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 p.r.i.c.king 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 pa.s.sing train. Seven minutes to walk to the station-seven minutes to walk back again, as she willed him to come. Thirty minutes had pa.s.sed; 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 att.i.tude 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 pa.s.sion-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 pa.s.sed 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, b.u.t.toned 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 pa.s.s 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."