Chapter 16

"And now my dear," Lillian spoke briskly, "just lean your head against my shoulder, shut your eyes, and try to rest for a little; I know that sand with a rain coat covering doesn't make the most comfortable couch in the world, but I think I can hold you so that you may be able to take a tiny nap."

What Dicky surmised concerning the events of the afternoon, I do not know. He must have known that the girl was madly in love with him. Something had happened to put an end to the infatuation into which he had been slipping so rapidly.

Had he become tired of the girl's open pursuit of him? Had he guessed to what lengths her desperation had driven her? Had the shock of my narrow escape from drowning startled him into a fresh realization of his love for me?

I felt too weak even to guess the solution of the riddle. All I wanted to do was to nestle close to Dicky's side, to be taken care of and petted like a baby.

The ride home through the sunset was a quiet one. To me it was one of the happiest hours of my life.

Dicky, fussing over me as if I were a fragile piece of china, sat in the most sheltered corner of the boat, and held me securely against him, protecting me with his arm from any sudden lurch or jolt the boat might give.

Seemingly by a tacit agreement, the others of the party left us to ourselves. They talked in subdued tones, apparently unwilling to spoil the wonderful beauty of the twilight ride home with much conversation.

When the boat landed, Harry Underwood, at Dicky's suggestion, telephoned for taxis to meet the little trolley, upon which we journeyed from the beach to Crest Haven. One of these bore the Durkees and Grace Draper to their homes; the other was to carry Harry and Lillian, with Dicky and me, to the old Brennan house.

Dr. Pettit, who was to take a train back to the city, came up to us after we were seated in the taxi:

"I would advise that you go directly to bed, Mrs. Graham," he said, with his most professional air. "You have had an unusual shock, and rest is the one imperative thing."

I felt that common courtesy demanded that I extend an invitation to the physician to call at our home when next he came to Marvin, but fear of Dicky's possible displeasure tied my tongue. I could not do anything to jeopardize the happiness so newly restored to me.

To my great surprise, however, Dicky impulsively extended his hand and smiled upon the young physician:

"Thanks ever so much, old man," he said cordially, "for the way you pulled the little lady through this afternoon. Don't forget to come to see us when next you're in Marvin."

I was tucked safely into Dicky's bed, which he insisted on my sharing, saying that he could take care of me better there than in my own room, when he gave me the explanation of his cordiality.

"I'm not particularly stuck on that doctor chap," he said, tucking the coverlet about me with awkward tenderness, "but I'm so thankful tonight I just can't be sour on anybody."

"Sweetheart, sweetheart!" He put his cheek to mine. "To think how nearly I lost you!" And my heart echoed the exclamation could not speak aloud:

"Ah! Dicky, to think how nearly I lost YOU."

XXVIII

A DARK NIGHT AND A TROUBLED DAWN

"How many more trains are there tonight?"

Lillian Underwood's voice was sharp with anxiety. My voice reflected worry, as I answered her query.

"Two, one at 12:30, and the last, until morning, 2 o'clock."

"Well, I suppose we might as well lie down and get some sleep. They probably will be out on the last train."

"You don't suppose," I began, then stopped.

"That they've slipped off the water wagon?" Lillian returned grimly. "That's just what I'm afraid of. We will know in a little while, anyway. Harry will begin to telephone me, and keep it up until he gets too lazy to remember the number. Come on, let's get off these clothes and get into comfortable negligees. We probably shall have a long night of worry before us."

I obeyed her suggestion, but I was wild with an anxiety which Lillian did not suspect. My question, which she had finished for me, had not meant what she had thought at all. In fact, until she spoke of it, that possibility had not occurred to me.

It was a far different fear that was gripping me. I was afraid that Grace Draper had failed to keep the bargain she had made with Lillian to keep out of Dicky's way, in return for Lillian's silence concerning the Draper girl's mad attempt to drown me during our "desert island picnic."

Whether or not my narrow escape from death had brought Dicky to a realization of what we meant to each other, I could not tell. At any rate, he never had been more my royal lover than in the five days since my accident. Indeed, since that day he had made but one trip to the city beside this with Harry Underwood, the return from which we were so anxiously awaiting. When the men left in the morning they had told us not to plan dinner at home, but to be ready to accompany them to a nearby resort for a "shore dinner," as they were coming out on the 5 o'clock train. No wonder that at 10:30 Lillian and I were both anxious and irritated.

Dicky's behavior toward me, since death so nearly gripped me, certainly had given me no reason to doubt that his infatuation for Grace Draper was at an end. But no one except myself knew how apparently strong her hold had been on Dicky through the weeks of the late summer, nor how ruthless her own mad passion for him was. Had she reconsidered her bargain? Was she making one last attempt to regain her hold upon Dicky?

The telephone suddenly rang out its insistent summons. I ran to it, but Lillian brushed past me and took the receiver from my trembling hand.

I sank down on the stairs and clutched the stair rail tightly with both hands to keep from falling.

"Yes, yes, this is Lil, Harry. What's the matter?

"Seriously?

"Where are you?

"Yes, we were coming, anyway. Yes, we'll bring Miss Draper's sister. Don't bother to meet us. We'll take a taxi straight from the station."

Staggering with terror, I caught her hand, and prevented her putting the receiver back on its hook.

"Is Dicky dead?" I demanded.

"No, no, child," she said soothingly.

"I don't believe it," I cried, maddened at my own fear. "Call him to the 'phone. Let me hear his voice myself, then I'll believe you."

She took the receiver out of my grip, put it back upon the hook, and grasped my hands firmly, holding them as she would those of a hysterical child.

"See here, Madge," she said sternly, "Dicky is very much alive, but he is hurt slightly and needs you. We have barely time to get Mrs. Gorman and that train. Hurry and get ready."

* * * * *

Dicky's eager eyes looked up from his white face into mine. His voice, weak, but thrilling with the old love note, repeated my name over and over, as if he could not say it enough.

I sank on my knees beside the bed in which Dicky lay. I realized in a hazy sort of fashion that the room must be Harry Underwood's own bed chamber, but I spent no time in conjecture. All my being was fused in the one joyous certainty that Dicky was alive and in my arms, and that I had been assured he would get well. I laid my face against his cheek, shifted my arms so that no weight should rest against his bandaged left shoulder, which, at my first glimpse of it, had caused me to shudder involuntarily.

"If you only knew how awful I felt about this," Dicky murmured, contritely, and, as I raised my eyes to look at him, his own contracted as with pain.

"It's a fine mess I've brought you into by my carelessness this summer, but I swear I didn't dream--"

I laid my hand on his lips.

"Don't, sweetheart," I pleaded. "It is enough for me to know that you are safe in my arms. Nothing else in the world matters. Just rest and get well for me."

He kissed the hand against his lips, then reached up the unbandaged arm, and with gentle fingers pulled mine away.

"But there is one thing I must talk about," he said solemnly, "something you must do for me, Madge, for I cannot get up from here to see to it. It's a hard thing to ask you to do, but you are so brave and true, I know you will understand. Tell me, is that poor girl going to die?"

"I--I don't know, Dicky," I faltered, salving my conscience with the thought that he must not be excited with the knowledge of Grace Draper's true condition.

"Poor girl," he sighed. "I never dreamed she looked at things in the light she did, but I feel guilty anyhow, responsible. She must have the best of care, Madge, best physicians, best nurses, everything. I must meet all expenses, even to the ones which will be necessary if she should die."

He brought out the last words fearfully. Little drops of moisture stood on his forehead. I saw that the shock of the girl's terrible act had unnerved him.

Nerving myself to be as practical and matter-of-fact as possible, I wiped the moisture from his brow with my handkerchief and patted his cheek soothingly.

"I will attend to everything," I promised, "just as if you were able to see to it. But you must do something for me in return; you must promise not to talk any more and try and go to sleep."

"My own precious girl," he sighed, happily, and then drowsily--

"Kiss me!"

I pressed my lips to his. His eyes closed, and with his hand clinging tightly to mine, he slept.

How long I knelt there I do not know. No one came near the room, but through the closed door I could hear the hushed hurry and movement which marks a desperate fight between life and death.

I felt numbed, bewildered. I tried to visualize what was happening outside the room, but I could not. I felt as if Dicky and I had come through some terrible shipwreck together and had been cast up on this friendly piece of shore.

I knew that later I would have to face my own soul in a rigid inquisition as to how far I had been to blame for this tragedy. I had been married less than a year, and yet my husband was involved in a horrible complication like this.

But my brain was too exhausted to follow that line of thought. I was content to rest quietly on my knees by the side of Dicky's bed, with his hand in mine and my eyes fixed on his white face with the long lashes shadowing it.

At first I was perfectly comfortable, then after a while little tingling pains began to run through my back and limbs.

I dared not change my position for fear of disturbing Dicky, so I set my teeth and endured the discomfort. The sharpness of the pain gradually wore away as the minutes went by, and was succeeded by a distressing feeling of numbness extending all over my body.

Just as I was beginning to feel that the numbness must soon extend to my brain, the door opened and some one came quietly in.

My back was to the door, and so careful were the footsteps crossing the room that I could not tell who the newcomer was until I felt a firm hand gently unclasping my nervous fingers from Dicky's. Then I looked up into the solicitous face of Dr. Pettit.

"How is it that you have been left alone here so long?" he inquired indignantly, yet keeping his voice to the professional low pitch of a sick room. He put his strong, firm hands under my elbows, raised me to my feet and supported me to a chair, for my feet were like pieces of wood. I could hardly lift them.

"How long have you been kneeling there?" he demanded. "You would have fainted away if you had stayed there much longer."

"I do not know," I replied faintly, "but it doesn't matter. Tell me, is my husband all right, and how badly is he hurt?"

"He is not hurt seriously at all," the physician replied. "The bullet went through the fleshy part of his left arm. It was a clean wound, and he will be around again in no time."

He walked to Dicky's bed, bent over him, listened to his breathing, straightened, and came back to me.

"He is doing splendidly," he said, "but you are not. You are on the point of collapse from what you have undergone tonight. You must lie down at once. If there is no one else to take care of you, I must do it."

I felt as if I could not bear to answer him, even to raise my eyes to meet his. I do not know how long the intense silence would have continued. Just as I felt that I could not bear the situation any longer, Lillian Underwood came into the room, bringing with her, as she always does, an atmosphere of cheerful sanity.

"What is the matter?" she asked. Her tone was low and guarded, but in it there was a note of alarm, and the same anxiety shown from her eyes as she came swiftly toward me.

"Mrs. Graham is in danger of a nervous collapse if she does not have rest and quiet soon," Dr. Pettit returned gravely. "Will you see that she is put to bed at once? Mr. Graham will do very well for a while alone, although when you have made Mrs. Graham comfortable, I wish you would come back and sit with him."

Lillian put her strong arms around me and led me through the door into the outer hall.

"But who is with Miss Draper?" I protested faintly, as we started down the stairs toward the first floor.

"Her sister and one of the best trained nurses in the city," Lillian responded. "Besides, Dr. Pettit will go immediately back to her room."

"But Dicky, there is no one with Dicky," I said, struggling feebly in an attempt to go back up the stairs again.

"Don't be childish, Madge." The words, the tone, were impatient, the first I had ever heard from Lillian toward me. But I mentally acknowledged their justice and braced myself to be more sensible, as she guided me to her room, and helped me into bed.

I found her sitting by my bedside when I opened my eyes. Through the lowered curtains I caught a ray of sunlight, and knew that it was broad day.

"Dicky?" I asked wildly, staring up from my pillows.

Lillian put me back again with a firm hand.

"Lie still," she said gently. "Dicky is fine, and when you have eaten the breakfast Betty has prepared and which Katie is bringing you, you may go upstairs and take care of him all day."

"But it is daylight," I protested. "I must have slept all night. And you? Have you slept at all?"

"Don't bother about me," she returned lightly. "I shall have a good long nap as soon as you are ready to take care of Dicky."

"But I meant to sleep only two or three hours. I don't see how I ever could have slept straight through the night."

I really felt near to tears with chagrin that I should have left Dicky to the care of any one else while I soundly slept the night through.

Lillian looked at me keenly, then smiled.

"Can't you guess?" she asked significantly.

"You mean you put something in the mulled wine to make me sleep?"

"Of course. You have been through enough for any one woman. Dicky was in no danger, and I had no desire to have you ill on my hands."

I flushed a bit resentfully. I was not quite sure that I liked her high-handed way of disposing of me as if I were a child. Then as I felt her keen eyes upon me I knew that she was reading my thoughts, and I felt mightily ashamed of my childish petulance.

"You must forgive my arbitrary way of doing things," she resumed, a bit formally.

I put out my hand pleadingly. "Don't, Lillian," I said earnestly. "I'll be good, and I do thank you. You know that, don't you?"

Her face cleared. "Of course, goosie," she answered. "But I must help you dress. Your breakfast will be here in a moment."

I sprang out of bed before she could prevent me, and gave her a regular "bear hug."

"Help me dress!" I exclaimed indignantly. "Indeed, you will do no such thing. I feel as strong as ever, and I am going to put you to bed before I go to Dicky. But tell me, how is--"

She spared me from speaking the name I so dreaded.

"Miss Draper is no worse. Indeed, Dr. Pettit thinks she has rallied slightly this morning. She is resting easily now, has been since about 3 o'clock, when Dr. Pettit went home."

I was hurrying into my clothes as she talked. "Have you found out yet how it happened?" I asked.

"I know what Harry does," she answered. "He says that yesterday the girl appeared as calm, even cheerful, as ever, went with him to the manager's office, performed her dancing stunt as cleverly as she did the other night, and in response to the very good offer the manager made her, asked for a day to consider it. As she was leaving the office, she asked Harry if Dicky were in his studio, saying she had left there something she prized highly and would like to get it. Something in the way she said it made Harry suspicious. Of course, I had told him confidentially of her attempt to drown you, so he remarked nonchalantly that he was also going to the studio. He said she seemed nonplussed for a moment, then coolly accepted his escort.

"They went to the studio, and Harry stuck close to Dicky, never permitting the Draper girl to be alone with him for a minute. After a few moments she bade them a commonplace goodby and left, but she must have stayed near by and cleverly shadowed them when they left.

"At any rate, she appeared at the door of our house shortly after Harry and Dicky had entered--Harry wanted to get some things before coming out to Marvin again--and asked Betty to see Dicky. Unfortunately, Harry was in his rooms and did not hear the request, so that Dicky went into the little sitting room off the hall with her, and Betty says the girl herself closed the door. What was said no one knows but Dicky and the girl.

"Harry heard a shot, rushed downstairs, and found Dicky, with the blood flowing from his arm, struggling with the girl in an attempt to keep her from firing another shot. Harry took the revolver away, unloaded and pocketed it, and could have prevented any further tragedy only for Dicky's growing faint from loss of blood.

"Harry turned his attention to Dicky, and the girl picked up a stiletto, which Harry uses for a paper cutter--you know he has the house filled with all sorts of curios from all over the world--and drove it into her left breast. She aimed for her heart, of course, and she almost turned the trick. I imagine she has a pretty good chance of pulling through if infection doesn't develop. The stiletto hadn't been used for some time, and there were several small rust spots on it. But here comes your breakfast."

Her voice had been absolutely emotionless as she told me the story. As she busied herself with setting out attractively on a small table the delicious breakfast Katie had brought, I had a queer idea that if it were not for the publicity that would inevitably follow, Lillian would not very much regret the ultimate success of Grace Draper's attempt at self-destruction.

XXIX

"BUT YOU WILL NEVER KNOW--"

I do not believe that ever in my life can I again have an experience so horrible as that which followed the development of infection in the dagger wound which Grace Draper had inflicted upon herself after her unsuccessful attempt to shoot Dicky.

Against the combined protest of Dicky and Lillian, I shared the care of the girl with the trained nurse whom Lillian's forethought had provided and Dicky's money had paid for.

The reason for my presence at her bedside was a curious one.

At the close of the third day following the girl's attempt at murder and self-destruction, Lillian came to the door of the room where I was reading to Dicky, who was now almost recovered, and called me out into the hall.

"Madge," she said abruptly, "that poor girl in there has been calling for you for an hour. We tried every way we could think of to quiet her, but nothing else would do. She must see you. I imagine she has made up her mind she's going to die and wants to ask your forgiveness or something of that sort."

"I will go to her at once," I said quietly. As I moved toward the door my knees trembled so I could hardly walk.

Lillian came up to me quickly and put her strong arm around me.

We went down the hall to a wonderful room of ivory and gold, which I knew must be Lillian's guest room. In a big ivory-tinted bed the girl lay, a pitiful wreck of the dashing, insolent figure she had been.

Her face was as white as the pillows upon which she lay, while her hands looked utterly bloodless as they rested listlessly upon the coverlet. Only her eyes held anything of her old spirit. They looked unusually brilliant. I wondered uneasily if their appearance was the result of their contrast to her deathly white face or whether the fever which the doctor dreaded had set in.

She looked at me steadily for a long minute, then spoke huskily--I was surprised at the strength of her voice.

"Of course I have no right to ask anything of you, Mrs. Graham," she said, "but death, you know, always has privileges, and I am going to die."

I saw the nurse glance swiftly, sharply, at her, and then go quietly out of the room.

"She's hurrying to get the doctor," the girl said, with the uncanny intuition of the very sick, "but he can't do me any good. I'm going to die and I know it. And I want you to promise to stay with me until the end comes. I shall probably be unconscious, and not know whether you are here or not, but I know you. You're the kind that if you give a promise you won't break it, and I have a sort of feeling that I'd like to go out holding your hand. Will you promise me that?"

Her eyes looked fiercely, compelling, into mine. I stepped forward and laid my hand on hers, lying so weak on the bed.

"Of course I promise," I said pitifully.

There was a quick, savage gleam in her eyes which I could not fathom, a gleam that vanished as quickly as it came. I told myself that the look I had surprised in her eyes was one of ferocious triumph, and that as my hand touched hers she had instinctively started to draw her hand away from mine, and then yielded it to my grasp.

"All right," she said indifferently, closing her eyes. "Remember now, don't go away."

"Dicky! Dicky! what have I done that you are so changed? How can you be so cold to me when you remember all that we have been to each other? Don't be so cruel to me. Kiss me just once, just once, as you used to do."

Over and over again the plaintive words pierced the air of the room where Grace Draper lay, while Dr. Pettit and the nurse battled for her life.

The theme of all her delirious cries and mutterings was Dicky. She lived over again all the homely little humorous incidents of their long studio association. She went with him upon the little outings which they had taken together, and of which I learned for the first time from her fever-crazed lips.

"Isn't this delicious salad, Dicky?" she would cry. "What a magnificent view of the ocean you can get from here? Wouldn't Belasco envy that moonlight effect?"

Then more tender memories would obsess her. To me, crouching in my corner, bound by my promise to stay in the room, it seemed a most cruel irony of fate that I should be compelled to listen to this unfolding of my husband's faithlessness to me within so short a time of our tender reconciliation.

I do not think Dr. Pettit knew I was in the room when he first entered it, anxious because of his imperative summons by the nurse. Lillian's guest room had the alcove characteristic of the old-fashioned New York houses, and she and I were seated in that.

The physician bent over the bed, carefully studying the patient. Through his professional mask I thought I saw a touch of bewilderment. He studied the girl's pulse and temperature, listened to her breathing, then turned to the nurse sharply.

"How long has she been delirious?"

"Since just after I called you," the girl replied.

"Did you notice anything unusual about her before that? You said something over the telephone about her talking queerly."

The nurse looked quickly over to the alcove where Lillian and I sat. Dr. Pettit's eyes followed her glance. With a quick muttered exclamation he strode swiftly to where we sat and towered angrily above us.

"What does this mean?" he asked imperatively. "Why are you here listening to this stuff? It is abominable."