"There is only one hope. The doctor means to try a transfusion of blood. I don't know from whom. We have all offered."
"Oh, Jean," Jack's voice shook, "I am the one person who will be best. I am stronger than any one else and Peace has always responded to my vitality. Yet if I am chosen I can't go to Jim."
"The choice is pretty hard, Jack. If you can not go Olive and Captain MacDonnell and I will. And some one will come back with the news as soon as possible. Yet you may not be the one."
However, as Jean Merritt looked at her cousin she had little doubt. In spite of the fatigue and chagrin of the day before, even of her anxious night, Jack walked with the swinging grace of perfect health and poise. At this moment of dreadful double anxiety, harder upon her than any one save Frieda, she was for the time when the need was greatest, perfectly self-controlled. No one had ever seen Jack break down until the moment for action had passed.
"It is because I have been so unkind to you, Jack darling, this is my punishment," Frieda confessed brokenly, meeting her sister outside Peace's door. "But I have wanted to make up more times than you can dream, only I am so dreadfully spoiled and do so hate to give in, and I have despised your running for a public office chiefly I suppose because I realized it would separate us. Peace won't know you."
Two hours later Frieda and Jack were in Frieda's bedroom, Jack undressed and in a loose white wrapper, her hair braided in two heavy braids.
"Now you must not be a goose, Frieda, dear," she expostulated. "I am not in the least danger from the blood transfusion, as the doctor has just told you. I may be laid up for a little while afterwards, perhaps not long. And there are many chances that Peace will get better at once. You know how glad I am of the opportunity to help. What is the use of being a healthy person if one cannot be useful."
"But, Jack, you may be more exhausted than you dream. You may be forced to give up your political work for several weeks. And Henry said only yesterday that these were the most important weeks of all, if you are to be elected. At the very last people will probably have made up their minds one way or the other."
"Oh, well, perhaps the question of my election is not so important to me as you may think, Frieda. In any case it does not count the tiniest little bit in comparison with either you or Peace, now that you actually need me. When I accepted the nomination for Congress I did not know that anybody needed me especially except Jimmie. I thought perhaps I was freer than most women."
Jack was talking to distract Frieda, who had not been told of Jim Colter's injury and so did not realize the extent of the sacrifice her sister was making.