“Do you think a hundred trips to Europe would keep him from you if he knew you wanted him?” Maude asked, and Grace replied:
“Perhaps not. I don’t know. I only wish he were here.”
This was the last of February, and after that Grace failed so fast, that with the hope that it might reach him before he sailed, Maude wrote to Max, telling him to come at once, if he would see Grace before she died. She knew about how long it would take her letter to reach him and how long for him to come, allowing for no delays, and on the morning of the first day when she could by any chance expect him, she sent the carriage to the Canandaigua station, and then all through the hours of the long, dreary day, she sat by Grace’s bedside, watching with a sinking heart the pallor on her lips and brow, and the look she could not mistake deepening on her face.
“What if she should die before he gets here, or what if he should not come at all?” she thought, as the hours went by.
She was more afraid of the latter, and when she saw the carriage coming up the avenue she strained her eyes through the blinding snow to see if he were in it. When he came before he had stood up and waved his hat to them, but there was no token now to tell if he were there, and she waited breathlessly until the carriage stopped before the side entrance, knowing then for sure that he had come.
“Thank God!” she cried, as she went out to meet him, bursting into tears as she said to him, “I am so glad, and so will Miss Raynor be. She does not know that I wrote you. I didn’t tell her, for fear you wouldn’t come.”
She had given him her hand and he was holding it fast as she led him into the hall. She did not ask him when or where he received her letter. She only helped him off with his coat, and made him sit down by the fire while she told him how rapidly Grace had failed and how little hope there was that she would ever recover.
“You will help her, if anything can. I am going to prepare her now,” she said, and, going out, she left him there alone.
He had been very sorry himself that he could not keep his promise at Christmas, and had tried to find a few days in which to visit the Cedars between the close of the suit and his departure for England. But he could not, and his passage was taken and his luggage on the ship, which was to sail early in the morning, when, about six o’clock in the evening, Maude’s letter was brought to him, changing his plans at once. Grace was dying,—the woman he had loved so long, and although thousands of dollars depended upon his keeping his appointment in London, he must lose it all, and go to her. Sending for his luggage, and writing a few letters of explanation, the next morning found him on his way to the Cedars, which he reached on the day when Maude expected him.
She had left Grace asleep when she went to meet Max, but on re-entering her room found her awake and leaning on her elbow in the attitude of intense listening.