Part 13 (1/2)

Dr. Angus had friends in Colorado. Now she remembered he had a relative who had helped to found Hilox, and had endowed a chair of languages or literature; she was not certain which. So it must be to _him_ she was indebted, and, oddly, she was more indignant than grateful. The natural intervention of a friendly hand in the matter took all the satisfaction out of her surprise.

Not that she loved Dr. Angus! But she did not choose to be under an obligation to him. What girl would in the circ.u.mstances?

II.

All this time the letter from home lay overlooked on the pillow. If it could have spoken it would have reproached the daughter for her absorption in its companion, but it bided its time. Presently Margaret turned with a start, saw it, felt a remorseful stab, and tore it open, without the aid of a hair-pin.

This is what the home letter had to say. It was from Margaret's father, and as he seldom wrote to her, leaving, as many men do, the bulk of correspondence with absent members of the family to be the care of his wife and children, she felt a premonitory thrill.

The Lees were a very affectionate and devoted household, clannish to a degree, and undemonstrative, as mountaineers often are. The deep well of their love did not foam and ripple like a brook, but the water was always there, to draw upon at will. ”The shallows murmur, but the deeps are dumb.” It was so in the house of Duncan Lee.

”MY DEAR DAUGHTER MARGARET” (the letter began),--”I hope these lines will find you well, and your examination crowned with success. We have thought and talked of you much lately, and wished we could be with you to see you when you are graduated. Mother would have been so glad to go, but it is my sad duty to inform you that she is not well. Do not be anxious, Margaret. There is no immediate danger, but your dear mother has been more or less ailing ever since last March, and she does not get better. We fear there will have to be a surgical operation--perhaps more than one. She may have to live, as people sometimes do, for years with a knife always over her head. We want you to come home, Margaret, as soon as you can. I enclose a check for all expenses, and I will see that you are met at the railway terminus, so you need not take the long stage-ride all by yourself. But I am afraid I have not broken it to you gently, my dear, as mother said I must. Forgive me; I am just breaking my heart in these days, and I need you as much almost as your mother does.

”Your loving father, ”DUNCAN LEE.”

A vision rose before Margaret, as with tear-blurred eyes she folded her father's letter and replaced it in its cover. She brushed the tears away and looked at the date. Four days ago the letter had been posted. Her home, an old homestead in a valley that nestled deep and sweet in the heart of the grand mountain range, guarding it on every side, rose before her. She saw her father, grizzled, stooping-shouldered, care-worn, old-fas.h.i.+oned in dress, precise in manner, a gentleman of the old school, a man who had never had much money, but who had sent his five sons and his one daughter to college, giving them, what the Lees prized most in life, a liberal education. She saw her mother, thin, fair, tall, with the golden hair that would fade but would never turn gray, the blue child-like eyes, the wistful mouth.

”Mother!” she gasped, ”mother!”

The horror of the malady that had seized on the beautiful, dainty, lovely woman, so like a princess in her bearing, so notable in her housewifery, so neighborly, so maternal, swept over her in a hot tide, retreated, leaving her s.h.i.+vering.

”I must go home,” she said, ”and at once!” With feet that seemed to her weighted with lead she went straight to the room of the Dean, knowing that in that gracious woman's spirit there would be instant comprehension, and that she would receive wise advice.

”My dear!” said the Dean, ”you have heard from Hilox, haven't you? We are so proud of you; we want you to represent our college and our culture there. It is a magnificent opportunity, Margaret.”

The Dean was very short-sighted, and she did not catch at first the look on Margaret's face.

”Yes,” she answered, in a voice that sounded m.u.f.fled and lifeless, ”I have heard from Hilox; I had almost forgotten, but I must answer the letter. Dear Mrs. Wade, I have heard from home, too. My mother is very ill, and she needs me. I must go at once--to-morrow morning. I cannot wait for Commencement.”

The Dean asked for further information. Then she urged that Margaret should wait over the annual great occasion; so much was due the college, she thought, and she pointed out the fact that Mr. Lee had not asked her to leave until the exercises were over.

But Margaret had only one reply: ”My mother needs me; I must go!”

A week later, at sunset, the old lumbering stage, rolling over the steep hills and the smooth dales drew up at Margaret's home. Tired, but with a steadfast light in her eyes, the girl stepped down, received her father's kiss, and went straight to her mother, waiting in the doorway.

”I am glad--glad you have come, my darling!” said the mother. ”While you are here I can give everything up. But, my love, this is not what we planned!”

”No, my dearest,” said the girl, ”but that is of no consequence. I wish I had known sooner how much, how very much, I was wanted at home!”

”But you will not be a Professor of Greek!” said the mother that night.

It was all arranged for the operation, which was to take place in a week's time, the surgeons to come from the nearest town. The mother was brave, gay, heroic. Margaret looked at her, wondering that one under the shadow of death could laugh and talk so brightly.

”No. I will be something better,” she said, tenderly. ”I will be your nurse, your comfort if I can. If I had only known, there are many things better than Greek that I might have learned!”

Hilox did not get its Greek professor, but the culture of Mount Seward was not wasted. Mrs. Lee lived years, often in anguish unspeakable, relieved by intervals of peace and freedom from pain. The daughter became almost the mother in their intercourse as time pa.s.sed, and the bloom on her cheek paled sooner than on her mother's in the depth of her sympathy. But the end came at last, and the suffering life went out with a soft sigh, as a child falls asleep.