Pen's mother had died a young woman of a heart attack, and the fear that Pen might have inherited her weakness was ever present in the good, absurd little man's breast. It was Pen's final weapon. Be it said to her credit she had never used it before. She put her hand to her breast without speaking.
"Oh, my child! Look at me! Speak to me!" he implored.
He made a manful attempt to pick her up in his arms, but she was as big as he. He could not lift her.
"What shall I do!" he wailed, wringing his hands.
"I can walk," she said. "If you will help me."
"Let me lie down in the drawing-room until I feel better."
He helped her across the hall and Pen sank down on the old linen-covered sofa with the broken springs. She was still pressing her hand to her breast in that mute gesture that drove him to distraction. In truth she was pale enough, but it was not from heart disease.
He made her as comfortable as he could; he brought her a glass of water. He scampered back into the hall to call up the doctor. After agitated appeals to other subscribers to get off the line he finally got Doctor Hance on Absolom's Island. But evidently the doctor declined to make the long drive around the head of the creeks and down the impassable Neck road. Pendleton must come for him in his boat he said. In vain the distracted father pleaded that he could not leave his child; the doctor was firm.
Finally Pendleton said: "Very well, I'll come at once. Wait for me on the steamboat dock."
Pen's breast became easier. This plan suited her very well.
Crying that he was going to get Aunt Maria Garner, he ran out of the house. The negro cabin was some three hundred yards behind the big house.
Pen used the interim to get her thoughts in some kind of order. She began to be conscious of a sort of exaltation. Her thoughts ran: "He's in trouble! I shall not lose him now! ... Every man's hand is raised against him. He has no one but me to depend on. He's mine!" There was a terrible joy in the thought of standing side by side with him against the whole world. Her breast burned with a fire of resolution. She even had a fleeting regret that he was not guilty; if he had been it would have required her to give so much more. "I love him! I love him!" she said to herself now without shame.