He was there, then, next to her, separated by only a thin partition—­the husband whom she had not seen for five long years, whom she had voluntarily left, resolving never to go back to him again, was there, where, just by crossing a single threshold, she could fall at his feet and sue for the forgiveness she had made up her mind to crave should she ever see him again.  Dr. Hayes’ next call was upon her, and he found her fainting upon the floor, where she had fallen in the excitement of the shock she had experienced.

“It was a headache,” she said, when questioned as to the cause of the sudden attack; but her eyes had in them a frightened, startled look, for which the doctor could not account.

There was something about her case which puzzled and perplexed him.  “She needed perfect quiet, but must not be left alone,” he said, and so all that night Richard, who was very wakeful, watched the light shining out into the hall from the room next to his own, and heard occasionally a murmur of low voices as the nurse put some question to Ethie, who answered always in whispers, while her eyes turned furtively toward No. 102, as if fearful that its occupant would hear and know how near she was.  For three whole days her door was locked against all intruders, for the headache and nervous excitement did not abate one whit.  How could they, when every sound from No. 102, every footfall on the floor, every tone of Richard’s voice speaking to servant or physician, quickened the rapid beats and sent the hot blood throbbing fiercely through the temple veins and down along the neck?  At Clifton they are accustomed to every phase of nervousness, from spasms at the creaking of a board to the stumbling upstairs of the fireman in the early winter morning, and once when Ethie shuddered and turned her head aside at the sound of Richard’s step, the attendant said to the physician: 

“It’s the gentleman’s boots, I think, which make her nervous.”

There was a deprecating gesture on Ethie’s part, but it passed unnoticed, and when next the doctor went to visit Richard he said, in a half-apologetic way, that the young lady in the next room was suffering from a violent headache, which was aggravated by every sound, even the squeak of a boot—­would Governor Markham greatly object to wearing slippers for a while?  Dr. Hayes was sorry to trouble him, but “if they would effect a cure they must keep their patients quiet, and guard against everything tending to increase nervous irritation.”

Governor Markham would do anything in his power for the young lady, and he asked some questions concerning her.  Had he annoyed her much?  Was she very ill?  And what was her name?

“Bigelow,” he repeated after Dr. Hayes, thinking of Aunt Barbara in Chicopee, and thinking of Ethelyn, too, but never dreaming how near she was to him.