She swept across the room, and, catching Dora's trembling figure in her arms, put her hand above the girl's mouth and checked the hideous torrent of words.
"You must come up-stairs at once to your room," she said sharply. "You've sent for the nurse, of course, Mr. Farquharson? Then please do so at once. Come up with me, Dora—or, better still, let your husband carry you. No, I'm not going to listen to a word now; you're better for the moment, and this sort of scene does you no good at all. You may think I'm speaking harshly, but I'm not. Send for Felice, Mr. Farquharson, will you? Or, if she's hysterical, the head housemaid, please; she's a sensible woman."
"It's awful, it's ghastly," said Dora, fighting them both, as they tried to carry her up-stairs, between spasms of pain. "It's unendurable, and I won't bear it. Doctors are beasts; I know this man won't give me chloroform until the very end. I won't bear it till the end, do you hear? Why should I be tortured so for a man I loathe? I won't have it, I tell you; I won't have it!" Her voice rose to a shriek. "Make the doctor come, Evelyn; make him give me something. I won't stand it, I tell you; I won't stand—oh, God——"
This was the prelude of hours of revolt and rebellion. It seemed to Evelyn that for a lifetime she had listened to Dora's ravings. She tried to excuse them on the score of delirium, and failed. In some ways Dora was a typical modern woman, eager to take all that life offered her and pay no penalty; rebellious at the gift of a new responsibility which compelled her to take life from another point of view.
Nurse and doctor both came presently, and then another nurse was sent for, Mrs. Farquharson was too unmanageable for one alone.
Evelyn, sitting in the room beyond, was called for ceaselessly. No one could do anything so well as Evelyn. No one else fanned Dora in the right way, or knew when she wanted her pillows moved. Now she must have her head laved; now she wanted special scent on her handkerchief. The pillows were wrong again now.... No, Evelyn could not have anything to eat at this moment. How could she when Dora was in such pain? She could go down-stairs and have something presently, when the nurse had finished her meal.
But the "presently" never came. Hour after hour Evelyn sat, waging perhaps the hardest battle of her life, as Dora's rebellion gave way to hatred, and hatred to passion so intense that the very room seemed charged with it. Evelyn had seen Farquharson come to the door; from her bed his wife had recognized him, and poured out such a torrent of contempt that Evelyn ran to her and put her hand upon the quivering mouth.
She dragged her tired limbs now to the head of the stairs, but Farquharson had gone. She wondered which would be the hardest ordeal, the facing of that stern tribunal before which he would presently stand at bay, or the one through which he had just passed.
Of late Evelyn's prayers had been merely mechanical. To-night they concentrated; let him have this at least, dear God—one thing in the world which might comfort and cheer him.... But where it became a question of the child's life or Dora's there was, in Dora's mind, no choice. She had never wanted the child from the first, she loved her own life.
At midnight Evelyn heard Farquharson return. She knew by the sound of his footsteps that the vote had gone against him. She tried to disengage her hand from Dora's, but failed. By the time she was free, he had gone to his own room; she heard him move heavily across it.