Betty, having heard this out, began to laugh. She laughed till they

gave her something to keep her quiet. But, except for that laughter,

she had made no protest whatever; she did not "kick and scream and

cry." In fact, though she looked like a child, she was not at all

inclined to such exhibitions. This doctor had not seen her through her

recent ordeal. Two years before her breakdown, Jasper had been

terribly hurt in an automobile accident, and Betty had come to him at

the hospital, had waited, as white as a snow-image, for the result of

the examination. They had told her emphatically that there was no

hope. Jasper Morena could not live for more than a few days. She must

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not allow herself to hope. He might or might not regain consciousness.

If he did, it would be for a few minutes before the end. Betty had

listened with her white, rigid, child face, had thanked them, had gone

home. There in her exquisite, little sitting room above Central Park,

she had sat at her desk and written a few lines on square, gray note

paper.

"Jasper is dying," she had written. "By the time you get this, he

will be dead. If you can forgive me for having failed in courage

last year, come back. What I have been to you before I will be

again, only, this time we can love openly. Come back."

Then she had dropped her head on the desk and cried. Afterwards she

had addressed her letter to a certain Prosper Gael. The letter went to

Wyoming. When it reached its destination, it was taken over a

mountain-range by a patient Chinaman.

Three days later Jasper regained consciousness and began slowly to

return to health. He had the tenacious vitality of his race, and, in

his own spirit, an iron will to live. He kept Betty beside his bed for

hours, and held her cold hand in his long, sensitive one, and he

stared at her under his lashes till she thought she must go mad. But

she did not. She nursed him through an interminable convalescence. She

received Prosper, very early in this convalescence, by her husband's

bed, and Jasper had murmured gratitude for the emotion that threatened

to overwhelm his friend. It was not till some time--an extraordinarily

long time--after Morena's complete recovery that she had snapped like

a broken icicle. And then, forsooth, they had sent her to Wyoming to

get back her health!

Having paced away some of her restlessness, Betty stopped by the cabin

window and pushed aside one of the short, calico curtains. She looked

out on the court. A tall woman had just pulled up a bucket of water

from the well and had emptied it into a pitcher. She finished, let the

bucket drop with a whirr and a clash, and raised her head. For a

second she and Jasper Morena's wife looked at each other. Betty

nodded, smiled, and drew the curtain close.




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