"Nell, Nell!" he muttered to himself. "Why did you come here!"
CHAPTER XXIII
Husband and wife did not speak while they were being driven across the city to their home. That which lay between them was too heavy to be touched upon at once in words. Several times the architect glanced fearfully at his wife. She rested limply on the carriage cushion, with closed eyes, and occasionally a convulsive tremor twitched her body. The summer heat, which had raged untempered for weeks, had already sapped her usual strength, and now her face had a bloodless pallor that made the man wince miserably. When the cab stopped at the North Side bridge, where a burly vessel was being pulled through the draw, Helen opened her eyes languidly; once or twice she sought her husband's face, which was turned blankly toward the crowded street. Her lips moved, and then she closed her eyes again. As they got out of the cab, a neighbor who was passing spoke to them and made a little joke, to which Jackson replied pleasantly, with perfect self-control. The woman leaning on his arm shivered, as if a fresh chill had seized her.
The children were spending the month in Wisconsin with Jackson's mother, and so the two sat down to a silent dinner. When the maid had come and gone for the last time, Hart looked furtively across the table to his wife and said gently:—
"Won't you go upstairs, Nell? You don't look able to sit up."
She shook her head and tried to speak, but her voice was gone. Finally she whispered:—
"Francis, you must tell me all about it,—everything!"
He frowned and said nothing, until she repeated, "Everything, you must tell me!" and then he replied:—
"See here, Nell, you'd better drop this thing and not think of it again. That man Pemberton, who has pestered the life out of me all along, has made a row. He's an ill-tempered beast. That's all. And he'll repent it, too! He can't do anything to me. It's a business quarrel, and I don't want you to worry over it."