We Two [80]
have brought in this for the 'Idol.'"
"You've been writing it now! That is good of you. I was afraid we should have to make up with some wretched padding of Blank's."
He took the sheets from her and began to read. Laughter is often only one remove from grief, and Tom, though he was sad-hearted enough, could not keep his countenance through Erica's article. First his shoulders began to shake, then he burst into such a paroxysm of noiseless laughter that Erica, fearing that he could not restrain himself, and would be heard in the sick-room, pulled the towel from his forehead over his mouth; then, conquered herself by the absurdity of his appearance, she was obliged to bury her own face in her hands, laughing more and more whenever the incongruousness of the laughter occurred to her. When they had exhausted themselves the profound depression which had been the real cause of the violent reaction returned with double force. Tom sighed heavily and finished reading the article with the gravest of faces. He was astonished that Erica could have written at such a time an article positively scintillating with mirth.
"How did you manage anything so witty tonight of all nights?" he asked.
"Don't you remember Hans Andersen's clown Punchinello," said Erica. "He never laughed and joked so gayly as the night when his love died and his own heart was broken."
There was a look in her eyes which made Tom reply, quickly: "Don't write any more just now; the professor has promised us something for next week. Don't write any more till till the chieftain is well."
After that she wished him good night rather hastily, crept upstairs to her attic, and threw herself down on her bed. Why had he spoken of the future? Why had his voice hesitated? No, she would not think, she would not.
So the article appeared in that week's "Idol-Breaker, and thousands and thousands of people laughed over it. It even excited displeased comment from "the other side," and in many ways did a great deal of what in Guilford Terrace was considered "good work." For Erica herself, it was long before she had time to give it another thought; it was to her only a desperately hard duty which she had succeeded in doing. Nobody every guessed how much it had cost her.
The weary time dragged on, days and weeks passed by; Raeburn was growing weaker, but clung to life with extraordinary tenacity. And now very bitterly they felt the evils of this voluntarily embraced poverty, for the summer heat was for a few days almost tropical, and the tiny little rooms in the lodging-house were stifling. Brian was very anxious to have the patient moved across to his father's house; but, though Charles Osmond said all he could in favor of the scheme, the other doctors would not consent, thinking the risk of removal too great. And, besides, it would be useless, they maintained the atheist was evidently dying. Brian, who was the youngest, could not carry out his wishes in defiance of the others, but he would not deny himself the hope of even yet saving Erica's father. He devised punkahs, became almost nurse and doctor in one, and utterly refused to lose heart. Erica herself was the only other person who shared his hopefulness, or perhaps her feeling could hardly be described by that word; she was not hopeful, but she had so resolutely set herself to live in the present that she had managed altogether to crowd out the future, and with it the worst fear.
One day, however, it broke upon her suddenly. Some one had left a newspaper in the sick-room; it was weeks since she had seen one, and in a brief interval, while her father slept, or seemed to sleep, she took it up half mechanically. How much it would have interested her a little while ago, how meaningless it all seemed to her now. "Latest Telegrams," "News from the Seat of War," "Parliamentary Intelligence" a speech by Sir Michael Cunningham, one of her heroes, on a question in which she was interested. She could not read it, all the life seemed gone out of it, today the paper was nothing to her but a broad
"You've been writing it now! That is good of you. I was afraid we should have to make up with some wretched padding of Blank's."
He took the sheets from her and began to read. Laughter is often only one remove from grief, and Tom, though he was sad-hearted enough, could not keep his countenance through Erica's article. First his shoulders began to shake, then he burst into such a paroxysm of noiseless laughter that Erica, fearing that he could not restrain himself, and would be heard in the sick-room, pulled the towel from his forehead over his mouth; then, conquered herself by the absurdity of his appearance, she was obliged to bury her own face in her hands, laughing more and more whenever the incongruousness of the laughter occurred to her. When they had exhausted themselves the profound depression which had been the real cause of the violent reaction returned with double force. Tom sighed heavily and finished reading the article with the gravest of faces. He was astonished that Erica could have written at such a time an article positively scintillating with mirth.
"How did you manage anything so witty tonight of all nights?" he asked.
"Don't you remember Hans Andersen's clown Punchinello," said Erica. "He never laughed and joked so gayly as the night when his love died and his own heart was broken."
There was a look in her eyes which made Tom reply, quickly: "Don't write any more just now; the professor has promised us something for next week. Don't write any more till till the chieftain is well."
After that she wished him good night rather hastily, crept upstairs to her attic, and threw herself down on her bed. Why had he spoken of the future? Why had his voice hesitated? No, she would not think, she would not.
So the article appeared in that week's "Idol-Breaker, and thousands and thousands of people laughed over it. It even excited displeased comment from "the other side," and in many ways did a great deal of what in Guilford Terrace was considered "good work." For Erica herself, it was long before she had time to give it another thought; it was to her only a desperately hard duty which she had succeeded in doing. Nobody every guessed how much it had cost her.
The weary time dragged on, days and weeks passed by; Raeburn was growing weaker, but clung to life with extraordinary tenacity. And now very bitterly they felt the evils of this voluntarily embraced poverty, for the summer heat was for a few days almost tropical, and the tiny little rooms in the lodging-house were stifling. Brian was very anxious to have the patient moved across to his father's house; but, though Charles Osmond said all he could in favor of the scheme, the other doctors would not consent, thinking the risk of removal too great. And, besides, it would be useless, they maintained the atheist was evidently dying. Brian, who was the youngest, could not carry out his wishes in defiance of the others, but he would not deny himself the hope of even yet saving Erica's father. He devised punkahs, became almost nurse and doctor in one, and utterly refused to lose heart. Erica herself was the only other person who shared his hopefulness, or perhaps her feeling could hardly be described by that word; she was not hopeful, but she had so resolutely set herself to live in the present that she had managed altogether to crowd out the future, and with it the worst fear.
One day, however, it broke upon her suddenly. Some one had left a newspaper in the sick-room; it was weeks since she had seen one, and in a brief interval, while her father slept, or seemed to sleep, she took it up half mechanically. How much it would have interested her a little while ago, how meaningless it all seemed to her now. "Latest Telegrams," "News from the Seat of War," "Parliamentary Intelligence" a speech by Sir Michael Cunningham, one of her heroes, on a question in which she was interested. She could not read it, all the life seemed gone out of it, today the paper was nothing to her but a broad