Rose O'Paradise Part 69

The doctor stood beside her, consulting his watch.

"If you wish to speak, Mr. King," he said kindly, "you must do so quickly, for the young lady can stay but two minutes more. That's all!"

The doctor turned his back upon them, watch in hand.

"Kiss me, dear!" murmured Theodore.

Oblivious of the doctor's presence, Jinnie stooped and kissed him twice, taking the thin hand he extended.

"I sent for you because I feared you'd go to work at the wood again."

Jinnie would rea.s.sure him on this point even by an untruth, for she might be driven, for the sake of Peggy and the children, to go back into that hated occupation.

"I promise I won't," she said.

"Are you still taking lessons?"

Jinnie shook her head.

"I couldn't when you were sick. I just couldn't."

"But you must; you must go to-morrow. I have something here for you,"

he said, reaching under the pillow with his free hand.

Jinnie drew back abashed.

"You're too sick to think of us," she murmured.

Theodore raised her hand to his lips.

"No! No, darling, I think of you always--every day and shall even when I'm dead. You must take this money. Do you love me, dearest, very much?"

He smiled again as she stooped impetuously to kiss him, and with her face very close to his, she whispered,

"Lafe didn't do it, darling!"

"I know it," replied Theodore, closing his eyes.

Then the doctor turned and sent her away.

When she sank back in the automobile, Jinnie opened her hand with the roll of bills in it, and all the way home, she repeated, "He has given His angels charge over thee." She was hoping and praying for Theodore King.

Two days later, coming down the hill, she met Miss Merriweather on horseback. The young woman stopped her and asked her to accompany her home. Jennie hesitated. She still had memories of the cat sent to its death in Molly's fit of anger and the woman's chilling reception of her at the King dinner. Nevertheless she turned and walked slowly beside the horse. When they reached the porch of Mr. King's home, a groom came and led the animal away. Jinnie laid down her fiddle, taking the chair indicated by Molly. It had been Jordan Morse's idea that she should endeavor to again talk with the girl, but the woman scarcely knew how to begin. Jinnie looked so very lovely, so confiding, so infinitely sweet. Molly leaned over and said:

"Wasn't it queer how suddenly I remembered who you were? That night at the party your name refused to come to my mind. I've wanted to tell you several times how sorry I was about your accident!"

"I recognized you the minute I saw you," said Jinnie, smiling, relieved a little by Molly's apology.

"You've a good memory," answered Molly. "Now I want to tell you something, and I hope you'll be guided by my judgment."

Jinnie looked straight at her without a sign of acquiescence.

"What is it?" she asked presently.

"You must leave Grandoken's!"

Jinnie started to speak, but Molly's next words closed her lips.

"Please don't get nervous! Listen to me! You're a very young and very pretty girl and there--there is some one interested in you."

Jinnie p.r.i.c.ked up her ears. Some one interested in her! Of course she knew who it was. Theodore! But she wouldn't leave Peggy even for him, and the thought that he would not ask this of her brought her exquisite joy.

"Is it Mr. King who's interested in me?" she asked, timidly.

Molly's eyes narrowed into small slits.

"No, it isn't Mr. King who's interested in you!" she replied a trifle mockingly. "Mr. King's too sick to be interested in anybody."

Jinnie couldn't refrain from saying, "He looked awful ill when I saw him at the hospital."

Molly stared at her blankly. She grew dizzy and very angry. This girl always made her rage within herself.

"You've seen him since--since----"

A maddened expression leapt into Molly's eyes.

"I drive there every day, but they won't let _me_ see him," she said, reddening.

"Mr. King sent for me," Jinnie replied, resolutely.

And as the girl admitted this, with deepening flushes, Molly looked away. When she had first spoken of Jinnie's future to Jordan Morse, she had pleaded with him to be kind to her, but now she could surround that white throat and strangle the breath from it without compunction.

"Will you tell me what he said to you?" she queried, trying to hide her anger.

Jinnie looked down, and locked her fingers together.

"I can't tell," she said at length, moving in discomfort.

She wanted to go--to get away from the woman who looked at her so a.n.a.lytically, so resentfully. She got up nervously and picked up her fiddle.

"Don't go," urged Molly, starting forward.

Then she laughed a little and went on, "I suppose I did feel a bit jealous at first because we--Mr. King and I--have been friends so many years. But now we won't think any more about it. I do want you to go from that terrible Paradise Road. It's no place for a girl in your position."

"You've told me that before," retorted Jinnie, with clouded eyes. "My position isn't anything. I haven't any other home, and I'm a sort of a helper to Peggy."

A helper to Peggy! Doubtless if Lafe had heard that he would have smiled. Truly she was a wonderful little helper, but she was more than that, much more--helper, friend, and protector all in one.