not going to be better right at once, and Alexina and Dr. Garrard Ransome had many opportunities for talk. She stopped him in the parlour, as he was going, one morning. It had been on her mind for a long time to ask him something. “It’s odd, your name being Ransome,” she said. “Mrs. Leroy, who used to live where you do, had been a Miss Ransome.”
“She’s my cousin Charlotte,” said the young fellow; “that’s how my mother came to fancy living where we do, when we came down from Woodford to Louisville. She used to visit the Leroys there you see.”
“Oh,” said Alexina, “really? They were very good to me.”
The blue eyes of the doctor were regarding her intently, but as if thought were concentrated elsewhere. “I wonder if it was you Cousin Charlotte meant? I was down there two winters ago for a month. They live in Florida, at a place called Aden.”
“Yes,” said Alexina, “Aden.”
“And she asked me about some young girl who, she said, lived across from the cottage. Of course I didn’t know.”
“I wasn’t there then,” said Alexina; “I was at school. They were good to me; are they well—and happy?” The eagerness was good to see, so dejected had the girl seemed of late.