Lois, left in charge of a measles-stricken household, had plenty to keep her hands busy, and yet, as there was no particular anxiety attaching to the disease, plenty of time for meditation. She possessed the unfortunate quality of being able to keep up two lines of thought at the same time, so that little occupations really occupied only a small corner of her mind, and the larger part was continually taken up with the subject of larger interest—herself. While she rocked the children and sang to them, and cut out pictures, and prepared their meals, and took care of them all day with the aid of a young nurse-maid, she was unceasingly traversing a country wherein she walked alone and in exile. The quarantine had shut her in more rigorously upon herself; there were now no distractions. Her husband was more anxious about the children than she was, and seriously distressed at first that so much was thrown upon her; he had wanted to get a trained nurse at once, but after her assurances that she did not mind staying in, that her exertions did not tire her, and that she much preferred matters as they were, he accepted this version without further question or comment, and went about his affairs, satisfied that she knew best in this her own department. It is a well-known fact that quarantine, the observance of which is exacted down to the last second of its limit from the women of a household, does not affect the bread winner of it, who goes and comes immune; Justin thought it his duty, in view of this fact, to be as careful as possible about being much with the children. He stood obediently outside of the nursery door and talked to them from there when Lois said, “You had better not come in.” When she refused a service offered by him, he did not press it again. He frequently stayed late at the office, and got his dinner in town, or, if he did come home, he went out again to spend the long evenings, in which she had to be up-stairs, at houses where there were no children to be kept from contagion, and where he could talk to men. He was really so busy that, though he was ready to help his wife in any way that she would indicate, it was an immense relief to be able to leave the conduct of affairs to her. There was, besides, a curious hardness of manner in her which he unconsciously resented—she seemed to hold herself aloof from him, and there was no allurement to follow. That temporary indifference which those who love allow themselves sometimes, with the clear knowledge that it is only indifference because they do allow it, to be merged into dearest companionship at will—this had been pushed too far. It is a dangerous thing to let love slip away, even for the pleasure of regaining it.

It seemed pitiful beyond words to Lois that she should have to stand alone now. She could have done this willingly if she had been by herself, but to stand alone in this dual solitude, where she might have had support—she could not understand it. She wept uncontrollably with the pity of it, and dashed the tears away that she might smile, red-eyed, upon her children, who could not feel the pathos of her effort.

There is little provision made in most girlhood for that independence of living which marriage unexpectedly forces upon a woman, in many instances, in almost as great a degree as when she is thrown out into the world upon her own resources. To be high and fine, rational and spirited, cheerful and loving, quite by one’s self, without audience or applause, takes a new kind of strength, to which the muscles are little trained. A woman can reach almost any height on a spurt for praise or recognition; but to get up, sit down, eat, drink, walk, read, sleep, care for the children, order the meals, as a rational human being whose business it was to perform these functions intelligently, with no personality attached to it—to have it taken for granted that she would naturally order her life as suited her best, and desired no interference—it was like being pushed out into the cold.

If Justin’s indifference was unexplainable to Lois, it was equally mysterious to him that she expected daily to be urged to seek amusement, to “take something” for her cold, to stay in if it were wet or to go out if it were dry, to avoid overwork, not to sew too much, and to be sure and rest in the afternoon—all the little kindly round of woman’s sympathies that keep the heart warm. Justin had been brought up in the good old-fashioned way by a mother who, while requiring obedience and honesty from her sons, never required them to think of anybody else. In his conduct now he did entirely as he would be done by. He hated to be noticed, himself, in little ways; he did as he pleased, with the directness that is the inheritance of centuries of predominance, but he had become affectionately parrot-wise in some of the sentences he found were conducive to his wife’s happiness. In his new absorption he had forgotten the sentences; he was deeply occupied with his own affairs. When Lois said to Zaidee, “Mamma is busy; she cannot attend to you now,” she exemplified unconsciously her husband’s present position toward herself. Many men regard women primarily in the light of children; and the more occupied Justin became in his own affairs, the more reluctant he became to talk of them at home to this child who was his wife. Her vivid surprise at normal conditions, the unnecessary worry and shallow generalization of ignorance, irritated him. He became more and more taciturn, though he was always kind and affectionate, even if his kindness and affection lacked, as she felt, the true inner glow; but in the state of mind which Lois had now made her own, no evidence of affection, however great on the part of her husband, would have meant anything to her more than momentarily, for it was seen afterwards through a medium which at once distorted and nullified, and not even the complete absorption in and surrender to herself that she craved could have satisfied the insatiable. She was drifting to a place among the great and terrible company of nerve-centered people, revolving wheels of centripetal force, sweeping into their own restless orbit all with which they come in contact as they go on their devastating way through the universe.

Dosia, on the night when she had hurried down to the house with Lawson Barr, had found nothing out of the ordinary; the doctor had been delayed until late by a case of more insistence, that was all. She came down, however, on other evenings, luxuriously cloaked and wrapped, rosy and smiling, with radiant eyes, and held rapid conversations with Lois down-stairs, while Lawson waited in the hall, or sometimes went on farther and came back for her. Lois herself had never considered Lawson of importance, although she had warned Dosia against him; his sympathetic manner now pleased her. As the children improved, the measles threatened to become at once epidemic and more virulent in the town, so that it was thought wise to avoid comment by having no communication by daylight with the Alexander household. Dosia was thus, for a few minutes at a time, Lois’ one social link with the outside world, for Justin, as she said bitterly, told her nothing. After three weeks of solitude and self-communing the barriers began to give way.

She was glad to hear her husband come in one afternoon much earlier than usual. Something had been said the day before about her going out for a drive. Her heart beat at the sound of his voice, and she ran down-stairs eagerly, but checked herself, as she had a way of doing lately, when she came near him. Her face, devoid of expression, was lifted to his to be kissed; for all her forbidding manner, she was ready to thaw if he would only take the trouble to shine directly upon her. It was a beautiful spring afternoon, and she felt the invading monitions of happiness, in spite of herself, as he kissed her, saying at once hurriedly, if very kindly:

“I’ve got to dress and take the five-o’clock train back to town.”

“Oh!” She was chilled to ice. “Won’t you be here to dinner?”

“Why, no. Girard—do you remember my speaking of him? He’s sent me a ticket for the Western Club dinner in town to-night. There will be fine speaking; not that I care for that particularly, but it is really important for me to be there. There are not many tickets; I’m in luck to get one.” He stopped irresolutely. “You don’t mind my going? I thought you’d be with the children.”

“No, I don’t mind your going.” She added under her breath, “And it wouldn’t make any difference to you if I did.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“If it were any place to which you could have gone with me, I would have refused.”

“Oh!”

He looked at her uneasily, but said no more; she heard him whistling softly as he was getting dressed. In reality his conscience was uncomfortably pricking him. He felt that he had let her bear too much alone, that he might have been more thoughtful—he couldn’t exactly tell how. He registered a mental vow to take her out somewhere the very first chance he got.

He came in the nursery to say good-by to the children and to her. She asked:

“What train will you take back to-night?”

“I don’t suppose I can get anything earlier than the twelve.”

“You mean the one that gets here at a quarter to one?”

“Yes, of course. Don’t sit up for me.”

He was gone; the door had closed behind him—he was gone. Almost before she realized it, he was gone. It could not be—she was not ready to have him go yet! There were so many things she had meant to say to him. She would have rushed to the door to call him back, but Redge cried out for her. She took him from his crib and ran to the window with him, over the floor that was strewed with play-things—Justin was already nearly out of sight. He must, he must, he must come back again! He must. She willed it so intensely that he must feel it, if he loved her, and come back. If you willed things hard enough, they happened; people said so. She was willing, willing, willing him to come back. She watched the clock, and listened for the sound of the passing train. Seven minutes to walk to the station—seven minutes to walk back again, as she willed him to come. Thirty minutes had passed; he had stopped here, there, or yon, on his way home. An hour—and he had not come! She had willed in vain. He had gone.

From six o’clock until a quarter of one,—until one o’clock, for the midnight train was always late,—that was seven hours. Seven hours to wait, seven hours to think and think. She gave the children their supper; she laughed with them, she played with them, helped the nurse undress them, sang them to sleep, with that dreadful undercurrent of thinking all the time. She had her dinner, eating without knowing what she ate, trying to take a long while at it. Afterwards she lighted the lamp in the little drawing-room, took out her sewing, and sat down there to wait. There were five hours and a half yet.

There was a ring at the door-bell about eight o’clock, which proved the herald of little Mrs. Snow, holding in one hand a provisionary vial.

“No, thank you, I won’t sit down,” she said, in answer to Lois’ invitation. “I just ran over to see if you could let me have a little cough medicine for William to-night, he has a little tickle in his throat that keeps him coughing, I knew it was no use telling him to get any medicine, so I said to Bertha, ‘Bertha, I’m just going to run over to Mrs. Alexander’s and see if she can lend me a spoonful of cough mixture.’ I’ll have my bottle renewed to-morrow.”

“I’m sorry,” said Lois, wondering at her power of suspending a heartbreak, “but we haven’t a drop left in the house.”

“There is so much bronchitis around now,” continued Mrs. Snow, oblivious of the fact that the same impetus that had brought her as far as the Alexanders’ would have taken her to the druggist’s. “No, thank you; I can’t sit down.”

She stood by the mantel in a drooping attitude that gave her a plaintive effect, in combination with her soft crinkled black garments and her small white, delicate, finely wrinkled face. Mrs. Snow had, as a usual thing, only two tones to her voice—the plaintive and the inquisitive; the former was in evidence now.

“There is so much bronchitis around now. I think if you can take hold of it at the first beginning, with a little cough medicine, when it’s just a tickle in the throat, you can often save a great deal.”

“I suppose you can,” said Lois. She felt a vague duty of conversation. “Isn’t William well?”

His mother shook her head. “No, my dear, not at all, though he will not own it. I ask him every time he comes in the house how he feels, and sometimes he won’t even answer me.” She heaved a sigh. “You’re not looking well yourself, Mrs. Alexander; you mustn’t take care of the children too hard.”

“Oh, nothing ever hurts me,” said Lois in a hard voice.

“I’m glad they’re so nearly well. I met Mr. Alexander to-night on his way back to town. It was a pity you couldn’t have gone with him; if you had sent for me, I could have come and stayed with the children as well as not.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Lois.

“I suppose you don’t see much of Miss Dosia?”

“No, not much as yet.”

Mrs. Snow cleared her throat deprecatingly. “A number of people have been asking me lately if she and Mr. Barr were engaged.”

“Engaged! Why, of course not,” exclaimed Lois contemptuously. “There is not the slightest question of such a thing; in fact, she dislikes him. He simply takes her around because she is at his sister’s.”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Snow, “Miss Dosia dislikes Mr. Barr—does she really, now! I’m sure I told everybody that I knew they couldn’t be engaged, although they do seem to be so much together. So she dislikes him; Ada dislikes him, too. There’s something about Mr. Barr so—well, you can’t exactly tell what it is, can you, but it’s there; something that’s not exactly like a gentleman—not like Mr. Sutton. Ada likes Mr. Sutton so much. It’s such a relief to me to find that Miss Dosia is so sensible; she’s a sweet young girl—a little fond of attention, perhaps, but many young girls are. No, I thank you, my dear, I cannot sit down, I must go now. I don’t think you’re looking well; you must be careful and not overdo.”

“Oh, nothing hurts me,” said Lois again, with a peculiar little smile. The insinuation about Dosia did no more than swell the undercurrent of bitterness by another unnecessary drop.

And Mrs. Snow was gone. Lois had not wanted her, but how alone it was now! Even Mrs. Snow had seen that she did not look well—had pitied her.

The children were asleep up-stairs, the maids were in the kitchen. The clock in the hall ticked. People walked past the house: a man alone—another man; young people, laughing and catching up with those ahead; some shuffling, hobbling toilers; then the light step of a woman returning from work; then another man. Occasionally, but not often, a carriage rolled down the street. The footsteps were always clear and distinct from the corner below to the upper crossing; when it was a train-time, there were more footsteps coming and going—between trains only the solitary footsteps again. She heard the man in the house across the street run up the steps to his front door, and turn the key in the lock. The door opened and shut behind him. The clock in the hall struck the half-hour—it was half-past eight. Oh, if there had been a life-time of misery in that last half-hour, what was there to come? An eternity, an eternity of desolation!

If she were to will him now to come home, if in the midst of the glittering lights and flowers he could hear her cry to him,—“Justin, I want you!”—he would have to come. “Justin, I want you!” She rose and paced the floor, sobbing out the words. No, he would not hear her—he did not want to hear her. Perhaps he was laughing now. She would have gone to him, if he had wanted her, though she had had to crawl upon her knees through thorns and briers. Ah, how she would have gone! A rush of blinding tears filled her eyes. He did not care. She had been ready to cling to him, and sob her heart out on his breast, and beg him to love her and kiss her and stay with her, and he had not seen. She had asked—in the tone that mutely pleaded—You will not leave me so long?—“The train that gets here at a quarter to one?” and he had answered, “Yes, of course.” That was all. If her lips had touched his so coldly when he had said good-by, it was because she had longed to have him notice it, and ask her why. But he had not noticed the coldness, he had not asked her why. He had not wanted any more warmth in her. He did not care!

There came swift moments in those long and passion-freighted hours when the darkened, distorted vision cleared in wonderful flashes that brought the healing of light. In these moments she caught glimpses of herself, not as this draggled, pain-gripped, hungry creature, the prey of frenzied, torturing moods, but as a wife tenderly beloved, a happy mother of little children, the mistress of comforts that her husband had won for her, the appointed dispenser of blessings; a wife tenderly beloved, the true owner of her husband’s heart, a woman whose work it was to grow daily in strength and grace, that she might be more and more his helper, his lover. Even as this glimpse was shut out again, there was the piercing thought: If that were real, and what her darkened eyes beheld untrue! Things are what they are, no matter how one’s distorted vision sees them. If it were really true, no matter how she saw it now, that she was a wife tenderly beloved, with happiness within her grasp, and a miserable woman indeed only that she was blind to its possibilities! She had said, The train that gets here at a quarter to one? with what a longing for him not to leave her, and he had answered, Yes, of course. Nothing could make those words any different. And she wanted him, and he did not care—he did not care. Justin, Justin! The long, long, torturing fangs of self-pity had her by the throat.

The house was silent, the children slept, the maids had gone up-stairs. The hours wore on into the night. The footsteps passed up and down the street only at long intervals. The air grew chill in the house. In the quiet, the watcher could hear the trains far, far off across the flats.

At twelve o’clock the spring rain began to fall, gently at first, and then in torrents, coming straight down with a rushing sound that blotted out both trains and footsteps. And the train was late, as she had said it would be, it was after one o’clock when Justin ran up the steps with that firm, quick tread of his, opened the door, and came in. His face was bright and eager; he was full yet of the pleasure of the evening, and anxious to make her a sharer of it. He turned to speak to his wife, and the glow on his countenance died out instantly as with a breath from the tomb.

Lois sat stiffly upright in a chair, facing him. The light had gone out in the lamp, and the one gas-burner above, with its meager flicker, cast the room into the desolate half-shadows that speak of the late hours of the night. She had worn a scarlet house-gown in the evening; the trailing folds swept the floor around her slippered feet now, her bare arms gleamed below the sleeves that only reached beyond the elbow. Around her was flung a gray cloak, buttoned askew at the throat, and in one of her folded hands she held a black lace scarf. Her face was white, and her large eyes stared straight before her rigidly, yet with a wild gleam in them; as he looked at her she rose and moved as if to pass him.

He stepped forward with his dripping overcoat half off.

“Where are you going?”

She made no answer, but looked at him as she edged on farther to the door.

“Where are you going? Answer me.”

Her lips stiffly framed the word: “Out.”

“Out! What do you mean?” He spoke roughly, in a terrible anxiety and anger mixed together. “What are you working yourself up to all this foolishness for?”

Again she did not answer.

He went on more sternly, yet with an undercurrent of entreaty:

“Come in here and take off those things and be rational. Why do you look at me like that?”

“You don’t care—any more.”

Oh, if he would snatch her to him now, and press her to his breast, that she might feel his protecting arms around her! If he would kiss her now with the kisses she remembered, and love her, and comfort her, and send this horrible spirit out of her! How could he not know that that was the way to exorcise it, that it was what her spent soul craved? How could he keep from putting his arms around her when she was in agony?

Never in his life had her husband been less likely to do so. The wild defiance in her eyes would have made any woman repulsive to him; he had all a man’s horror of a “scene,” mingled with a deeper disgust that she should be the actress in it, and his anger was the more that he felt the whole thing to be unnecessary. Underneath this anger, however, was the sense of responsibility for his wife’s welfare, such as one would have for a child, no matter how outrageous.

“You don’t care!” She whispered the words again.

“No, I don’t care for you when you act like this.” His voice was even sterner now; it was time that this travesty came to an end.

She stared at him as before. “Then I’ll go!” she said wildly, and slipped past him out of the door and into the rain, running with swift yet uncertain footsteps down the black, wet street, listening, listening all the time for him to follow—listening as she ran. She walked more slowly now as she listened; she had gone nearly a block already toward the river. Oh, would he let her go? For one awful moment she feared that this phantasm might become a reality; and yet she knew, as well as she knew that she lived, that he would not let it be so. Yes, yes, there was his quick, sharp tread at last, gaining on her. He walked like the angry man he was, but the sound brought a furtive thrill of bliss to her. How strong he was when he was angry! He had had to notice her at last; he could think of nothing but her now.

She trembled as he came up to her. He only said in a matter-of-fact tone, “It’s time to stop this now; you’ll get wet.” He took her by the arm and turned her around, heading for home; the mere touch of his guiding hand on her arm sent warmth through her icy veins. She trembled as her feet tottered beside his, her strength suddenly spent with the breaking up of her long passion.

Neither spoke as they walked home. When they were in the house again, he unfastened her cloak with awkward fingers, and took the dripping scarf from her wet hair, throwing them on a chair.

She leaned her head upon his breast, clinging to him with an inarticulate murmur for forgiveness, and he smoothed her hair for a moment. She raised her face to his to be kissed, and he kissed her. She humbly asked nothing; she would be satisfied with anything now. She went up to her room, as he bade her, and when she was in bed, he came and sat down by her, and held the hand she mutely placed in his, as her imploring eyes asked. But he had to put a force upon himself to do it. The whole play was distasteful and repugnant beyond words to him; it weakened every bond that bound him to her. He sought for no self-analyzing causes. He had so much care upon him now that more than ever in his life before he needed diversion, sympathy, love, rest—rest above everything else on earth.