Guy Kenmore's Wife, and The Rose and the Lily — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Guy Kenmore's Wife, and The Rose and the Lily
John Stuart Mill · en
Truly has the poet written that: "Love is sorrow with half-grown wings."
Reine lies silent, with quivering lips and closed eyelids, thinking with
grief unutterable of the beloved one's unknown fate. From first to last
this passionate love of hers has brought her nothing but bitter pain and
sharp humiliation.
Doctor Frank's genial voice rouses her from her bitter absorption.
"Come, come, mademoiselle, this will never do. No fretting and grieving
if you please. It will only retard your recovery and return to America.
Hold up your head now, and swallow this bit of refreshment our good
stewardess has brought you. Then you must go to sleep."
"Do, that's a dearie," admonishes Mrs. McQueen, rather vaguely,
proceeding to feed the patient with a spoon from the bowl of gruel that
she has brought in, but after a sip or two Reine declares that she
cannot swallow, and begs to be let alone.
To this the physician blandly consents after administering an
infinitesimal dose of a dark liquid. As a result Reine goes away on a
journey to the land of Nod in precisely fifteen minutes. Talking and
emotion have thoroughly wearied her exhausted frame.
She sleeps soundly and dreamlessly till the light of another day shines
broadly over the world.
Waking silently, and in her senses this time, the girl lies still with
wide dark eyes gazing around her. The door into the tiny saloon is open
as before.
She sees Mrs. Odell lying on a satin couch, wrapped in a crimson
dressing-gown, and covered with a costly India shawl. Her eyes are
closed, her face is ghastly in its deep pallor and emaciation.
Suddenly she starts broad awake, seized by a terrible fit of coughing
that convulses her slight frame. When she withdraws the snowy
handkerchief she has been holding to her lips, Reine sees that it is
streaked with blood.
"Oh, dear!" she exclaims, terrified, and Mrs. Odell looks around.
"So you are awake--what a sleep you have had. What made you cry out so?"
she inquires in a weak, exhausted voice.
"It was the sight of the blood," Reine stammers. "I was frightened. You
are very ill, are you not?"
Mrs. Odell, who has sunk wearily into a chair by her bedside, looks down
at her with a ghastly smile on her blood-stained lips.
"Oh, no," she answers, with the hopeful confidence peculiar to that
flattering disease, consumption, "my lungs are a little weak, that is
all my trouble. The sea air and the Italian climate will quite restore
my health, I think. The American climate is too harsh for me. I shall be
better at Mentone."
"You will make your home there?" Reine asks, and Mrs. Odell answers
readily:
"Yes, until my health is restored. Then I shall return to my native
land. There is no place like America to me. Besides, all my property is
there."
"Your friends and relatives, too?" Reine asks, and Mrs. Odell answers,
sighing: