I've Married Marjorie Part 21

By this time, perhaps, he could have won her back. If he had not laid down the law to her--if he had not put her to the test. What business had a man in love to make terms, anyhow? It was for him to accept what terms Marjorie had chosen to make for him.

He flung himself down on his knees by the window-seat, heedless of any one who might come or go.

"Oh, G.o.d," prayed Francis pa.s.sionately, as he did everything. "Give me another chance! Let her get well, and give me one little chance then to have her forgive me! I don't care what else happens if that only does!"

He did not know how long he knelt there, praying with such intensity that he sprang aside when some one touched him on the shoulder.

"She's goin' to be all right in the long run," said Mrs. O'Mara. "I gev' her a wee drink o' water, an' she kem to herself fur a minute.

An' I says, 'Me dear, where did ye git yer fever?' An' she says, 'The swamp, I think. Don't I have to travel to-day? I'm in bed.' An' I says, 'Not to-day nor anny day till ye want, me child,' and she turns over an' snuggles down like a lamb. An' I've sponged her off with cool water, an' she feels better, though she's off agin, an' I'm afraid the fever'll be runnin' up on us before the doctor can git here."

"You mean she isn't sensible now?" demanded Francis, whose eyes had lighted up with hope when she began to speak.

"Well, not so's ye could talk to her. An' ye might excite her. Them they loves does often."

"Then I wouldn't," said Francis recklessly. "Oh, Mother O'Mara, I've been such a brute----"

"Hush, hush now, don't ye be tellin' me. Sure we're all brutes wanst in awhile. Ye feel that way because the child's sick. Now go out and watch fer the doctor, or do annything else that'll amuse ye."

He obeyed her as if he were a little boy. He was so miserable that he would have done what any one told him just then--if Logan, even, with his cane and his superciliousness, had given him a direction he would probably have obeyed it blindly.

Mrs. O'Mara went back to the sick-room. How much she knew of the situation she never told. But Peggy was not a secretive person, and Peggy had arrived at a point with Logan where he told her a good deal, if she coaxed. They never got it out of the old lady, at any rate.

Marjorie was quieter, but still not herself. Mrs. O'Mara, who was an experienced nurse, did not like the way she had collapsed so completely. She was afraid it was going to be a hard illness, and she knew Francis was breaking his heart over it.

"Still it may be a blessin' in a way," she said half aloud. "You never can tell in this world o' grief and danger. I wonder has she people besides Mr. Francis. They've never either of them said."

The doctor came and went, and Monday morning dawned, when Francis had to go to work whether or no. And Pennington quietly took over Marjorie's duties again, and the men tiptoed up to the cabin where she lay, and asked about her anxiously, and young Peggy came over and took turns with her mother in the nursing, and Logan, much more robust and tanned than he had been in several years of New York life in heated apartments, came with her and sat on the porch waiting till she came out; and Francis saw him there, and thought nothing of it except that he was grateful to him for being interested in Marjorie.

He realized now that it was all he need ever have thought. But he realized so many things now, when it might be too late!

The days went on relentlessly. Finally they decided to send for her cousin, the only relative she had. Francis was a little doubtful as to the wisdom of this, for he knew that Marjorie had never been very happy with her cousin, but it was one of those things which seem to have to be done. And just as they had come to this resolution; a resolution which felt to Francis like giving up all hope, Marjorie took a little turn for the better.

It was not much to see. She was a little quieter, that was all, and the nursing did not have to be so intensive. Mrs. O'Mara and Peggy did not feel that they had to sit with her all the time; there were periods when she was left alone. Francis felt more bitterly than anything else that he had to go on with his work, instead of staying in the house every moment, but it was better for him. He would have driven the O'Maras mad, they told him frankly, walking up and down, looking repentant. Peggy was not quite softened to him yet; but the older woman was so sorry for him that any feelings she may have had about the way he had behaved were swallowed up in sympathy.

"And it isn't as if he weren't gettin' his comeuppance, Peg," she reminded her intolerant young daughter. "Sure annything he made her suffer he's payin' for twice over and again to that."

"And a very good thing, too," retorted Peggy, who was just coming off duty, and casting an eye toward the window to see where Logan was. He was exactly where she wished, waiting with what, for him, was eagerness, to go off through the woods with her.

"I suppose, now ye've a man trailin' ye, there's nothin' ye don't know," said her mother. "And him a heretic, if not a heathen itself.

I've only to say to ye, keep yer own steps clean, Peggy."

"He is a heathen--he doesn't believe a blessed thing; he said so himself!" said Peggy with what sounded like triumph. "The more reason for me to convert him, poor dear! Empty things are easier filled than full ones. If he was like them in there, with a religion of his own, I wouldn't have a show. But as it is, I have my hopes."

"Oh, it's converting him you are! Tell that to the pigs!" said her mother scornfully. "And now go on; I suppose you're taking a prayer book and a rosary along with you in that picnic basket."

"No," said Peggy reluctantly. "I'm softening his heart first."

She had the grace to giggle a little as she said it, and the O'Mara sense of humor rode triumphant over both of them then, and they parted, laughing. Francis, entering on one of his frequent flying trips from work to see how Marjorie was, felt as if they were heartless.

Mrs. O'Mara, at the sight of his tired, unhappy young face, sobered down with one of her quick Irish transitions.

"Ah, sure now it's the best of news. The doctor's been, and he says she's better. So it won't be necessary to send after the old aunt or cousin or whatever, that ye say she wasn't crazy over. Come in an' see her."

Francis, a new hope in his heart, tiptoed into the little brown bedroom where Marjorie lay. It was too much to hope that she would know him.

She had been either delirious or asleep--under narcotics--through the days of her fever. And once or twice when she had spoken rationally, it had never been Francis who had happened to be near at the time.

She lay quite quietly, with her eyes shut, and her long lashes trailing on her cheeks. When Francis came in she opened her eyes as if it was a trouble to make that much effort. She was very weak. But she looked at him intelligently, and even lifted one hand a little from the coverlet, as if she wanted to be polite and welcome him. He had been warned not to make any fuss or say anything exciting, if this should come; so he only sat down across from her and tried to speak naturally.

"Do you know me, Marjorie?" he asked, trying to make his voice sound as it always sounded. But it was a little hoa.r.s.e.

She spoke, in a thread of a voice, that yet had a little mockery in it.

She seemed to have taken things up where she dropped them.

"Yes, thank you. You're my sort of husband. This--this is really too bad of me, Francis. But, anyway, it was your swamp!"

Just the old, mocking, smiling Marjorie, or her shadow. But it did not make him angry now; it seemed so piteous that he should have brought her to this. The swamp faded to nothingness as a cause of her illness when he compared it to his own behavior.

"Marjorie," he asked, very gently so as not to disturb her, "would it be too exciting if I talked to you a little bit about things, and told you how sorry I was?"

"Why--no," she said weakly, shutting her eyes.

"I was wrong, from start to finish," he said impetuously. "I'm sorry.

I want you to forgive me."

"Why, certainly," she said, so indifferently that his heart sank. It did not occur to him that he had never said that he cared for her at all.

"Is there anything I could get you?" he asked futilely as he felt.

"I'd like to see Mr. Pennington. He was kind to me."

"Marjorie, Marjorie, won't you ever forgive me for the way I acted?"

"Oh, yes," she said, lying with shut eyes, so quiet that her lips scarcely moved when she talked. "I said so. But you haven't been kind. It's like--don't you know, when you get a little dog used to being struck it gets so it cowers when you speak to it, no matter if you aren't going to strike it that time. I don't want to be hurt any more. I don't love Pennington--he's too funny-looking, and awfully old. But he was kind--he never hurt my feelings. . . ."

She spoke without much inflection, and using as few words as she could.

When she had finished she still lay there, as silent and out of Francis's reach as if she were dead. He tiptoed out with a sick feeling that everything was over, which he had never had before. She was so remote. She cared so little about anything.

He went back to work, and told Pennington that Marjorie wanted to see him. When the day was over he returned to the cabin again, and found Mrs. O'Mara on duty once more. Pennington sat by Marjorie, holding her hand in his, and speaking to her occasionally. Francis looked at him, and spoke to him courteously. Pennington smiled at him, and stayed where he was. Marjorie, Mrs. O'Mara said, seemed to cling to him, and his presence did her good. And--she broke it as gently as she could--though the patient was on the road to getting well now, she was disturbed by his coming in and out. She seemed afraid of him.

Francis took it very quietly. After that he only came to the bedroom door to ask, and stepped as softly as he could, so that she would not even know he had been there. And time went on, and she got better, and presently could be dressed in soft, loose, fluffy things, and lie out on the veranda during the warmest part of the day, and see people for a little while each. It was about this time that Francis went to sleep at the bunk-house.

"Why doesn't Francis ever come to see me?" she asked finally. "There are a great many things I want to know about."

Pennington, whom she had asked, told her gently.

"We thought--the physician thought--that he upset you a little when you were beginning to be better. He is staying away on purpose. Would you like to see him?"

"Yes, I think I would," she said. "Can Peggy come talk to me?"