Notwithstanding | Page 5

seen the night before at dinner.
"I thought I heard some one call," she said. "Is anything wrong?" Then,
as Annette leaned trembling against the wall, "Can I be of any use?"
Annette pointed to her own open door, and the woman went in with her
at once.
She hastened instantly to the bed and bent over it. She touched the
forehead, the wrist, with rapid, business-like movements. She put her
hand upon Dick's heart.
"Is he dead?" asked Annette.

"No," she said, "but he is unconscious, and he is very ill. It is some
kind of seizure. When did your husband become like this?"
"I--don't know," said Annette.
The woman turned indignantly upon her.
"You don't know! Yet surely you sat up with him? You look as if you
had been up all night."
"I sat up, but I did not look at him," said Annette. "I never thought he
was ill."
The elder woman's cheek reddened at the callousness of Annette's
words, as at a blow. She was silent for a moment, and then said coldly--
"We have only one thing to think of now, and that is how to save his
life, if it can be saved."
And in a moment, as it seemed to Annette, the house was awakened,
and a doctor and a Sister of Mercy appeared and were installed at
Dick's bedside. After a few hours, consciousness came back
intermittently; but Dick, so excitable the day before, took but little heed
of what went on around him. When, at the doctor's wish, Annette spoke
to him, he looked at her without recognition.
The doctor was puzzled, and asked her many questions as to his
condition on the previous day. She remembered that he had had a fall
from his horse a day or two before, and had hurt his neck; and the
doctor established some mysterious link between the accident and the
illness, which he said had been terribly aggravated by drink. Had
Monsieur taken much stimulant the night before? Yes, Monsieur had
appeared to be intoxicated.
Mrs. Stoddart's steel eyes softened somewhat as she looked at Annette.
She and the doctor noticed the extreme exhaustion from which she was
suffering, and exchanged glances. Presently Mrs. Stoddart took the girl
to her own room, and helped her to undress, and made her lie down on

her bed.
"I will bring you your dressing-gown, if you will tell me where it is."
"I don't know," said Annette; and then she recollected, and said, "I
haven't any things with me."
"Not even a handkerchief?"
"I think not a handkerchief."
"How long is it since you have slept?"
"I don't know." These words seemed her whole stock-in-trade.
Mrs. Stoddart frowned.
"I can't have you ill on my hands too," she said briskly; "one is
enough." And she left the room, and presently came back with a glass
with a few drops in it. She made Annette swallow them, and put a
warm rug over her, and darkened the room.
And presently Annette's eyes closed, and the anguish of the last two
days was lifted from her, as a deft hand lifts a burden. She sighed and
leaned her cheek against a pillow which was made of rest; and
presently she was wandering in a great peace in a wide meadow beside
a little stream whispering among its forget-me-nots. And across the
white clover, and the daisies, and the little purple orchids, came the feet
of one who loved her. And they walked together beside the stream, the
kind, understanding stream, he and she--he and she together. And all
was well, all was well.
Many hours later, Mrs. Stoddart and the doctor came and looked at her,
and he thrust out his under lip.
"I can't bear to wake her," she said.
"One little half-hour, then," he said, and went back to the next room.

Mrs. Stoddart sat down by the bed, and presently Annette, as if
conscious of her presence, opened her eyes.
"I see now," she said slowly, looking at Mrs. Stoddart with the fixed
gravity of a child, "I was wrong."
"How wrong, my dear?"
"Rivers are not meant for that, nor the little streams either. They are not
meant to drown oneself in. They are meant to run and run, and for us to
walk beside, and pick forget-me-nots."
Mrs. Stoddart's scrutinizing eyes filled with sudden tears. What tragedy
was this into which she had thrust herself? She drew back the curtain,
and let the afternoon light fall on Annette's face. Her eyelids trembled,
and into her peaceful, rapt face distress crept slowly back. Mrs.
Stoddart felt as if she had committed a crime. But there was another to
think of besides Annette.
"You have slept?"
"Yes. I ought not to have gone to sleep while Dick