"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--
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.