"Poor Richard," she whispered softly, and kneeling by the bedside she
laid her hot cheek as near as she dared to the white, wasted hand
resting outside the counterpane.
She did not think what the result of waking him might be. She did not
especially care. She was his wife, let what would happen--his erring but
repentant Ethie. She had a right to be there with him, and so at last
she took his thin hand between her own, and caressed it tenderly. Then
Richard moved, and moaning in his deep sleep seemed to have a vague
consciousness that someone was with him. Perhaps it was the nurse who
had been with him at night on one or two occasions; but the slumber into
which he had fallen was too deep to be easily broken. Something he
murmured about the medicine, and Ethie's hand held it to his lips, and
Ethie's arm was passed beneath his pillow as she lifted up his head
while he swallowed it. Then, without unclosing his eyes, he lay back
upon his pillow again, while Ethie stood over him until the glimmer of
the watchman's lamp passed down the hall a second time, and disappeared
around the corner. The watchman had stopped at Richard's door to listen,
and then Ethie had experienced a spasm of terror at the possibility of
being discovered; but with the receding footsteps her fears left her,
and she waited a half-hour longer, while Richard in his dreams talked of
bygone days--speaking of Olney, and then of Daisy and herself. Dead,
both of them, he seemed to think; and Ethie's pulse throbbed with a
strange feeling of joy as she heard herself called his poor darling,
whom he wanted back again. She was satisfied now. He had not forgotten
her, or even thought to separate himself from her, as Aunt Van Buren
hinted. He was true to her yet, and she had acted foolishly in keeping
aloof from him so long. But she would be foolish no longer. To-morrow he
should know everything. If he would only awaken she would tell him now,
and take the consequences. But Richard did not waken, and at last, with
a noiseless step, she glided back to her own chamber. She would write to
Richard, she decided. She could talk to him better on paper, and, then,
if he did not care to receive her, they would both be spared much
embarrassment.
Ethie's door was locked all the next morning, for she was writing to her
husband a long, humble letter, in which all the blame was taken upon
herself, inasmuch as she had made the great mistake of marrying without
love. "But I do love you now, Richard," she said; "love you truly, too,
else I should never be writing this to you, and asking you to take me
back and try if I cannot make you happy."