“He need not write that,” she said, huskily, pointing to the doctor. “It would be a lie, and I could not take it. You do not think me qualified. I heard you say so. I do not want to be pitied. I do not want a certificate because I am so young, and you think I’ll feel badly. I do not want——”
Here her voice failed her, her bosom heaved, and the choking sobs came thick and fast, but still she shed no tear, and in her bright, dry eyes there was a look which made both those young men turn away involuntarily. Once Guy tried to excuse her failure, saying she no doubt was frightened. She would probably do better again, and might as well accept the certificate; but Madeline still said no, so decidedly that further remonstrance was useless. “She would not take what she had no right to,” she said, “but if they pleased she would wait there in the back office until her grandfather came back; it would not be long, and she should not trouble them.”
Guy brought her the easy-chair from the front room and placed it for her by the window. With a faint smile she thanked him and said: “You are very kind,” but the smile hurt Guy cruelly, it was so sad, so full of unintentional reproach, while the eyes she lifted to his looked so grieved and weary that he insensibly murmured to himself, “Poor child!” as he left her, and with the doctor repaired to the house, where Agnes was impatiently waiting for them, and where, in the light badinage which followed, they forgot poor little Maddy.
It was the first keen disappointment she had ever known, and it crushed her as completely as many an older person has been crushed by heavier calamities.
“Disgraced forever and ever,” she kept repeating to herself, as she tried to shake off the horrid nightmare stealing over her. “How can I hold up my head again at home, where nobody will understand just how it was, except grandpa and grandma? The people will say I do not know anything, and I do! I do! Oh, grandpa, I can’t earn that thirty-six dollars now. I most wish I was dead, and I am—I am dying. Somebody—come—quick!”
There was a low cry for help, succeeded by a fall, and while in Mrs. Conner’s parlor Guy Remington and Dr. Holbrook were chatting gayly with Agnes, Madeline was lying upon the office floor, white and insensible.
Little Jessie Remington, tired of sitting still and listening to what her mamma and Mrs. Conner were saying, had strayed off into the garden, and after filling her hands with daffodils and early violets, made her way at last to the office, the door of which was partially open. Peering curiously in she saw the crumpled bonnet, with its ribbons of blue, and attracted by this advanced into the room, until she came where Madeline was lying. With a feeling that something was wrong, Jessie bent over the girl, asking if she were asleep, while she lifted the long, fringed lashes drooping on the colorless cheek. The dull, dead expression of the eyes sent a chill through Jessie’s heart, and hurrying to the house she cried, “Oh, brother Guy, somebody’s dead in the office, and her bonnet is all jammed!”
Scarcely were the words uttered before Guy and the doctor both were with Madeline, the former holding her in his arms, while he smoothed the short hair, thinking how soft and luxuriant it was, and how fair was the face which never moved a muscle beneath his scrutiny. The doctor was wholly self-possessed; Maddy had no terrors for him now. She needed his services, and he rendered them willingly, applying restoratives which soon brought back signs of life in the rigid form. With a shiver and a moan Madeline whispered, “Oh, grandma, I’m so tired, and so sorry, but I could not help it. I forgot everything.”
By this time Mrs. Conner and Agnes had come into the office, asking in much surprise who the stranger was, and what was the cause of her illness. As if there had been a previous understanding between them, the doctor and Guy were silent with regard to the recent farce enacted between them, and simply said it was some one who had come for medical advice, and it was possible she was in the habit of fainting; many people were. Very daintily, Agnes held back the skirt of her rich silk as if fearful that it might come in contact with Madeline’s plain delaine; then, as the scene was not very interesting, she returned to the house, bidding Jessie do the same. But Jessie refused, choosing to stay by Madeline, who by this time had been placed upon the comfortable lounge, where she preferred to remain rather than be taken to the house, as Guy proposed.
“I’m better now, much better,” she said. “Leave me, please. I’d rather be alone.”