The next morning Bret woke to a new and busy day after a night of perfect oblivion. Sheila did not get up, as her new habit was, but she reverted to type. She said that she had not slept and Bret urged her to stay where she was till she was rested.
Later, as he was knotting his tie, he glanced from the window as usual at the birches whose wedding he was so proud of. His hands paused at his throat and his fingers stiffened. He called, “Sheila! Sheila! Come look!”
He forgot that she had not risen with him. She lifted herself heavily from her pillow and came slowly to his side. She brushed back her heavy hair from her heavy eyes and said, “What is it?”
“Look at the difference in the birches. ‘Bret’ is bright and fine and every leaf is shining. But look at ‘Sheila’!”
The Sheila tree seemed to have died in the night. The leaves drooped, shriveled, turning their dull sides outward on the black branches. The wind, that made the other tree glisten like breeze-shaken water, sent only a mournful shudder through her listless foliage.
CHAPTER LI
Bret turned with anxious, almost with superstitious query to Sheila. He found her wan and tremulous and weirdly aged. He cried out: “Sheila! What’s the matter? You’re ill!”
She tried to smile away his fears: “I had a bad night. I’m all right.”
But she leaned on him, and when he led her back to bed she fell into her place like a broken tree. She was stricken with a chill and he bundled the covers about her, spread the extra blankets over her, and held her in his arms, but the lips he kissed shivered and were gray.
He was in a panic and begged her to let him send for the doctor, but she reiterated through her chattering teeth that she was “all right.” When he offered to stay home from the office she ridiculed his fears and insisted that all she needed was sleep.