“Do I?” she reiterated with the same weird intonation.
She laughed again, her voice growing shriller and shriller with each breath.
Katy’s frightened face peered through a crack in the kitchen doorway, but no one observed it. John’s grip on Lucy’s arm tightened.
“Stop that laughing,” he repeated, but, as he shook her, this time more roughly, there was fear in his tone and glance.
Lucy ceased laughing and looked at him.
“Oh, John!” she exclaimed. “What is it, John? What have I done?” Then she hid her face in her hands and sobbed.
He loosened his hold on her.
Nannie gave a sigh of relief.
“Lucy, you should control yourself and not give way like that,” she admonished.
Lucy uncovered her face and gazed at John. The tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“Come now, Lucy,” he went on more quietly, “don’t act this way any longer. Anyone would think, to see and hear you, that you had been terribly abused.”
“You have hurt me so. Oh, John, how you have hurt me.” Lucy’s tears continued to flow, but she did not sob.
“You have hurt us, too, Lucy,” said Nannie.
“I depended on you to understand, John,” Lucy pursued, without noticing her mother, “and you were the first to fail me. Others have been better to me than you have—been more true—”
“Lucy!” Mrs. Merwent interrupted sharply, “I should think you could do better than to bring Mr. Sprague in at a time like this!”
“Yes,” echoed John, flushing again. “If he has been more sympathetic than your husband, you might at least keep from throwing it up to me.”
“I wasn’t even thinking—” Lucy began in a dull voice. Then, suddenly, her eyes glittered angrily. “You two evil minded beings!” she almost screamed. “Do and say what you like, I despise you!”
“Lucy, I warn you—” articulated Mrs. Merwent.
“Don’t speak to me! I’m ashamed that you are my mother.”
Nannie cowered at the whip-like words. John moved toward Lucy once more, but she retreated before him defensively.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t come near me! Oh, how I hate myself that I ever thought you worthy to be the father of my child! Why did you ever seek me in the first place? Why did you? Why did you? Oh—oh—why did you?”
“John,” said Nannie, as Lucy paused for breath, “I think we’d better—”
“Yes, leave me!” Lucy broke in shrilly. “Leave me! Go away! I can’t look at you! Get away from me!” She was waving her hands at them excitedly. “Go! Go away! Oh, you—go—go now! Go at once! Go!” Her words ended in a shriek.
All at once she drew her breath in painfully and, before John could catch her, fell forward in a heap by the table. She lay there still and white.
Nannie knelt beside her calling her name and chafing her hands. Dimmie had run in and was crying at the top of his lungs. Katy stood in the kitchen doorway with mouth and eyes wide open.
“For heaven’s sake, be still!” John snapped at the child. “Come on, Katy. Let’s get Mrs. Winter on to the sofa. She’s been taken sick.”
“Yes, sah,” gasped Katy. “Suttenly, sah.” And they lifted Lucy from the floor.
“Keep still,” John commanded again, shaking Dimmie violently.
The child obeyed, still whimpering.
“Get me a wet towel to bathe her forehead, Katy,” directed John. The negress did as she was told.
“Go upstairs and get some smelling salts, Nannie,” he ordered Mrs. Merwent, and when she returned with the bottle, he added, “Let her smell of them, and sit by her till I get back. I’m going to bring Dr. Hamilton. It’ll be quicker than telephoning.” Almost before finishing his speech he had his hat on and was gone.
“Poor Lucy! Poor girl!” Mrs. Merwent ejaculated time after time, as Lucy lay with closed eyes. “I told John he was too hasty. Oh, my poor child!” And she continued to pat the pillows, rub Lucy’s hands and forehead, and apply the smelling salts with nervous and jerky movements.
Scarcely five minutes had elapsed when John reentered followed by Dr. Hamilton, who dropped his hat on the table, swung his medicine case beside it, pushed Mrs. Merwent gently out of his way, and seated himself by the sofa without a word.
John, Nannie, and Katy stood watching him anxiously while he felt Lucy’s pulse, observed her breathing, and lifted her eyelids, staring carefully at her pupils. Then he deftly prepared a hypodermic and injected its contents beneath the skin of her arm.
“Mrs. Winter has had a bad nervous shock,” he informed the group about him at length. As he talked he was still watching Lucy intently. “Her heart is none too strong. However I think that strychnine will pick her up in a minute.”
Soon Lucy’s eyelids fluttered, and then opened.
“Where am I? What is the matter?” she asked, staring about her wildly, and attempting to raise herself on her elbow.
“You were taken ill, Mrs. Winter,” replied Dr. Hamilton in a reassuring manner, gently forcing her back on the pillow. “You just lie quiet for a few minutes and you will be all right.”
Lucy obeyed and closed her eyes once more. When she opened them again her face had regained a little of its color.
“Come on, Mr. Winter,” suggested the doctor. “We’ll carry her upstairs now so she can be put to bed. That’s the place for her.”
“Can’t I walk?” Lucy asked in faint protest.
“No. We had better carry you.”
Lucy made no further objection. When she was in her room, Dr. Hamilton turned from her and spoke to Nannie who followed close behind.
“You had best get her undressed and quiet at once, Mrs. Merwent,” he said, “and when that’s done, leave her, and on no account disturb her.”
To John in the hall at the moment of departure he added, “Keep her perfectly quiet. On no pretext allow her to become excited, and if anything you don’t understand comes up, call me at once. I’ll look in again in the morning.”
Nannie arranged a lounge in Lucy’s room and slept near her, getting up a dozen times to ask, “Do you
