Ethelyn's Mistake

"Poor Richard," she whispered softly, and kneeling by the bedside she

laid her hot cheek as near as she dared to the white, wasted hand

resting outside the counterpane.

She did not think what the result of waking him might be. She did not

especially care. She was his wife, let what would happen--his erring but

repentant Ethie. She had a right to be there with him, and so at last

she took his thin hand between her own, and caressed it tenderly. Then

Richard moved, and moaning in his deep sleep seemed to have a vague

consciousness that someone was with him. Perhaps it was the nurse who

had been with him at night on one or two occasions; but the slumber into

which he had fallen was too deep to be easily broken. Something he

murmured about the medicine, and Ethie's hand held it to his lips, and

Ethie's arm was passed beneath his pillow as she lifted up his head

while he swallowed it. Then, without unclosing his eyes, he lay back

upon his pillow again, while Ethie stood over him until the glimmer of

the watchman's lamp passed down the hall a second time, and disappeared

around the corner. The watchman had stopped at Richard's door to listen,

and then Ethie had experienced a spasm of terror at the possibility of

being discovered; but with the receding footsteps her fears left her,

and she waited a half-hour longer, while Richard in his dreams talked of

bygone days--speaking of Olney, and then of Daisy and herself. Dead,

both of them, he seemed to think; and Ethie's pulse throbbed with a

strange feeling of joy as she heard herself called his poor darling,

whom he wanted back again. She was satisfied now. He had not forgotten

her, or even thought to separate himself from her, as Aunt Van Buren

hinted. He was true to her yet, and she had acted foolishly in keeping

aloof from him so long. But she would be foolish no longer. To-morrow he

should know everything. If he would only awaken she would tell him now,

and take the consequences. But Richard did not waken, and at last, with

a noiseless step, she glided back to her own chamber. She would write to

Richard, she decided. She could talk to him better on paper, and, then,

if he did not care to receive her, they would both be spared much

embarrassment.

Ethie's door was locked all the next morning, for she was writing to her

husband a long, humble letter, in which all the blame was taken upon

herself, inasmuch as she had made the great mistake of marrying without

love. "But I do love you now, Richard," she said; "love you truly, too,

else I should never be writing this to you, and asking you to take me

back and try if I cannot make you happy."