It must have been terrible for her—at first—never hearing from you, not knowing where you were, or what you were doing, whether you were sick or well. Of course she wanted you to be happy, but with her. It would have been a comfort to know that you were suffering as much as she was. And she couldn't know.
She had a calendar in her room. She kept tab on it of the days as they passed, beginning with the first day of the probationary year. She'd draw a line through each day—each day when she went to bed, and hoped that the day was really over. She had her bad, wicked, black, sleepless nights, too. You could always tell by how late she was in the morning. She had a child's happy faculty of being able to make up for lost sleep. Well, when the day seemed over she drew a line through it. One day the chambermaid came below stairs (it was the first we knew of it) and propounded a conundrum. "When is a day not a day?" No one could guess. So she said, "When Mrs. Fulton doesn't draw a line through it." So it seemed that the forty-ninth day of her probation had not been a passage of time. Time had stood still. Why? Well, in the afternoon Mrs. Fulton had gone as crew with a young gentleman who owned a knockabout, and they had got wet to the skin, and had won a leg on some pennant or other after a close, well-sailed race. Mrs. Fulton had come home about dark, drenched, blooming, buoyant, and chattering about the events of the afternoon. She had had her first heart-felt good time of the probationary year. For once, time had not dragged. Time had stood excitingly, exhilaratingly still. She had forgotten to scratch off the day.
Things went better after that. Twice a week, rain or shine, she was crew of the young gentleman's knockabout. Often they went for practice sails. Sometimes they took Jock and Hurry. In hot weather they wore bathing suits. The young gentleman? He was to be a Yale senior, come autumn. He rowed on the Yale crew. My! you should have seen his arms and legs—so strong and so brown, so becoming to his dark blue bathing suit. His hair was so sunburnt that it looked like molasses candy. He could stay in the water all day and fetch from the bottom anything that was thrown in for him. Sometimes he came to meals. He was very quiet and shy. He blushed a good deal. And there was a weight on his mind. He had a condition to make up—political economy. He could hold Jock and Hurry out at arm's length, one in each hand, but the weight on his mind was too much for him. Every time the Fultons mentioned it to him, he groaned. He was truly comical when he groaned. Toward autumn he began to get gloomy. Summer was over, college would open. No more sails; no more Mrs. Fulton. Below stairs one knew that he was in love with Mrs. Fulton. How? Well, when one let him out at the front door, he always drew in a sigh that he held all the way to the front gate. One waited to hear him let it out. It would have blown out a gas jet across a good-sized room. There were other ways of telling. And since the forty-ninth day that was not a day, no one had heard Mrs. Fulton crying.
He came to say good-by. One never knew just what happened. They were in the front hall. Suddenly the front door must have opened. Fulton must have come in, for suddenly one heard his laugh. It was the strangest laugh in the world, full of joy, full of laughter, and full of scorn.
He saw the young gentleman to the front gate. He clapped the young gentleman on the back, and said (the parlor maid had heard); "Don't worry! It's all right! Don't make a mountain out of a mole-hill!" and then in a different voice, "Bless you, my son!"
Then he had come back to the house still laughing, and one heard him shouting, "Where are you, Lucy? Come here! The game's up now! You must see that for yourself! Don't be a goat!"
Did she see for herself? Oh, yes. She hadn't loved the young gentleman, not really. She had liked him enough to get over you being a life and death matter to her. That was all. She had liked him enough to let him kiss her at parting. That must have been what Mr. Fulton had caught them at.
"But, Hilda," I interrupted, "why didn't he tell me that it was all over, when I saw him in New York—just before Christmas?"
"Well, they couldn't know how you felt, could they? Maybe he wanted you to have your full year. Maybe he thought you'd fall down as she had, and that she'd hear of it and that it would be a lesson to her. How should I know?"
She told me more. The very night of the young gentleman's departure, late, a telegram had come to Mr. Fulton. She, Hilda, had gone down to the front door, signed for the telegram, and carried it to Mr. Fulton's room. He did not answer to her first light knock; nor to a first or second loud knock. She pushed the door open. The room was full of moonlight. Mr. Fulton's bed was empty. It had not been slept in.