The pallor of her brow and cheeks robbed the girl of none of her prettiness. Her surroundings perhaps even enhanced it. Her dark hair was hidden under the embrace of a lace cap, which set a sweet framing about her rounded features. Then the ravishing dressing-jacket, which concealed her night apparel, had been carefully selected for her from Blanche’s wardrobe. Its sleeves were wide, and terminated at the elbows, which left her forearms fully exposed as they lay helplessly on the coverlet of the bed.
Blanche was more than satisfied. The child, she told herself, was sleeping easily. And it needed no word from Doc Lennox to tell her the value of such restful sleep.
It was Molly’s third day at the ranch. It was the third long, anxious day since Jim had passed her safely through the wide-open Gateway of Hope. And Blanche understood that the worst of the child’s physical trouble was over. The thing that concerned her now was that other—that psychological reaction which she knew could so easily undo the rest. As she sat guard over the girl’s slumbers she pondered deeply the possibilities of disaster.
Blanche possessed no narrowness in her outlook upon life. Tolerance and generosity were the very essence of her nature. Human disaster never failed to wound her. And her sympathy went out without measure in response. Condemnation never entered her thought. It was the same for Molly as it had been for her own brothers. Eddie was far away beyond the reach of the penalty to which the laws of man entitled him, and she was satisfied. Jim was in hiding, no less a victim of human law. She made no excuse for either of them. She saw no need for excuse. These things were the disasters which afforded her the opportunity of indulging her devotion.
She realized something of the tremendous nature of Molly’s lonely struggle. She knew well enough that the girl could have taken the easier course of selling out at the time of her father’s death. She could have gone to a city, and taken her chance in life with others similarly situated. But she had done no such thing. And the courage of it all had caught her imagination and enlisted her sympathy. Molly had accepted the big battle for which her youth and sex found her so unfitted.
Then at the back of everything else lay the knowledge of her brother’s desire, and the memory of the thing which George Marton had done for Jim in his extremity. And so she had taken Molly to her heart like some young sister who needed the mother-care she had been so long deprived of.
Molly had spoken so very, very little, and Blanche understood. The girl’s reticence was not the result of weakness, of sickness. She had spoken her thanks for every kindness without hesitation or effort. But she had set up a barrier beyond that which forbade any intrusion upon the suffering it concealed. Blanche had made up her mind that that barrier must be removed. And if the girl herself failed to remove it, then she must do her best to break it down. Otherwise she knew that the girl’s recovery could never reach that completeness she desired for her.
The afternoon wore on, and the hour for tea approached. The sun had shifted its position, and its beam fell athwart the bed. Blanche rose from her seat, and gently drew a curtain to shut out the offending light. She returned at once to her sewing. Resettling herself, she glanced over at the bed. Molly’s eyes were wide open.
The older woman smiled.
“Did I disturb you, dear?” she asked, in that low, hushed tone so quickly acquired in a sick-room.