Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/444

66 have wandered—oh, God, how far! Other women may do as they choose—I shall make a home again, and stay therein. I believe active life will restore my husband's health. We will try all over again to forget, and just be happy. Oh, I have been walking in my sleep for two years! I have awakened—in time, thank God! Every act, almost every thought, of these two years is loathsome to me now. But I shall atone. I shall make my husband and my children happy."

Mr. Dawson had spent a wretched day. Upon reflection, he was heartily ashamed of the way he had spoken to his wife. Notwithstanding their deep love for each other, he felt that they were growing farther apart each day. He blamed himself bitterly. He even thought of going down to the office and apologizing; but he remembered that she was going to Salem.



Mrs. Dawson returned with a violent headache and fever. She had had a chill on the train. She took a cab and drove straight home. Her husband opened the door for her. "Dearest," he said. She threw herself upon his breast, and clung to him in her old dependent, girlish way, that was indescribably sweet to him.

"I am ill, dear," she sobbed, "so ill. And oh, I am so tired of it all! I have given it all up. I don't want to be a senator, nor a business woman, nor even a progressive woman; I just want to be your wife again. I want to take care of my children and my home, and I want you to be a man again!"

"Why, God bless my soul!" said Mr. Dawson. He was looking down at the back of her head with the most amazed eyes imaginable.

Mrs. Dawson went to bed without her dinner. In the morning the doctor came, and said it was typhoid fever.

It was six weeks before Mrs. Dawson was able to go about the house and to hear news of the outside world. Then, one morning, Mr. Dawson conveyed to her with extreme delicacy and caution the information that woman suffrage had been declared unconstitutional and had been abolished. He added that he had considered it his duty to take her place, and he was now running for the Senate.

"How lovely of you, dearest!" she said, with a sphinx-like smile.

Then she inquired for Darrach.

"Oh, he went off on a wild-goose chase to Australia soon after you were taken ill," said Dawson, lightly.

"Oh," said Mrs. Dawson. "And my typewriter? Is he still with you?"

"Why—er—no," said Dawson. He looked with deep attention at an old Chinaman going along the street on a trot with two baskets of vegetables dangling at the ends of a pole on his shoulder. "The fact is—I didn't just like him. He wasn't competent. I—" he jingled some coins in his pocket—"I have a very speedy young woman—er—a Miss Standish."

"Oh," said Mrs. Dawson.

When Mr. Dawson started for the office the following morning his wife followed him to the hall door. She looked charming in her long, soft house-dress. Her lovely arms shone out of the flowing sleeves. Her hair was parted in the middle, and waved daintily. A red rose glowed on her breast. The color was coming back to her cheeks, and her eyes were bright.

Her husband put his arm around her, and drew her to him with affection and satisfaction. He was fully restored to health,