Doctor Hathern's daughters

by Mary Jane Holmes

It was the first time she had seen her new name in writing, and it gave her a peculiar sensation as she studied it for a moment.

“It’s a cablegram from home and may have bad news. Open it,” the Colonel said, and instantly Fanny’s fingers were tearing at the envelope and she was reading the message: “The Elms, Thanksgiving morning. To Mrs. G. W. Errington. Mr. Fullerton is here and very ill with brain fever. Recovery doubtful. C. Errington.”

For a moment everything in the room swam before Fanny’s eyes, but she neither spoke nor stirred until the Colonel, alarmed at the whiteness of her face, came to her side and asked “What is it?” She gave him the cablegram which he read aloud and then said, “That’s bad. A fever is likely to go hard with a man of Mr. Fullerton’s temperament.”

The next moment he repented his words, calling himself a brute, partly for his thoughtlessness and more for the vindictive feeling which had prompted it.

“Oh, Jack! I have killed you,” Fanny cried, stretching out her hands, and then lying back in her chair in a dead faint, the first she had ever had in her life.

It was one thing to give Jack up voluntarily, and know that somewhere in the world he was still alive, remembering and loving her, as she believed he would, and another thing to think of him as dead,—gone out of her life forever,—murdered by her. That was the way she put it, and murderess was the word in her mind when she cried out, “Oh, Jack, I have killed you.” She had no doubt as to the cause of his illness. He had received her letter, enclosed in Annie’s, and been stricken down at once in the old home where he had expected to make her his wife and where both Miss Errington and Katy were now. When Thanksgiving came on the Celtic she was too ill to know or care what day it was, and she had not thought of it since. But she remembered now all the bright anticipations of that day of which both Annie and Jack had written to her,—the dinner they were to have and for which Phyllis was making so great preparations, and after dinner the walk or drive to “Our house on The Plateau.” This last was the burden of Jack’s letter to her, and now she was another man’s wife, and Jack was dying, or dead. All her work, and she was as surely a murderess as if with her hand she had killed him. It takes some time to tell all this, but it scarcely took Fanny a second to think it, so rapid were her thoughts and conclusions before she became unconscious. The Colonel had seen death in many phases on the battlefield, but no face had ever affected him like this, which was so still and white with a grieved expression around the mouth pitiful to see. He was glad he was alone with her, and when he heard the servant coming to clear the table he called to him to wait until he got Madame to her room, as she was ill. Taking her in his arms he carried her to their sleeping-room, loosened her dress, laid her upon the bed, and then applied every restorative which came to his mind, water, cologne, camphor, bay rum and ammonia, with no effect whatever for a time, and he began to wonder if it were possible for her to die upon his hands. At last, however, after what seemed to him an interminable length of time, she recovered and asked in some surprise what had happened, and why her hair and dress were so wet and why she was on the bed.

“You had a cablegram and fainted,” the Colonel explained, and then it came to her.

“Yes, I know,” she said, with a sob. “Jack is dead, and I killed him.”

“Humbug!” the Colonel answered, sternly. “He is not dead. If he were my sister would have cabled again. This message was sent several days ago. Brain fever runs its course quickly. He is better by this time. Don’t make another scene. Restrain yourself. I am not fond of high tragedy, especially when the hero is another man. I have had enough of it.”

Fanny had never heard him speak like this, and her heart stood still a moment and her breath came in short gasps, as she watched him putting the bottles of camphor and cologne and bay rum in their places and saw how pale he was and how his hands trembled. Something like pity for him was in her heart, but a stronger feeling overmastered it. She must know if Jack were living.