During those days and nights of anxiety they lived in and for the boy. Meals came and went and they ate them together, sometimes in silence, oftener talking of him. Days dawned to be filled with work for him; then darkness fell and covered the earth with its pall and their hearts with its terrors. In the morning they said "Would God it were night"; and in the night, "Would God it were morning."
Of the outer world they heard only through the doctor who brought them daily tidings and messages of encouragement from Mrs. Pennybacker. Rosalie was slowly failing. It did not seem possible for her to leave her now, unless-- The sentence was never finished.
Mr. De Jarnette had not been to town since the day he brought Margaret out. He had voluntarily chosen to go into quarantine with her in the sick-room. She had protested at first, but without avail, and later she had come to depend upon him and was glad to have him there. It seemed to divide the responsibility.
"He don't seem to take no _intrus_ in nothin' but that chile," Mammy Cely said one day. "He cert'ny is wropped up in him. And no wonder. Philip's the onlies' one of his fambly left." And for once Margaret forgot to be angry that Philip was thus aligned with the De Jarnettes instead of the Varnums.
Everything but Philip was thrust into the background now.
"I have good news for you, Mrs. De Jarnette," said the doctor one morning, as he put his thermometer into the child's mouth and waited. Philip was at his worst that day and he wanted to get her thoughts away from him for a few moments at least and leave her with something to think about. "Your bill has passed the Senate."
"Has it?" she answered indifferently. Then, with an impatience that could hardly wait, "How is it, doctor? Is it any lower?"
"I'll wager she has forgotten already what I said to her," the doctor communed with himself. "Women are all alike. They can manage the affairs of the nation or the universe until their children get sick, and then--it's all up! Well, I guess that's the way the Lord meant 'em to be."
One afternoon the doctor called the nurse into the adjoining room and talked with her in low tones. When he came back he said cheerfully, "I believe I will stay at Elmhurst to-night, Mrs. De Jarnette. I think he is going to be better, but we will know by midnight."
