“I may have to give up almost any day now,” he said, with an odd sigh, half of misery, half of relief.
“Does Ida know?” asked Maria.
“No, dear, she does not suspect. I thought there was no need of distressing her. I wanted to tell you while I was able, because—” Harry hesitated, then he continued: “Father wanted to tell you how sorry he was not to make any better provision for you,” he said, pitifully. “He didn't want you to think it was because he cared any the less for you. But—soon after I married Ida—well, I realized how helpless she would be, especially after Evelyn was born, and I had my life insured for her benefit. A few years after I tried to get a second policy for your benefit, but it was too late. Father hasn't been well for quite a long time.”
“I hope you don't think I care about any money,” Maria cried, with sudden passion. “I can take care of myself. It is you I think of.” Maria began to weep, then restrained herself, but she looked accusingly and distressedly at her father.
“I had to settle the house on her, too,” said Harry, painfully. “But I felt sure at the time—she said so—that you would always have your home here.”
“That is all right, father,” said Maria.
“All father can do for his first little girl, the one he loves best of all,” said Harry, “is to leave her a little sum he has saved and put in the savings-bank here in her name. It is not much, dear.”
“It is more than I want. I don't want anything. All I want is you!” cried Maria. She had an impulse to rush to her father, to cling about his neck and weep her very heart out, but she restrained herself. She saw how unutterably weary her father looked, and she realized that any violent emotion, even of love, might be too much for his strength. She knew, too, that her father understood her, that she cared none the less because she restrained herself. Maria would never know, luckily for her, how painfully and secretly poor Harry had saved the little sum which he had placed in the bank to her credit; how he had gone without luncheons, without clothes, without medicines even how he had possibly hastened the end by his anxiety for her welfare.
Suddenly carriage-wheels were heard, and Harry straightened himself. “That is Ida,” he said. Then he rose and opened the front door, letting a gust of frosty outside air enter the house, and presently Ida came in. She was radiant, the most brilliant color on her hard, dimpled cheeks. The blank dark light of her eyes, and her set smile, were just as Maria remembered them. She was magnificent in her blue velvet, with her sable furs and large, blue velvet hat, with a blue feather floating over the black waves of her hair. Maria said to herself that she was certainly a beauty, that she was more beautiful than ever. She greeted Maria with the most faultless manner; she gave her her cool red cheek to be kissed, and made the suitable inquiries as to her journey, her health, and the health of her relatives in Amity. When Harry said something about dinner, she replied that she had dined with the Voorhees in the Pennsylvania station, since they had missed the train and had some time on their hands. She removed her wraps and seated herself before the fire.
When at last Maria went to her own room, she was both pleased and disturbed to find Evelyn in her bed. She had wished to be free to give way to her terrible grief. Evelyn, however, waked just enough to explain that she wanted to sleep with her, and threw one slender arm over her, and then sank again into the sound sleep of childhood. Maria lay sobbing quietly, and her sister did not awaken at all. It might have been midnight when the door of the room was softly opened and light flared across the ceiling. Maria turned, and Ida stood in the doorway. She had on a red wrapper, and she held a streaming candle. Her black hair floated around her beautiful face, which had not lost its color or its smile, although what she said might reasonably have caused it to do so.