"What do you think my life would be without you?" said Gordon. "Aside from your assistance, which I cannot do without, you are my only solace, especially since Clemency is in this mood. Stay for my sake, if it is unpleasant, Elliot."
"Well, I will stay, if you feel so about it, doctor," James replied.
"Clemency is treating you shamefully," Gordon said.
"A girl has a right to her own mind in such a matter, if she has in anything."
"The worst of it is, it is not her mind. I tell you I know that."
"I am not so sure."
"Wait and see! You underestimate yourself, boy."
James laughed sadly. Then there was a knock on the office door and Georgie K. appeared. He looked shyly at Gordon. He had a bottle under his arm. "I have brought over a little apple-jack; thought it might do you good," he stammered, his great face suffused like a girl's.
Gordon looked affectionately at him. "Thank you, Georgie K.," he said.
"Sit down and we will have a game. I'll get the hot water and glasses.
Emma is out."
"I'll get them," James said eagerly. He went out to the kitchen, but Emma was not out. She was sitting sewing in a gingham apron.
"What do you want?" she demanded severely.
James explained meekly.
"Well, go back to the office, and I'll fetch the things," Emma said in a hostile tone. James obeyed. Presently Emma appeared bearing a tray with the hot water and two glasses, Gordon did not notice the omission of a third glass, until she had gone out. "Why, she only brought two glasses," he said.
James felt absurdly unequal to facing Emma again. "I don't think I'll take anything to-night," he said.
"Nonsense!" returned Gordon. He went to the door and shouted for Emma with no response. "She can't have gone upstairs so quickly," he said.
But when after another shout he got no response, he went himself into the dining-room, and got a tumbler from the sideboard. "She must have gone upstairs at once," he remarked when he returned. "The kitchen is dark."
Georgie K. did not remain very late. He seemed nervously solicitous with regard to Doctor Gordon. When he left he shook hands with him, and bade him take good care of himself.
"I love that man," Gordon said, when the door had closed behind him.
When James entered his room that night he found fresh proof of Emma's inexplicable hostility. The room was in total darkness. He lit matches and searched for lamp or candles, to find none. He fumbled his way out into the kitchen, and got a little lamp, which gave but a dim light, and read, as was his habit, after he had gone to bed, with exceeding difficulty. He also was subjected to a most absurd annoyance from the presence of some gritty particles in the bed. After he extinguished his lamp he could not go to sleep because of them, and lit his lamp again, and tore the sheet off and shook it. The gritty particles seemed to him to be crumbs of very hard and dry bread. He made the bed up again after his clumsy masculine fashion. James had not much manual dexterity, and rested very uncomfortably, from a pronounced inclination of the coverings to slide off his feet, and over one side of the bed.
The next morning Emma did not bring hot water for his shaving. She usually set a pitcher outside his door, but this morning there was none.
He was obliged to go out to the kitchen and prefer a request for some.
"I have jest filled up the coffee-pot and the tea-kettle, and I guess the water ain't very hot," Emma said in a malicious tone, as she filled a pitcher for him.
The water was not very hot. James had a severe experience shaving, and his annoyances were not over then. There was no napkin beside his plate at breakfast. He did not like to apply to Clemency, whose cold good morning had served to establish a higher barrier between them, and who sat behind the coffee urn with a forlorn but none the less severe look.
He also did not like to apply to Gordon for fear of offending her. It was about as bad to ask Emma, but he finally did, in a low tone.
Emma apparently did not hear. He was forced to repeat his request for a napkin loudly. Gordon looked up. "Emma, why do you not set the table properly?" he asked, in a severe tone.
Emma tossed her head and muttered. She brought a napkin, and laid it beside James's plate with an impetus as if it had been a lump of lead.
Presently James discovered that he had only one spoon, but he made that do duty for his cereal and coffee, and said nothing. He was aware of Emma's eyes of covert, malicious enjoyment upon him, as he surreptitiously licked off the oatmeal, and put the spoon in his coffee.
He began to wonder what he could do, if this state of things was to continue. It all seemed so absurd, the grievances were so exceedingly petty. He could not imagine what had so turned Emma against him. He was even more at a loss where she was concerned than in Clemency's case. A girl engaged might find some foolish reason, which seemed enormous to her, to turn the cold shoulder to him, but it was inconceivable that Emma should. He had always treated her politely, even with a certain deference, knowing, as he did, that she was an old and faithful servant, and as the daughter of a farmer being, in her own estimation at least, of a highly superior station to that of servants in general. He could not imagine why Emma was subjecting him to these ridiculous persecutions, before which he was almost helpless. She had heretofore treated him loftily, as was her wont with everybody, except Gordon and Clemency, but certainly she had neglected none of her duties with regard to him. Miserable as James was concerning Clemency, he could not but feel that if he were to be subjected to these incomprehensible annoyances from Emma, life in the house would be almost impossible. He could bear sorrow like a man, but to bear pinpricks beside was almost too much to ask. That noon, when he returned from his rounds, he realized that there was to be no cessation. Clemency was not at the lunch-table. Gordon said she had a headache and was lying down. Emma in passing James his cup of tea, contrived to spill it over him. He was not scalded, but his shirt-front and collar were stained, thereby necessitating a change, and he was in a hurry to be gone directly after lunch.
Gordon roused himself, however. "Be more careful another time, Emma," he said sharply.
Emma tossed her head. "Doctor Elliot moved jest as I was coming with the cup," she said in a thin, waspish voice.
"He did no such thing," Gordon said harshly, "and if he had, it was your business to be careful. Get Doctor Elliot another cup of tea."
Emma obeyed with a jerk. She set the cup and saucer down beside James's plate as hard as she dared, and James at the first sip found that the tea was salted. However, he said nothing. Gordon after his outburst had resumed his former state of apathy, and was eating and drinking like a machine, whose works were rusty and almost run down. He could not trouble him with such an absurdity. Then, too, he was too vexed to please the girl so much. He forced himself to drink the tea without a grimace, knowing that Emma's eyes were upon him. But the climax was almost reached. That night when on his return he wished to change his collar before dinner, he found every one with the buttonholes torn. It was skilfully done, so skilfully that no one could have declared positively that it had not been done accidentally in the laundry. James would not appear at the dinner-table in a soiled collar, and was forced to hurry out to the village store and purchase new ones. These, with the exception of the one he put on, he locked in his trunk. He was late for dinner, and the soup was quite cold. When Doctor Gordon complained irritably, Emma replied with one of her characteristic tosses of the head that she couldn't help it, Doctor Elliot was late. James said nothing. He swallowed his luke-warm soup in silence. He began to wonder what he could do. He did not wish to complain to Doctor Gordon, especially as the result might be the dismissal of Emma, and he felt that he could say nothing to Clemency about it. Clemency appeared at the dinner-table, but she looked pale and forlorn, and said good evening to James without lifting her eyes. When her uncle asked if her head was better, she said, "Yes, thank you," in a spiritless tone. She ate almost nothing. After dinner, James had a call to make, and, on his return, entered by the office door. He found Gordon fast asleep in his chair, with the dog at his feet. The dog started up at sight of James, but he motioned him down, and went softly out into the hall. There was a light there, but none in the parlor. James heard distinctly a little sob from the parlor. He hesitated a moment, then he entered the room. It was suffused with moonlight. All the pale objects stood out like ghosts.
Clemency by the window, in a little white wool house-gown, looked, ghostly.
James went straight across to her, pulled up a chair beside her, seated himself, and pulled one of her little hands away from her face almost roughly, and held it firmly in spite of her weak attempt to remove it.
"Now, Clemency," he said in a determined voice, "this has gone quite far enough. You told your uncle that you wished to break your engagement to me. I have no wish to coerce you. If you really do not want to marry me, why, I must make the best of it, but I have a right to know the reason why, and I will know it."
Clemency was silent, except for her sobs.
"Tell me," said James.
"Don't," whispered Clemency.
"Tell me."
Then Clemency let her other hand, which contained a moist little ball of handkerchief, fall. She turned full upon him her tearful, swollen face.
"If you want to know what you know already," said she, in a hard voice, "here it is. She wasn't my mother, but I loved her like one, and you killed her."
CHAPTER XV
James sat as if turned to stone. All in a second he realized what it must be. He let Clemency's hand go, and leaned back in his chair. "What do you mean, Clemency?" he asked finally, but he realized how senseless the question was. He knew perfectly well what she meant, and he knew perfectly well that he was utterly helpless before her accusation.
"You know," said Clemency, still in her unnatural hard voice. "You killed her."
"How?"
"You know. You gave her more morphine, and her heart was weak. Emma overheard Uncle Tom say so, and that more morphine was dangerous. She might have been alive to-day if it had not been for you."
James sat staring at the girl. She went on pitilessly. "You did not see Emma that last time you came upstairs," she said, "but she saw you. She was standing in the door of her room, and she had no light. She saw you and Mrs. Blair going away from her room, and she heard Mrs. Blair tell you she was dead. You killed her. I want nothing whatever to do with a murderer."
James remembered that draught of cold air. It must have come from the open door of Emma's room at the end of the hall. He understood that Emma could not have seen him coming upstairs, but that she had seen him with Mrs. Blair at the door of the sick-room, and had jumped at her conclusion.
"Emma knew when you went upstairs first," said Clemency. "You left her door a little ajar. Emma saw you giving her a hypodermic. And then when that did not kill her you gave her another. Uncle Tom did not know. He must never know, for it would kill him, but you did kill her."
James was silent for a moment. He realized the impossibility of clearing himself from the accusation unless he told the whole truth and implicated Doctor Gordon. Finally he said, miserably enough, "You don't know how horribly she was suffering, dear. You don't know what torments she would have had to suffer."
He knew when he said that that he incriminated himself. Clemency retorted immediately, "You don't know. I have heard Uncle Tom say that nobody can ever know. She might have gotten well. Anyway, you killed her." With that Clemency sprang up and ran out of the room, and James heard her sob.