Frances went away assured, and stole softly up the stairs. The sun was just under the hill; Mrs. Chadron would be stirring soon. Nola was up already, Frances heard with surprise as she passed her door, moving about her room with quick step. She hesitated there a moment, thinking to turn back and ask Mrs. Mathews to deny her the hospital room. But such a request would seem strange, and it would be difficult to explain. She passed on into the room that she had lately occupied. Soothed by her great confidence in Mrs. Mathews, she fell asleep, her last waking hope being that when she stood before Alan Macdonald’s couch again it would be to see him smile.
Frances woke toward the decline of day, with upbraidings for having yielded to nature’s ministrations for so long. Still, everything must be progressing well with Alan Macdonald, or Mrs. Mathews would have called her. She regretted that she hadn’t something to put on besides her torn and soiled riding habit to cheer him with the sight of when he should open his eyes to smile.
Anxious as she was, and fast as her heart fluttered, she took time to arrange her hair in the way that she liked it best. It seemed warrant to her that he 283 must find her handsomer for that. People argue that way, men in their gravity as well as women in their frivolity, each believing that his own appraisement of himself is the incontestable test, none rightly understanding how ridiculous pet foibles frequently make us all.
But there was nothing ridiculous in the coil of serene brown hair drawn low against a white neck, nor in the ripples of it at the temples, nor in the stately seriousness of the face that it shadowed and adorned. Frances Landcraft was right, among thousands who were wrong in her generation, in her opinion of what made her fairer in the eyes of men.
Her hand was on the door when a soft little step, like a wind in grass, came quickly along the hall, and a light hand struck a signal on the panel. Frances knew that it was Mrs. Mathews before she flung the door open and disclosed her. She was dressed to take the road again, and Frances drew back when she saw that, her blood falling away from her heart. She believed that he stood in need of her gentle ministrations no longer, and that she had come to tell her that he was dead.
Mrs. Mathews read her thought in her face, and shook her head with an assuring smile. She entered the room, still silent, and closed the door.
“No, he is far from dead,” she said.
“Then why—why are you leaving?”
“The little lady of the ranch has stepped into my 284 place—but you need not be afraid for yours.” Mrs. Mathews smiled again as she said that. “He asked for you with his first word, and he knows just how matters stand.”
The color swept back over Frances’ face, and ran down to hide in her bosom, like a secret which the world was not to see. Her heart leaped to hear that Maggie had been wrong in her application of the rule that applies to men in general when death is blowing its breath in their faces.