CHAPTER XXVIII.

ELSIE BELLWOOD’S RESOLVE.

“How are you feeling to-night, Elsie?”

“No better.”

“That’s too bad, dear! I’m so sorry!”

Inza Burrage placed her arm lovingly about Elsie Bellwood and drew Elsie’s head down upon her shoulder. They were in their room in the home of John Loder, in Baltimore. It was evening.

“I’m so sorry!” repeated Inza sympathetically, as she softly patted Elsie’s pale cheek. “What seems to be the matter?”

“I’m tired, tired. I seem to be tired all the time now, Inza. I can’t get rested.”

“You’ll be better to-morrow, dear,” declared the dark-eyed girl cheerfully; “I’m sure you’ll be better to-morrow.”

“I don’t know,” sighed Elsie. “I fear not. Each day I’ve thought I would be better the next, but I improve so slowly it is very discouraging. It doesn’t seem that I’ll ever be well and strong again, as I used to be.”

“Oh, but you will—of course you will! You’re much better than you were in Virginia.”

“I’d be dead now if I hadn’t improved at all,” returned Elsie, with a faint smile. “I used to feel so well. Inza, you’re wasting your time staying by me this way. I appreciate it, oh, so much! But, I know how you must feel. You are well and strong and full of life. You make me feel guilty over keeping you in like this. I feel that I am——”

“There, there!” exclaimed Inza laughingly, placing a soft hand over Elsie’s lips. “I won’t listen to such nonsense! Are you not my dearest friend! It’s a great satisfaction to me if I can do anything for you, as I know how much you have done for me in the past and how much you would do now if you had the opportunity.”

“But you would be with Frank a great deal more if you did not feel it your duty to stay here with me. I am robbing you of that pleasure. It is not right. You had a letter from him in the last delivery to-day.”

“Yes.”

“And I had one from Bart. Dear Bart! They have been very successful with their lacrosse team, and now they are coming back from their trip.”

“And Frank must leave for Mexico in a very few days. He wants me to go with him.”

Elsie started a little, and her face seemed to take on an added shade of pallor.

“To go with him?” she murmured.

“As—as Mrs. Merriwell.”

Slowly Elsie lifted one not quite steady hand to her cheek.

“I am glad,” she finally said, in a voice that was very low. “You will go with him, Inza?”

“Are you ready for the marriage?”

“Am I ready?”

“Yes, Elsie. I know Bart has urged you. You know it has been our plan to be married together—to have a double marriage. Frank wants it; Bart wants it; I want it. When will you be ready?”

Elsie did not reply immediately. It seemed that she was thinking. In truth, she was summoning her strength.

“It will be a long time before I am ready, I fear,” she finally answered. “You must not wait for me, Inza.”

“Oh, Elsie, that would spoil everything! Oh, we must wait! I shall insist upon it.”

Elsie turned and looked into the dark eyes of her companion.

“Inza,” she said, “I may not be married for a year—I doubt very much if I shall. I may not be married then. It is not right for you to wait longer. Frank has asked you; he is impatient. Too many times something has arisen to delay your union with him. Through it all your love has been constant and his has never changed.”

“Oh, no matter what happened, my love for Frank would remain the same.”

“You have been tried as with fire. There is no reason why you should permit anything to longer delay the consummation of your happiness and his. It would not be right to Frank if you did permit anything. You must marry him and go with him to Mexico for your wedding trip.”

“But why won’t you make it a double wedding? I do not understand——”

“When the boys were here in Baltimore I talked the matter over with Bart. He almost insisted that I should set a date. He wanted us to get together and agree on a date. I said no.”

“But why—why? I can’t understand why!”

“Don’t fancy for a moment, Inza, that you love Frank more than I love Bart. It is not that my feelings have changed, but I have been ill and——”

“You are much better now. At times you are quite strong for a little while. Why, you attended the lacrosse game with me.”

“And was ill for two days after. I tried not to let you know how ill I was. I did not wish you to think me spleeny, Inza.”

Inza laughed musically.

“I know you too well to think anything like that,” she said. “I have known you to endure too much. Oh, no, no, no! you are not spleeny! Anything but that!”

“I never knew my mother to remember her well,” said Elsie. “My father told me lots about her. My mother was for many years a semi-invalid. If she seemed pretty well for a day or two, she was ill for weeks after. Father adored her. He told me that never was there a sweeter or more patient woman. He told me I was like her as he knew her when they first met. Even as a little girl I bore a remarkable resemblance to my mother. One old-fashioned picture of her was precisely like a picture I had taken, with the exception that there was a difference in our dresses and the way our hair was arranged. Father often said it was his prayer that I always remained well and strong.

“In every other way save in health he hoped I would exactly resemble my mother. I’ve meditated often on his words. I used to fear that some time I would become an invalid, the same as mother. That fear has grown upon me. It has taken a firm hold of me, and I cannot shake it off. Something seems to tell me that I shall never be wholly well and strong after this. A young man burdened with an invalid for a wife has a millstone about his neck, continually dragging him down. If he is a man of ambition and ability his life may be ruined. He can never rise as he would if he had a wife to cheer, encourage, and stimulate him to his best efforts. I believe Bart was meant by fate to become a great man. As his wife, if I were an invalid, I should hold him down. Therefore, Inza, I have resolved not to marry him—now.”

Elsie had spoken earnestly, sincerely, from the bottom of her heart. She meant the words she uttered. There was no shamming about it; she was not posing. She really feared she would become an incumbrance upon Bart Hodge, and, for that reason and that alone, she was not ready to marry him. On her part it indicated a most remarkable attitude and most astonishing self-sacrifice. Few girls, loving a man as she loved Hodge, would have paused to consider—would have firmly held the cup of happiness back—out of consideration for his future.

In these days it is seldom a girl thinks that she may make or mar the man whose bride she is to be. As a rule, the one thought of the girl is to gratify herself and her selfish desires for comfort, ease, position, and happiness. Not one girl in a thousand hesitates to marry a man through fear that she may become a burden to him.

For years Inza had known Elsie to be generous, unselfish, and self-sacrificing to a wonderful degree; but now it seemed to Inza that her dearest friend was carrying her self-denying inclination to a mistaken extreme, and of this she attempted to convince her.

Elsie listened to Inza’s argument, but it did not alter her determination.

“My dearest friend,” she said softly yet firmly, “I am not strong enough now to pass through the excitement and strain of preparing for such a wedding. It would overtax me, even were I willing to place such a burden on Bart’s shoulders. But you must not permit me to delay your own happiness and that of Frank. You must marry him now.”

This Inza was extremely loath to do.

“It ruins our plan, which we have talked over so many times,” she murmured regretfully. “Does nothing ever transpire in this world as we plan it?”

“I’m afraid few things come out just as we wish them,” answered Elsie; “yet we should be happy. I am sure all will be well in the end. Promise me that you will not put Frank off longer.”

It was no simple task to induce Inza to agree to this, but finally, by her gentle persuasion, Elsie succeeded. Immediately a sweet smile illumined her face.

“I am so glad!” she breathed. “Both you and Frank will be very happy together.”

“But you, Elsie—how about you?”

“Don’t think of me. I am all right here, where I have a good home and kind friends.”

“Bart——”

“It will be better for him than it would be if he found himself tied to an invalid wife. It is my love for him that has led me to this resolution. I have written him, explaining as well as possible the situation, although I have not told him that I am putting off our union for his sake. Promise me, Inza, that you will not tell him this. Let him think, if he will, that it is on my own account that I ask the delay.”

Again Inza flung her arms round Elsie.

“You are the dearest, sweetest girl in all the world!” she exclaimed; “but I cannot believe that your fears for your own health have any foundation. You have been so strong and well! It will all come out right in time, and we will be together again, you as Bart’s wife and I as Frank’s. We’ll have jolly times, as we have had in the past. Oh, but we have had such splendid times, haven’t we, Elsie?”

“Surely we have. No matter what may happen to me now, I shall always remember the past with unspeakable pleasure and be glad I have lived.”

They fell to talking over old times and the many scenes and adventures through which they had passed since the wild night when Captain Bellwood’s vessel was wrecked on Tiger Tooth Ledge, near Fardale. They laughed lightly as they spoke of misunderstandings and jealousies, now happily forever at an end.

Then, as was natural, they began to talk of Inza’s trousseau and plan it, and both were very deeply engaged in this and very happy over it. Finally they paused from sheer exhaustion.

“One thing has made me a bit unhappy,” Elsie finally observed.

Inza looked at her quickly.

“You mean——”

“Frank’s unfortunate trouble with Fred Fillmore. Fred is Mrs. Loder’s brother. At first she didn’t know why he left Baltimore so suddenly after the lacrosse game; but I think he has written her, placing the blame on Frank.”

“Frank was not in the least to blame!” exclaimed Inza quickly. “They were just foolish boys, both of them. Fred thought himself in love with me, and I had to hold him at a distance. He must have been crazy, else he would not have tried to knock Frank out in the game by hitting him over the head. No one could blame Frank for being angry and threatening to settle with Fred the next time they met. That was why Fred left Baltimore. There was no need for him to do so, for I would not have permitted Frank to quarrel with him.”

A little later Elsie said:

“I think I’ll go to bed now, Inza. I need rest. If I could only rest so I would not feel tired in the morning!”

Inza remained to assist Elsie. The girl with the blue eyes and the sweet, pale face sank back amid the pillows with a sigh.

“I’m so glad, Inza,” she breathed—“so glad all your dreams are going to be realized. You will be very, very happy, and I shall be happy because you are.”

Inza kissed her.

“Always thinking of others, you unselfish child!” she exclaimed. “What a world this would be if there were more like you in it! I am going down to the library for a book I am reading, dear. I will return soon.”

Lightly she descended the stairs. The library was dark as she stepped in, but she pushed a button and turned on the electric lights. At the same moment she detected an odor of tobacco smoke. The flood of light showed her a person standing near the centre of the room, his feet quite wide apart, smoking a cigarette.

“Fred!” she exclaimed, startled; “Fred Fillmore!”