"No, it would only fatigue them greatly; it's for you I fear. You've
borne enough to-day."
"Then, Mr. Remington, oh, please send me. I shall die at Aikenside.
John will drive me, I know. He used to like me. I'll ask him," and
Maddy was going in quest of the Aikenside coachman, when Guy held her
back, and said: "John will go if I bid him. But you, Maddy, if I thought it was safe."
"It is. Oh, let me go," and Maddy grasped both his hands beseechingly.
If there was a man who could resist the eloquent appeal of Maddy's
eyes at that moment, the man was not Guy Remington, and leaving her
alone, he sought out John, asking if it would be possible to get
through to Homedale that night.
John shook his head decidedly, but when Guy explained Maddy's distress
and anxiety, the negro began to relent, particularly as he saw his
young master, too, was interested.
"It'll kill them horses," he said, "but mabby that's nothin' to please
the girl."
"If we only had runners now, instead of wheels, John," Guy said, after
a moment's reflection. "Drive back to Aikenside as fast as possible,
and change the carriage for a covered sleigh. Leave the grays at home
and drive a pair of farm horses. They can endure more. Tell Flora to
send my traveling shawl. Miss Clyde may need it, and an extra buffalo,
and a bottle of wine, and my buckskin gloves, and take Tom on with
you, and a snow shovel; we may have to dig."
"Yes, yes, I know," and tying his muffler about his throat, John
started off through the storm, his mind a confused medley of ideas,
the main points of which were, bottles of wine, snow shovels, and the
fact that his master was either crazy or in love.
Meanwhile, with the prospect of going home, Maddy had grown quiet, and
did not refuse the temporary supper of buttered toast, muffins, steak
and hot coffee, which Guy ordered from the small hotel just in the
rear of the depot. Tired, nervous, and almost helpless, she allowed
Guy himself to prepare her coffee, taking it from his hand and
drinking it at his bidding as obediently as a child. There was a
feeling of delicious rest in being cared for thus, and but for the
dying one at Honedale she would have enjoyed it vastly. As it was,
though, she never for a moment forgot her grandmother. She did forget,
in a measure, her anxiety, and was able to think how kind, how
exceedingly kind Guy was. He was like what he used to be, she thought,
only kinder, and thinking it was because she was in trouble, she
accepted all his little attentions willingly, feeling how pleasant it
was to have him there, and thinking once with a half shudder of the
long, cold ride before her, when Guy would no longer be present, and
also of the dreary home where death might possibly be a guest ere she
could reach it.