Susan hurried over to The Meads whitefaced and trembling, longing to help, to be of use; but Rowena waved aside her offers half-heard. She could do nothing. The house was already too full; another inmate would only be an additional burden. But Susan gently intimated that she was not dreaming of offering her own presence. “I thought perhaps you would let me have Maud. It must be lonely for Maud, and she may be a little in your way. If you would let Maud stay with us for a time I would try to make her happy.”
“Oh, you nice Susan! Oh, Susan, how dear of you!” cried Rowena, fervently. “No words can express the relief which it would be to get rid of Maud just now. She doesn’t know what to do with herself, and she follows us about all over the house, asking questions from morning till night—millions of questions—and she makes mother cry, and upsets the maids, and drops things with a bang outside Dreda’s door when they are trying to make her sleep, and—and,”—the colour rose in Rowena’s smooth cheeks—“you can’t get away from her. She’s always there! It would be sweet of you to take her, but I’m afraid you’d be very bored.”
“No,” said Susan simply, “I couldn’t be bored. It’s the only way in which I can help Dreda. The more difficult it is the better I shall be pleased.”
Rowena looked at her in silence. Little, plain, insignificant Susan Webster, whom an hour ago she had pitied with all her heart. She had no Guy to love her. Considering her unattractive exterior, and the inherent love of men for beauty and charm, it was exceedingly doubtful whether she ever would have a Guy. But she understood. She had risen already to a higher conception of love than the bride whose predominating joy was still in being loved—in receiving rather than giving! At that moment Rowena had a flash-like glimpse into the nobility of Susan Webster’s nature, and her former disdain turned into admiration and love.
When the first painful days had passed, it cannot be denied that Dreda thoroughly enjoyed her position of invalid, with all the petting and consideration which it involved. She was inclined to pose as a heroine, moreover; for had not her own sufferings been the result of standing by a companion in distress! “I could not leave her,” she announced to the doctor when he cross-questioned her concerning the events of the fateful afternoon. “She shrieked every time I made the least movement. It was the knee that was broken, but the pain seemed to stretch all the way up. It would have been cruel to move her.”
“One has sometimes to be cruel to be kind, Miss Dreda. It would have been better for her, as well as for yourself, if you had insisted upon going for help at once,” said the doctor in reply; but even as he spoke he laid his hand on her shoulder with a friendly pat, and Dreda felt complacently convinced that he considered her a marvel of bravery and self-sacrifice.
Mrs Saxon was the most devoted of nurses, and shed tears of thankfulness over each step of the invalid’s progress towards convalescence; but Dreda was by no means satisfied with the attitude of her elder sister. Rowena floated in and out of the sick-room with a smile and a kiss; but instead of begging to be allowed to stay, she seemed always in a hurry to be gone, and on one or two occasions when Dreda made feeble efforts at conversation, her attention wandered so hopelessly that she said “Yes” and “No” in the wrong places, or blushingly requested to have the question repeated.
“How odd Rowena is! So absent-minded and stupid. She doesn’t listen to half one is saying, and smiles to herself in the silliest way.—I think the housekeeping must be too much for her brain!” Dreda declared to her mother, and Mrs Saxon smiled in response and skilfully turned the conversation to a safer topic. Dreda was not strong enough to bear any excitement yet awhile.
It was nearly a week later, when one morning, as Rowena stood by the bedside, the invalid’s quick eyes caught the flash of diamonds on the third finger of her sister’s left hand. She pounced upon it, and holding it fast, despite the other’s struggles, demanded tersely:
“What’s that?”