Part 5 (2/2)

But Pauline was too intent on the name Thornton to hear what Daisy said, and she asked: ”Is Mr. Thornton your friend or your relative?”

It was natural enough question, and Daisy roused herself to answer it, and said, quickly: ”He is the son of my husband's father.”

”Oh, _oui_,” Pauline rejoined, a little mystified as to the exact relations.h.i.+p existing between Guy Thornton and her teacher's husband, who she supposed was dead, as Daisy had only confided to madame the fact of a divorce.

”What date is the paper?” Daisy asked, and on being told she said softly to herself: ”I see; it was too late.”

There was in her mind no doubt as to what the result would have been had her letter been in time; no doubt of Guy's preference for herself, no regret that she had written to him, except that the knowledge that she loved him at last would make him wretched with thinking ”what might have been,” and with the bitter pain which cut her heart like a knife there was mingled a pity for Guy, who would perhaps suffer more than she did, if that were possible. She never once thought of retribution, or of murmuring against her fate, but accepted it meekly, albeit she staggered under the load and grew faint as she thought of the lonely life before her, and she so young.

Slowly she went back to her room, while Pauline walked up and down the garden, trying to make out the relations.h.i.+p between the newly-married Thornton and her teacher.

”The son of her husband's father?” she repeated, until at last a meaning dawned upon her, and she said: ”Then he must be her brother-in-law; but why didn't she say so? Maybe, though, that is the English way of putting it;” and having thus settled the matter Pauline joined her mother, who was asking for Mrs. Thornton.

”Gone to her room, and her brother-in-law is married. It was marked in a paper, and I read it to her, and she's sick,” Pauline said, without, however, in the least connecting the sickness with the marriage.

Daisy did not come down to dinner that night, and the maid who called her the next morning reported her as ill and acting very strangely.

Through the summer a malarious fever had prevailed to some extent in and about Rouen, and the physician whom Madame Lafarcade summoned to the sick girl expressed a fear that she was coming down with it, and ordered her kept as quiet as possible.

”She seems to have something weighing on her mind. Has she heard any bad news from home?” he asked, as in reply to his question where her pain was the worst, Daisy always answered:

”It reached him too late-too late, and I am so sorry.”

Madame knew of no bad news, she said, and then as she saw the foreign paper lying on the table, she took it up, and, guided by the pencil marks, read the notice of Guy Thornton's marriage, and that gave her the key at once to Daisy's mental agitation. Daisy had been frank with her and told as much of her story as was necessary, and she knew that the Guy Thornton married to Julia Hamilton had once called Daisy his wife.

”Excuse me, she is, or she has something on her mind, I suspect,” she said to the physician, who was still holding Daisy's hand and looking anxiously at her flushed cheeks and bright, restless eyes.

”I thought so,” he rejoined, ”and it aggravates all the symptoms of her fever. I shall call again to-night.”

He did call, and found his patient worse, and the next day he asked of Madame Lafarcade:

”Has she friends in this country? If so, they ought to know.”

A few hours later and in his lodgings at Berlin, Tom read the following dispatch:

”Mrs. Thornton is dangerously ill. Come at once.”

It was directed to Mr. McDonald, who with his wife had been on a trip to Russia, and was expected daily. Feeling intuitively that it concerned Daisy, Tom had opened it, and without a moment's hesitation packed his valise and leaving a note for the McDonalds when they should return, started for Rouen. Daisy did not know him, and in her delirium she said things to him and of him which hurt him cruelly. Guy was her theme, and the letter which went ”too late, too late.” Then she would beg of Tom to go for Guy, to bring him to her, and tell him how much she loved him and how good she would be if he would only take her back.

”Father wants me to marry Tom,” she said in a whisper, and Tom's heart almost stood still as he listened; ”and Tom wanted me, too, but I couldn't, you know, even if he were worth his weight in gold. I could not love him. Why, he's got red hair, and such great freckles on his face, and big feet and hands with frecks on them. Do you know Tom?”

”Yes, I know him,” Tom answered, sadly, forcing down a choking sob, while the ”big hand with the great frecks on it,” smoothed the golden hair tenderly, and pushed it back from the burning brow.

”Don't talk any more, Daisy; it tires you so,” he said, as he saw her about to speak again.

But Daisy was not to be stopped, and she went on:

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