He sat down on the platform, his heavy feet and legs hanging limply, and stared out into space.
CHAPTER XI
ONE evening at the end of that week Paul met
Mrs. Mayfield walking back and forth on the lawn. Her head was enveloped in a light shawl and her eyes were downcast. Presently she turned toward him, and he saw that she had been weeping.
“I was going to inquire of Mrs. Tilton how your daughter is,” he began. “I have not seen her since the morning I walked with her to the spring.”
The lady touched her thin lips with her handkerchief and made an obvious effort to control her voice. She laid her hand on his arm almost with a gesture of despair, and he felt the delicate fingers tremble.
“I've been wanting to see you,” she faltered. “The poor child seldom leaves her bed. The doctor says nothing but time will do her any good. She scarcely eats anything, and has grown thin and white, and oh, so nervous! Jennie's death has simply terrified her—shocked her through and through. She cries constantly. I wake up in the night and hear weeping and moaning. The doctor can't deceive me. I know he is worried, because he comes often and asks so many questions. He admits that grief like Ethel's sometimes results disastrously, and I myself have never seen so serious a case as hers. Paul, she has lost all faith in God and religion. She came up-stairs, after you talked to her that day, in what seemed to be a really more hopeful mood. She put her head in my lap and cried for the first time in a natural way, but she hardened again soon afterward. That afternoon letters came from Jennie's father and mother and the young man Jennie was to marry, and Ethel went into hysterics. She really did not know what she was saying or doing. Oh, it was pitiful! She says she simply can't get away from the memory of the awful details. It was my fault; she should never have been there. Jennie wanted her, though, and there was no time for reflection. We were all excited.”
“Something must be done to take your daughter's mind from it,” Paul advised, gravely. “A mental picture like that should not be held. It is decidedly dangerous.”