“Why——” he commenced, but his voice broke and he reached out his arms. It was dark. She was dazed, and seemed to ward him off.
“Then what made you do it?” he finally contrived to say. “You’ve saved the day, if it can be saved. Not that it really matters. Why? Why? Why not have let me blunder along to defeat, like the silly ass I am?”
“No woman likes to see her husband beaten,” she replied, in tired, tearful tones, “by a barber!” she added.
“Louise!” he implored, in a welter of hopes, fears, and longings that made him for once brutally incautious. He caught her into his arms, then marvelled at the limpness of her body. He turned her face to the dim light, and saw that she had fainted.
2
Not until Dare had been driven to Witney, there to entrain for the coast, did Louise give in to the weariness with which she had been contending for many days prior to Keble’s election. Only her determination to spare Dare the knowledge that she had overtaxed her strength for him kept her from yielding sooner. On the day of his departure she retired to her bedroom, drew the blinds, got into bed, and gave an order that nobody should be admitted. They might interpret her retirement as grief at Dare’s departure if they chose; for the moment she didn’t care a tinker’s dam what any one thought.
Aunt Denise discouraged Keble’s immediate attempt to telephone for Dr. Bruneau. “She doesn’t need medicine,” she said, “but rest. Leave her to me; I understand her temperament.”
Once more Keble and Miriam could only pool their helplessness.
“We had better leave matters in her hands,” Miriam decided. “The Bruneaus seem to be infallible in cases of illness.”
Keble was only half reassured. “Usually when Louise has a headache that would drive any ordinary person mad, she goes out and climbs Hardscrapple. I have a good mind to telephone in spite of Aunt Denise.”