“Go if you want to!” he said, but she knew she could not go on that word.

“That’s it,” she said at last to herself, in one of her solitary hours.  “I’m married, and this is marriage.  For the rest of my life it’ll be Mart and I—­Mart and I—­in everything!  For richer for poorer, for better for worse-that’s marriage.  He doesn’t beat me, and we have enough money, and perhaps there are a lot of other women worse off than I am.  But it’s—­it’s funny.”

CHAPTER IX

In January, however, he came home one noon to find her hatted and wrapped to go.

“Oh, Mart—­it’s Daddy!” she said.  “He’s ill—­I’ve got to see him!  He’s awfully ill.”

“Telegram?” asked Martin, not particularly pleased, but not unsympathetic either.

For answer she gave him the yellow paper that was wet with her tears.  “Dad ill,” he read.  “Don’t worry.  Come if you can.  Alix.”

“I’ll bet it’s a put-up job between you and Alix—­” Martin said in indulgent suspicion.

Her indignant glance sobered him; he hastily arranged money matters, and that night she got off the train in the dark wetness of the valley, and was met by a rush of cool and fragrant air.  It was too late to see the mountain, lights were twinkling everywhere in the dark trees.  Cherry got a driver, rattled and jerked up to the house in a surrey, and jumped out, her heart almost suffocating her.

Alix came flying to the door, the old lamplight and the odour of wood smoke poured through.  There was no need for words; they burst into tears and clung together.

An hour later Cherry, feeling as if she was not the same woman who waked in Red Creek this same morning, and got Martin’s eggs and coffee ready, crept into her father’s room.  Alix had warned her to be quiet, but at the sight of the majestic old gray head, and the fine old hands clasped together on the sheet, her self-control forsook her entirely and she fell to her knees and began to cry again.

The nurse looked at her disapprovingly, but after all it made little difference.  Doctor Strickland roused only once again, and that was many hours later.  Cherry and Alix were still keeping their vigil; Cherry, worn out, had been dozing; the nurse was resting on a couch in the next room.

Suddenly both daughters were wide awake at the sound of the hoarse yet familiar voice.  Alix fell on her knees and caught the cold and wandering hand.

“What is it, darling?” The old, half-joking maternal manner was all in earnest now.

“Peter?” he said, thickly.

“Peter’s in China, dear.  You remember that Peter was to go around the world?  You remember that, Dad?”

“In the ‘Travels with a Donkey,’” he said, rationally.

The girls looked at each other dubiously.

“We all read that together,” Alix encouraged him.

“No—­” he said, musingly.  They thought he slept again, but he presently added, “Somewhere in Matthew—­no, in Mark—­Mark is the human one—­Mark was as human as his Master—­”