“Why, I didn’t come on business—” Hayes began.
Vance continued to stand squarely on the upper step. “What did you come for?” he asked; and he saw the blood purple the other’s ruddy face. “I presume you think it’s rather too early in the day for a call?” Hayes continued. He was evidently trying for a tone of conciliatory ease. “Fact is, I heard by accident you were living out in these parts, and as I was running up to the Hudson to spend Sunday I thought you and Mrs. Weston would excuse me if I dropped in on the way. …”
Vance continued to stare at him. “Is this Sunday?” he asked.
“Why, yes.” Hayes hesitated a moment. “I’m sorry if I butted in. But see here, Weston—you look sick. Can I do anything? Is there anything wrong?”
Vance pushed his hair back from his forehead. He realized for the first time that he was unshaved, unwashed, with the fever of his wakeful nights in his eyes. He looked again at Hayes, with a last impulse of contempt and futile anger. A trivial retort rose to his lips; but his voice caught in his throat, he felt the muscles of his face working, and suddenly he broke into sobs. In a moment Hayes was by his side. Vance pressed his fists against his eyes; then he turned and the two men looked at each other.
“Laura Lou?”
Vance nodded. He walked back into the house and Hayes followed him.
“Christ, it’s cold in here!” Hayes exclaimed below his breath.
“Yes. I know. I made the fire, but it’s gone out again. The woman didn’t come back. …”
“The woman?”
“The hired woman. When she saw the hemorrhage last night she bolted. The doctor’s trying to find a nurse.” The two spoke to each other in whispers. Hayes’s flush had faded at Vance’s last words, and his face had the ghastly sallowness of full-blooded men when their colour goes.
“Damn the nurse. Here, I guess I’ll do as good as any nurse.” He lowered his voice still more to add: “Is it warmer in where she is?” Vance nodded. “Then I’ll get this fire started first off.” He pulled off his coat and looked about him. “You go back to her—I’ll see to things. I’m used to camping. Don’t you mind about me. …”
Vance, as if compelled by a stronger will, turned obediently toward the bedroom. He had not known till Hayes entered the house how desperately his solitude had weighed on him. He felt as if life had recovered its normal measure, as if time were reestablished and chaos banished. He understood that he was dizzy with hunger and sleeplessness and fear. He crept back to Laura Lou’s bed and sat down beside her.
She was still asleep; in the half darkness he could just see the faint stir of her breathing. He longed to feel her pulse, but was afraid of disturbing her, and sat there, holding his breath, his body stiffened into immobility. Outside he heard Hayes moving about with a strangely light tread for so heavy a man. “He must have taken off his shoes so as to make less noise,” he thought, with a little twinge of gratitude. It helped him to hear Hayes padding softly about, and to wonder what he was doing. After the ghastly stillness of the night, it made everything less dreadful and unreal to listen to those familiar household sounds.
Presently he thought he would go and get Laura Lou’s milk, to have it within reach when she woke. But the truth was that he could not stay still any longer—he felt a sudden need to see Hayes again, and hear his voice.
He stretched out one foot after another, trying to get stealthily to his legs without her hearing him. But as he got up the chair slipped back and knocked against the side of the bed. He stopped in terror, and Laura Lou stirred, and seemed to struggle to raise her head from the pillow. He ran to the window to pull up the blind, and when he got back to the bed she lifted herself up to him with outstretched arms, and the unbearable look of terror in her face. “Vanny, I’m—” She dropped back and lay still. He knelt down beside the bed and took her hand; but presently she began to breathe in short racking gasps. A mortal chill stole over him. Those gasps were like the sound of something being wrenched out of its socket. Her eyes were shut and she did not seem to know that he was there.
He got up and went to the door. Through the crack he saw Hayes in his shirtsleeves putting a coffee pot and something steaming in a dish on the table. He beckoned to him and said: “The doctor—you’d better go for him quick.” Then he thought he heard a sound in the bedroom and turned back, trembling. As he moved away Hayes caught his arm. “Is she worse? Can I see her a minute first?” he whispered.
Vance suddenly felt that it would be a relief to have someone else look at that far-off face on the pillow. Perhaps Hayes would know … He sighed “Yes,” and Hayes crept into the room after him. They went up to the bed, and Hayes bent over Laura Lou. Her eyes were open now. They looked straight up at the two men, and beyond them, into the unknown. Her hand twitched on the sheet. Suddenly she drew a short breath and then was quiet again. Vance and Hayes stood side by side without speaking. Her hand stopped twitching—it lay still on the sheet, dry and frail as a dead leaf. Hayes suddenly stooped lower, bringing his round close-cropped head close to her lips; then he slowly straightened himself again. “She’s dead,” he said.
Vance stood motionless, uncomprehending. He saw Hayes put out one of his short thick hands and draw down the lids over Laura Lou’s eyes. Then he saw him
