Richard had been sick for a week or more. As is frequently the case, the baths did not agree with him at first, and Mrs. Pry reported to Ethelyn that the governor was confined to his bed, and saw no one but the doctor and nurses, not even "that bold Miss Owens, who had actually sent to Geneva for a bouquet, which she sent to his room with her compliments." This Mrs. Pry knew to be a fact, and the highly scandalized woman repeated the story to Ethelyn, who scarcely heard what she was saying for the many turbulent emotions swelling at her heart. That Richard should be sick so near to her, his wife--that other hands than hers should tend his pillow and minister to his wants--seemed not as it should be; and when she recalled the love and tender care which had been so manifest that time when he came home from Washington and found her so very ill, the wish grew strong within her to do something for him. But what to do--that was the perplexing question. She dared not go openly to him, until assured that she was wanted; and so there was nothing left but to imitate Miss Owens and adorn his room with flowers. Surely she had a right to do so much, and still her cheek crimsoned like some young girl's as she gathered together the choicest flowers the little town afforded, and arranging them into a most tasteful bouquet, sent them in to Richard, vaguely hoping that at least in the cluster of double pinks, which had been Richard's favorite, there might be hidden some mesmeric power or psychological influence which should speak to the sick man of the wayward Ethie who had troubled him so much.
Richard was sitting up in bed when Mary brought the bouquet, saying, Miss Bigelow sent it, thinking it might cheer him a bit. Should she put it in the tumbler near Miss Owens'?
Miss Owens had sent a pretty vase with hers, but Ethie's was simply tied with a bit of ribbon she had worn about her neck. And Richard took it in his hand, an exclamation escaping him as he saw and smelled the fragrant pinks, whose perfume carried him first to Olney and Andy's weedy beds in the front yard, and then to Chicopee, where in Aunt Barbara's pretty garden, a large plant of them had been growing when he went after his bride. A high wind had blown them down upon the walk, and he had come upon Ethie one day trying to tie them up. He had plucked a few, he remembered, telling Ethie they were his favorites for perfume, while the red peony was his favorite for beauty. There had been a comical gleam in her brown eyes which he now knew was born of contempt for his taste with regard to flowers. Red peonies were not the rarest of blossoms--Melinda had taught him that when he suggested having them in his conservatory; but surely no one could object to these waxen, feathery pinks, whose odor was so delicious. Miss Bigelow liked them, else she had never sent them to him. And he kept the bouquet in his hand, admiring its arrangement, inhaling the sweet perfume of the delicate pinks and heliotrope, and speculating upon the kind of person Miss Bigelow must be to have thought so much of him. He could account for Miss Owens' gift--the hot-house blossoms, which had not moved him one-half so much as did this bunch of pinks. She had known him before--had met him in Washington; he had been polite to her on one or two occasions, and it was natural that she should wish to be civil, at least while he was sick. But the lady in No. 101--the Miss Bigelow for whom he had discarded his boots and trodden on tiptoe half the time since his arrival--why she should care for him he could not guess; and finally deciding that it was a part of Clifton, where everybody was so kind, he put the bouquet in the tumbler Mary had brought and placed it on the stand beside him. He was very restless that night, and Ethie heard the watchman at his door twice asking if he wanted anything.
"Nothing," was the reply, and the voice, heard distinctly in the stillness of the night, was so faint and sad that Ethie hid her face in her pillow and sobbed bitterly, while the intense longing to see him grew so strong within her that by morning the resolution was taken to risk everything for the sake of looking upon him again.
He did not require an attendant at night--he preferred being alone, she had ascertained; and she knew that his door was constantly left open for the admission of fresh air. The watchman only came into the hall once an hour or thereabouts, and while Richard slept it would be comparatively easy for her to steal into his room. Fortune seemed to favor her, for when at nine the doctor, as usual, came up to pay his round visits, she heard him say, "I will leave you something which never fails to make one sleep," and after two hours had passed she knew by the regular breathing which, standing on the threshold of her room, she could distinctly hear, that Richard was sleeping soundly. The watchman had just made the tour of that hall, and the faint glimmer of his lantern was disappearing down the stairs. It would be an hour before he came back again, and now, if ever, was her time. There was a great throb of fear at her heart, a trembling of every joint, a choking sensation in her throat, a shrinking back from what might probably be the result of that midnight visit; and then, nerving herself for the effort, she stepped out into the hall and listened. Everything was quiet, and every room was darkened, save by the moon, which, at its full, was pouring a flood of light through the southern window at the end of the hall and seemed to beckon her on. She was standing now at Richard's door, opened wide enough to admit her, and so she made no noise as she stepped cautiously across the threshold and stood within the chamber. The window faced the east, and the inside blinds were opened wide, making Ethelyn remember how annoyed she used to be at that propensity of Richard's to roll up every curtain and open every shutter so as to make the room light and airy. It was light now almost as day, for the moonlight lay upon the floor in a great sheet of silver, and showed her plainly the form and features of the sick man upon the bed. She knew he was asleep, and with a beating heart she drew near to him, and stood for a moment looking down upon the face she had not seen since that wintry morning five years before, when in the dim twilight, it had bent wistfully over her, as if the lips would fain have asked forgiveness for the angry words and deeds of the previous night. That face was pale now, and thin, and the soft brown hair was streaked with gray, making Richard look older than he was. He had suffered, and the suffering had left its marks upon him so indisputably that Ethie could have cried out with pain to see how changed he was.
"Poor Richard," she whispered softly, and kneeling by the bedside she laid her hot cheek as near as she dared to the white, wasted hand resting outside the counterpane.
She did not think what the result of waking him might be. She did not especially care. She was his wife, let what would happen--his erring but repentant Ethie. She had a right to be there with him, and so at last she took his thin hand between her own, and caressed it tenderly. Then Richard moved, and moaning in his deep sleep seemed to have a vague consciousness that someone was with him. Perhaps it was the nurse who had been with him at night on one or two occasions; but the slumber into which he had fallen was too deep to be easily broken. Something he murmured about the medicine, and Ethie's hand held it to his lips, and Ethie's arm was passed beneath his pillow as she lifted up his head while he swallowed it. Then, without unclosing his eyes, he lay back upon his pillow again, while Ethie stood over him until the glimmer of the watchman's lamp passed down the hall a second time, and disappeared around the corner. The watchman had stopped at Richard's door to listen, and then Ethie had experienced a spasm of terror at the possibility of being discovered; but with the receding footsteps her fears left her, and she waited a half-hour longer, while Richard in his dreams talked of bygone days--speaking of Olney, and then of Daisy and herself. Dead, both of them, he seemed to think; and Ethie's pulse throbbed with a strange feeling of joy as she heard herself called his poor darling, whom he wanted back again. She was satisfied now. He had not forgotten her, or even thought to separate himself from her, as Aunt Van Buren hinted. He was true to her yet, and she had acted foolishly in keeping aloof from him so long. But she would be foolish no longer. To-morrow he should know everything. If he would only awaken she would tell him now, and take the consequences. But Richard did not waken, and at last, with a noiseless step, she glided back to her own chamber. She would write to Richard, she decided. She could talk to him better on paper, and, then, if he did not care to receive her, they would both be spared much embarrassment.
Ethie's door was locked all the next morning, for she was writing to her husband a long, humble letter, in which all the blame was taken upon herself, inasmuch as she had made the great mistake of marrying without love. "But I do love you now, Richard," she said; "love you truly, too, else I should never be writing this to you, and asking you to take me back and try if I cannot make you happy."
It was a good deal for Ethie to confess that she had been so much in fault; but she did it honestly, and when the letter was finished she felt as if all that had been wrong and bitter in the past was swept away, and a new era in her life had begun. She would wait till night, she said--wait till all was again quiet in the hall and in the sick-room, and then when the boy came around with the mail, as he was sure to do, she would hand her letter to him, and bid him leave it in Governor Markham's room. The rest she could not picture to herself; but she waited impatiently for the long August day to draw to its close, joining the guests in the parlor by way of passing the time, and appearing so bright and gay that those who had thought her proud and cold, and reticent, wondered at the brightness of her face and the glad, eager expression of her eyes. She was pretty, after all, they thought, and even Miss Owens, from New York, tried to be very gracious, speaking to her of Governor Markham, whose room adjoined hers, and asking if she had seen him. About him Ethie did not care to talk, and, making some excuse to get away, left the room without hearing a whisper of the story which was going the rounds of the Cure, and which Miss Owens was rather desirous of communicating to someone who, like herself, would be likely to believe it a falsehood.