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
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.