Phebe humored her as if she had been a sick child. She dropped the heavy curtains of silk and lace between the girl’s face and the too garish light of day. Then she brought from the dressing-room a rose-pink wrapper trimmed with soft swan’s-down and pink satin ribbons. When Molly was dressed in this, and her curly hair arranged in a pretty, careless, fluffy fashion, she looked lovely in spite of her illness and delicate pallor.
“You are pretty enough now to win his love over again,” declared Phebe, fondly. “Now sit here quietly in this chair, and wait for him patiently until he comes.”
“Did he say he would come soon, Phebe?”
“He did not speak to me, my dear. I only saw him come in at the door with his brother, and they went into the parlor with their parents. But of course, when they tell him how sick you have been, he will hasten to you.”
Molly did not answer, only sat with wide-open dark eyes fixed on the closed door. An excited color glowed on her cheeks, and her parted lips emitted quick, almost sobbing, breaths. To herself she was saying, feverishly:
“I will throw myself at his feet and tell him everything. He will see that Louise was as much to blame as I was, and he can not refuse to forgive me. If he does, I shall die!”
She looked around with her wistful, fever-bright eyes at Phebe.
“I’m not impatient,” she said, plaintively; “but he is so long in coming! It is more than an hour.”
“Only fifteen minutes by the clock since he entered the house, dear Mrs. Laurens,” answered Phebe, glancing at the pretty little Swiss affair on the mantel that told off the fleeting hours.
A muffled step sounded on the thick hall carpet outside. It paused, and a gentle hand rapped on the door. Molly’s mobile face grew radiant with love, hope, and joy.