The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1939-03-20
The Rains
Came


shoulder was being gently shaken.
opened her eyes in the first thin
light Of morning and saw the
major standing over her.
Yes, she said at once out Of
long habit. What is it,"
Lady Esketh Is i'll. I've sent
her to bed"
She sat up. gathering the cot
ton sheet modestly up 10 her
throat. She had never been beau
tiful, but now in the early morn
ing light. her eyes swollen with
sleep. the strong. tired face sag
ging with unsatisfied WEAKNESS.
there was something frightening
in her ugliness Duty babe her
ask. What is il -
Il don't know vet. Fever
high fever. Malaria. should
think. or probably typhoid"
Vanity struck through Miss
MacDaid's sense of duty and she
said, Go back to her. I'll come
as soon as I'm dressed"
Miss MacDaid's thought. Now
she'll be out of the running. When
she RECEIVERS there will be an ex-
cuse to send her to Bombay, and
once there she will be near the
West again and forget all those
crazy, ideas about staying here
forever" Abstractly she admired
the woman for the fashion IN
which she had taken up the chal.
lenge of work, but in a less OBJ
Jective way she hated her as she
had never hated any one.
For she was afraid again Of
Lady Esketh. Twice in the last
two days she had seen a glance
pass between her and the major,
glance which lasted no longer
than the fraction of a second, but
was terrible to her because in it
she had devined kind of intimacy
which she herself had never shared.
In the glance she had perceived
the shadow of something for which
she herself had been searching all
her life; and for a second she had
felt herself transformed from a
good, Woodworking woman Of
strong character and principles
into demon. witch. a potential
murderess; and each time the ex-
perience had left her shaken and
i'll and a little terrified. why
should she have him ?" her heart
cried out in bitterness. For a Sec
ond she thought in anguish, mo,
| will kill her first. 1t will never
happen"
And then, with returning sanity,
she had seen how near to mad
ness she had come, how terrible
could be the revolt and violence
of the organism in which dwelt
the thing that was Miss MacDaid,
and, plunging into work, she had
tried to forget both Lady Esketh
and the major, thinking, Neither
of them is of Importance: neither
of them matters" but at once the
voice of her wisdom denied her,
saying. They are both important
because they are mong the
blessed. Wherever they go. what
ever they do. it will matter to
you and to all the others about
them. There will always be people
to love and admire them. All your
work. all your devotion, has not
given you that right, that power.
They have it because they were
born to it." But it was unfair,
her heart cried out.
But now in the gray light she
felt only sullen and rebellious and
filled with contempt, thinking,
She can't be so i'll that she
couldn't finish out her watch. II
it had been me, l should have
stayed at my post. I've done it
before many times. There must
be softness in her" Or perhaps
it was the major who had ordered
her TO go to bed.
How had he known she was
i'll? How had he come to be in
the ward at an hour when he was
supposed to be snatching a little
rest?
She clapped her hands for
porter and told him to bring her
tea, and then she went to the
table in the ward where Edwina
and the major had been a little
while before. Then she found the
two papers with the numbers on
them and discovered the words
dead" and dying" which Lady
Esketh had written on them so
that she would not become con-
fused. The porter brought her tea
presently, and while she sat drink
ing it her eyes never left the two
papers. Presently, when she had
finished her tea and before she
made her first round of the. hos
pital, she took pencil from the
pocket of the immaculate bosom
of her shirtwaist and wrote at the
end of the list marked dying"
the notation, Lady Esketh, wife
of the first Baron Esketh."
Then she took the paper and
held it in the flame of the dying
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