As they entered the room, Lois turned the key in its lock and bent a long, penetrating gaze on Margaret.

She lay huddled against the welter of bedclothes, silent, inert, pearl-pale spots on her cheeks like gray-white smothers of foam over fretting rocks. Her eyes were closed and her breath came chokingly, like a child’s after a draught of strong medicine. Suddenly, as Lois stood pondering, she kneeled upright on the bed, holding her arms out before her.

“Oh, God!” she cried, “don’t let him die! Please don’t! He can’t—he can’t die! Why, he’s Richard—Richard Daunt. It’s only an accident. He can’t die that way. God—God!”

“Hush, dear! Oh, dear! What can I say?” cried Lois.Margaret slipped to the floor, dragging the covers with her, and burying her face in the fleecy cuddle. There she writhed like some trodden thing.

“Oh, dear God!” she sobbed, “just when I knew. He can’t die now! It’s just to punish me; I’ve been wicked, but I didn’t mean to be. I only wanted his good! If he had only died before I knew it! Only let him live till I can tell him, God. I’m not a wicked woman—you know how I tried. A wicked woman wouldn’t have tried. Oh, God, he doesn’t even know! I can’t tell him. I’ve suffered already. If he died, I couldn’t feel worse than I have all this time. Let me think he’s going to die, but don’t let him. Don’t let him! I want him so! It isn’t for that that I want him! I know now. I thought it was the other. But I wasn’t so wicked as that. I’ve been selfish. I’ve been thinking I was good to keep him away, but I wasn’t. I was cruel. He loved me the right way. Oh, if I could only forget how he talked!—and he didn’t know what he was saying. I’ve hated myself ever since. If he dies, I shall hate myself forever! I don’t deserve that! I’m not so bad as that! I couldn’t be. I’m willing to be punished in other ways—in any other way—but not this, God! I can’t stand it!

“I don’t ask for him as he was! I don’t care how he looks! Give him to me just as he is. Give him to me crippled and helpless, and let me care for him all my life. Oh, God, it isn’t so much that I ask! It’s such a little thing for you to grant! Why, every day you let some one get well, some one who isn’t half as much to anybody as he is to me. If I were asking something I oughtn’t to—something sinful, it would be different! But it can’t be bad to want him to get well! I’ll be better all my life to have him. It isn’t much—I’ll never ask you anything else as long as I live! Only let him live—don’t take him away! I don’t care if he can never walk again, if he can only know me, and love me still! God, his life is so precious to me; it’s worth more than all the world. If he died, I would want to die, too. God! Hasn’t he suffered enough? How can you watch him—how can you see what he is suffering now and not let him live? You can if you want to! There are so many millions and millions of people, and this is just one of them. Oh, for Christ’s sake—for Christ’s sake!”

“Oh, Margaret! Margaret!” wailed Lois, falling beside her, as though physical contact could soothe her. “Don’t go on like that! Don’t! Oh, it’s too cruel! You break my heart! Darling, darling! He isn’t dead yet. Maybe—maybe——” She stopped then, choking, but pressing her hands hard on Margaret’s cheeks, on her hair, on her breast, her limbs, as though to press back the nerves that she felt throbbed to bursting.

Margaret struggled to her feet, swaying with the paroxysm just passed. Her eyes were unwet and bright, and her teeth were clenched tightly on her under lip.

“No, he isn’t dead,” she said slowly, as though to force conviction on herself. “He isn’t—dead. Doctors are mistaken sometimes, aren’t they?” she asked dully. “Yes, I know! They are! Dr. Irwin told me so himself. ‘The prognostications of surgery can in no case be considered infallible.’ That’s what he said in the lecture yesterday. I wrote it down in my note-book. That means that he may not die. Oh! I’ve got to believe that. I’ve got to! Can’t you see that I’ve got to? You don’t believe he will live! I see it in your face. When the doctor said that just now, you looked just as he did. He might have stabbed me just as well. Why! I’d rather die myself a million times—but it wouldn’t do any good! It wouldn’t do any good!”

Margaret moved to the fire and spread out her hands before the blaze, as though her mind unconsciously sought relief from strain in an habitual action. But her chattering teeth showed that she was unconscious of its warmth.

She looked up at the countenance of La Belle JardiniÈre above the fireplace. The mild gaze which had once held reproach now seemed to bend down full of pitiful tenderness. Her bright, miserable eyes rested on the placid figure.

“You don’t know,” she said slowly, “what I am praying for. If it were a little child—my little child—that I were asking for, you would understand. You can only pity me, but you can never, never know!”

She turned and walked up and down the floor, her steps uneven with anguish, her fingers laced and unlaced in tearless convulsion, and her throat contracting with soundless sobs.

Lois watched her, her mind saying over and over to itself: “If she would only cry! If she would only cry!” There was something more terrible than tears in this inarticulate anguish. At last she went and stood in Margaret’s way, clinging entreatingly to her. “Do let me help you, dear! Lie down and let me cover you up and make you some tea! Do please, dear!” She stopped, struck by the ashy pallor of her face.

“No, no, Lois. I can’t stay here! Think! He may be dying now! I must go to him! Oh, you have got to let me—they can’t forbid me that. I was going to stay with him to-night, anyway. You know I was! I can’t let him die! He shan’t! I’ll fight it off with him. I don’t care what Dr. Faulkner says; I don’t care what you think! You mustn’t say no, Lois! Oh, Lois, darling! I’ll die now, right here, if you don’t.” She dropped on her knees at Lois’s feet, catching her hand and kissing it in grovelling entreaty.

“You know I’ll have to let you, if you ask like that!” cried Lois. “I’m only thinking of you—and of him,” she added. “You know if you should break down——”

“But I won’t—I won’t!” A gulping hiccough strained her, and Lois poured out a glass of water for her hastily, and stood over her while she swallowed it in choking mouthfuls.

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