"Why, I don't know," the doctor confessed blankly; "she didn't say, and it never occurred to me to ask; and—"
"Well, upon my word!" said Martha King.
CHAPTER XXI
Helena stood breathing quickly; it was as if she had been smothering, and suddenly felt free air. She was alone. The people—the terrible, persistently friendly, suffocating people, were gone! She could draw a full breath; she could face her own blazing fact; … Frederick was dead.
She was walking back and forth, staring with unseeing eyes at the confusion of the room—chairs pulled out from their accustomed places; two card-tables with a litter of cards and counters; the astral-lamp burning low on the rosewood table that was cluttered with old daguerreotypes belonging to the house. The dining-room door was ajar, and as she passed it she had a glimpse of the empty disorder of the room, and could hear her two women moving about, carrying off plates and glasses and talking to each other.
"Well, I like company," she heard Sarah say. "I wish she'd have somebody in every day."
And Maggie's harsh murmur: "You ain't got to cook for 'em." Then the clatter of forks and spoons in the pantry.
"Seemed to me like as if she wasn't real glad to see 'em," Sarah commented. "My! look at all this here good cake crumbled up on somebody's plate."
"Well, a widow woman don't enjoy company," Maggie explained.
A minute later Sarah came bustling in to close the parlor windows for the night, and started to find the room still occupied. "I thought you had gone upstairs, ma'am," the girl stammered, wondering nervously if she had said anything that she would not care to have overheard.