“Marry Tom,” came simultaneously from the young rebels, and with the words, “So be it,” their father left the room, and a few minutes later they saw him galloping rapidly down the avenue in the direction of the town.
He did not return to lunch, and when he came in to dinner he seemed very absent-minded and only volunteered the remark that he was going to New York the next day to see that their house was made ready for them within a week. As Mildred’s headache was unusually severe she had kept her bed the entire day and knew nothing of the trouble until just at twilight, when Alice, who felt that she must talk to some one, crept up to her, and laying her head on the pillow beside her, told of her father’s anger and threat and asked if she thought he would carry it out.
“No,” Mildred answered. “He will think better of it, I am sure,” and Alice continued, “Not that I care for myself, but I wanted to help Tom.”
“Do you love him so much that you cannot give him up?” Mildred asked.
“Love him! Why, I would rather be poor and work for my living with Tom, than have all the world without him,” Alice replied, while the hand on her head pressed a little heavily as she went on: “Papa is so proud. You don’t know how contemptuously he says those Leaches, as if they were too low for anything, and all because they happen to be poor, and because——Did I ever tell you that Bessie’s sister Mildred, who has been so long in Europe, was once,—not exactly a servant in our family, for she took care of me,—my little friend, I called her, and was very fond of her. But I suppose father does not wish Gerard and me to marry into her family. Are you crying?” Alice asked suddenly, as she heard what sounded like a sob.
“Yes,—no,—I don’t know. I wish I could help you, but I can’t,” Mildred answered, while the tears rolled down her cheeks like rain.
Every word concerning her family and herself had been like a stab to her, and she felt how bitterly she was being punished for her deception. Once she decided to tell Alice the truth, and might have done so if she had not heard her husband’s step outside the door. That broke up the conference between herself and Alice, who immediately left the room.
The next morning Mr. Thornton started for New York, where he was absent for three or four days, and when he returned he complained of a headache and pain in all parts of his body. He had taken a severe cold, he said, and went at once to his bed, which he never left again, for the cold proved to be a fever, which assumed the typhoid form, with its attendant delirium, and for two weeks Mildred watched over and cared for him with all the devotion of a true and loving wife. True she had always been, and but for one memory might have been loving, too, for Mr. Thornton had been kind and indulgent to her, and she repaid him with every possible care and attention. He always knew her in his wildest fits of delirium, and would smile when she laid her cool hand on his hot head, and sometimes whisper her name. Gerard and Alice he never knew, although he often talked of them, asking where they were, and once, during a partially lucid interval, when alone with Mildred, he said to her, “Tell the children I was very angry, but I am sorry, and I mean to make it right.”
“I am sure you do,” Mildred replied, little guessing what he meant, as his mind began to wander again, and he only said, “Yes,—all right, and you will see to it. All right,—all right.”
And these were the last words he ever spoke, for on the fourteenth day after his return from New York, he died, with Mildred bending over him and Mildred’s hand in his.