"Cherry!" he protested, heartsick to see her so.
"Was it wrong for us to love each other, Peter?" she asked, in a low tone. "I suppose it was! I suppose it was! But it never seemed as if--" she shut her eyes and shivered--"as if--THIS--would come of it!" she whispered.
"This!" he echoed, aghast.
"Oh, I think this is punishment," Cherry continued, in the same lifeless, weary tone.
There was a silence. The rain dripped and dripped from the redwoods, the room in which they stood was in twilight, even at noon. Peter could think of nothing to say.
About two weeks after the accident there was a change in the tone of the physicians who had been giving almost all their time to Martin's case. There was no visible change in Martin, but that fact in itself was so surprising that it was construed into a definite hope that he would live.
Not as he had lived, they warned his wife. It would be but a restricted life; tied to his couch, or permitted, at best, to move about within a small boundary on crutches.
"Martin!" his wife exclaimed piteously, when this was first discussed. "He has always been so strong--so independent! He would rather--he would infinitely rather be dead!" But her mind was busy grasping the possibilities, too. "He won't suffer too much?" she asked, fearfully.
They hastened to assure her that the chance of his even partial recovery was still slight, but that in case of his convalescence Martin need not necessarily suffer.
Another day or two went by, in the silent, rainwrapped house under the trees; days of quiet footsteps, and whispering, and the lisping of wood fires. Then Martin suddenly was conscious, knew his wife, languidly smiled at her, thanked the doctors for occasional ease from pain.