“Are you suffering?”
“Yes,” she murmured; “always now. I am sick. I don’t breathe well any more. It hurts in my chest all the time.”
“Why did you hide under those trees?” he asked.
“I was too sick to go any farther. I wanted to hide somewhere, to get away from it all, and anyway, till Sunday was over. It was all to be published on Sunday, you know. Everything was ruined. My voice was gone, too. I saw those steps in the dark and climbed up and crept under the trees. I was terribly tired, and it was very quiet up there. I don’t remember much more.”
As the light of another lamp flashed through the window he could not bear to look at her, but tightened his arms about her and bowed his face on her wet head.
“Oh God, dearest,” he whispered, “there can’t be any hell worse than what I’ve been in for the last two days.”
She made no response, but lay passively against him. When the carriage stopped at the Garcia gate, and he told her they were home, she made no attempt to move, and he saw she was unconscious.
He lifted her out and carried her up the steps. The door opened as he ascended and revealed the Garcia family in the aperture.
“Is she dead?” screamed young Mrs. Garcia, as she saw the limp figure in his arms.
“No, but sick. You must get a doctor at once.”