"Yes, ma'am."
Nettie hung up the 'phone, and stood with her face pressed to the wall. A great tide of fear and shame swept over her. How was she to face her gentle mistress? How speak to her? How find words to tell her? She longed to escape from the kind and questioning eyes that would look so trustingly and fondly into her own.
It was but half an hour's run by automobile from the station, and the grating noise of the car, valorously trying to make the high grade to the house, brought Nettie violently back to life. She dabbed at her eyes with her apron, smoothed her hair and tried to compose herself as best she could as the little car chugged to the back door.
An appalling change had taken place in Mrs. Langdon. Despite her feeble protest, the Indian agent, in whose car she had come, insisted upon lifting the frail little woman from the automobile, and carrying her into the house. She tried to laugh, as Nettie placed a chair for her, and when her breath would permit it, she said bravely:
"Well, here I am, Nettie, back like a bad penny, and feeling just fine!"
Fine! When there was scarcely anything left of her but skin and bones. Fine! When she was so weak she could scarcely stand without holding on to something. Nettie knelt in a passion of mothering pity beside her, and removed the little woman's coat and hat. Meanwhile, the faint tinkle of her mistress's chiding laughter hurt Nettie more than if she had struck her.
"Why, Nettie, one would think I was a baby the way you are fussing over me. I really feel very well. I'm in perfect health. We all are, dear, you know. Illness is just an error of the imagination, just as sin and everything that is ugly and cruel in the world is. We are all perfect, made in God's image, and we can be what we will. Why, Nettie, dear, what on earth——!"
Nettie's head had fallen upon her mistress's lap, great sobs rending her.
"Nettie! Nettie! I'm real cross with you. This won't do at all. Don't you see that by giving way like this, we bring on our illnesses and troubles? We really are manufacturers of our own ills, and the solutions of all our problems are right within ourselves."
Nettie raised her head dumbly at that, and tried to choke back the overwhelming sobs.