CHAPTER IX WHAT CHEER OF THE HARVEST?

 I

 

The blood of youth is hot. He followed her, in spite of all, forgetting all. They had advanced across the hall toward the gold room, or library.

 

"Oh, Charley, Charley! Don't begin, wait a little," she wailed¹. "At least till to-night, till afternoon. I don't know what to say yet. I don't know what to do! Let us see him first, and tell him."

 

"Look about you," he commented grimly. "You're going to lose all this—all these splendid, beautiful things."

 

"I don't mind losing them. I want to be poor. Oh, my God! Just to be loved, and clean! Charley, can we?"

 

"But why choose me? There are so many others!"

 

"All like Mr. Rawn himself—men crazed of money, power, selfishness. I wanted something different. Do you think it could have been my father's old ideas coming out in me, so late? He came of a family of revolutionists—independents; 'Progressives,' they call them now. Something of his beliefs—I don't know what it was—"

 

"But you'll have to leave him in any case. Divorce is simple enough. You know what I would have done, and done, also, in any case. Grace and I—"

 

"Yes, I know all about everything. Everything's past," she said despairingly. "We're dead. It's all over!"

 

"I ought to go?" he asked vaguely².

 

"Yes, pretty soon. But I suppose you'll have to see Grace, and—to-night I'll have to see—"

 

He bowed his head. "Yes, we've got to pay that part first. The best we can do and all we can give ought to be enough for him."

 

 

 

 

II

 

She turned, left him, passing through the great doors to the central rooms within. Following her still, he found her at the stair and joined her. There approached them now, with hasty tread and face somewhat excited, the medical man who had been for so many days now in attendance upon Grace Rawn and her child. He had come on his morning visit unnoticed by them.

 

"Ah," he began, "I'm glad to find you, Mrs. Rawn—and you, Mr. Halsey—I've been looking for you—Come! Come quickly!" His face showed plainly his agitation³.

 

"Is there anything wrong?" demanded Halsey sharply. "What's the trouble?"

 

"It is my duty to tell you the truth," began the doctor. "Your wife is a very sick woman, indeed."

 

"I know that, yes."

 

"But not the worst until this morning, until just now. Something—"

 

 (Virginia and Halsey) 

(Virginia and Halsey)

"I've been here in the house waiting—why did you not call me?" began Halsey clumsily.

 

"You must not wait!" the doctor interrupted him, taking him by the arm and hastening toward the stairway.

 

They followed him up the stair, down the upper hall, to the rooms which had been set apart of late days for Grace and her child, quarters all too unfamiliar⁴ to Halsey himself.

 

They found Grace Halsey, faint and gasping⁵, half sitting in her bed, clasping the child in her arms, herself too weak now longer to hold it up. Halsey, stricken with sudden horror, ran to take the child in his own arms.

 

The truth was obvious. Even as he lifted the poor crippled form in his arms, the head fell back, helpless. The eyes glazed⁶, turned back uncovered. Halsey cried out aloud. He turned about, dazed; horror and helplessness were on his face. It was to Virginia Rawn he turned, as to the other part of himself.

 

It was Virginia Rawn who took from him the feeble, misshapen body, gathering⁷ it into her own arms. She gazed intently, frowning, grieving a woman's grief over suffering, bending over its face; her own face held back over it when she saw the truth. Then she passed him and placed the body of the child upon its cot near-by, covering it gently.

 

 

 

 

III

 

"Grace, Grace!" sobbed⁸ Halsey. He fell upon his knees at his wife's bedside. She did not see him, did not recognize him, although she turned a questioning face toward him. "Me, too!" he cried. "I want to go! I want to die and end it! Everything's wrong..."

 

"Come," said the doctor presently; "it's too late now. I'll call for you after a time." He took Halsey by the arm and led him from the room. Returning, he signed for Virginia Rawn also to leave the sick chamber⁹. Left alone, the medical man turned to the professional nurse in attendance. "Keep it quiet," he said. "It would hurt my practice—do you hear?"

 

He kicked beneath the bed a small broken vial, and wiped away the stain from the lips of the dying woman.

 

The doctor, of course, had his guess, the public its guess, the daily papers theirs. The truth was, Grace Halsey, by butler route, had learned of the tête-à-tête of her husband and her stepmother a half hour before this time.

 

1 wailed   

v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She wailed over her father's remains. 她对着父亲的遗体嚎啕大哭。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The women of the town wailed over the war victims. 城里的妇女为战争的死难者们痛哭。 来自辞典例句

2 vaguely   

adv.含糊地，暖昧地

参考例句：

• He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
• He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。

3 agitation   

n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动

参考例句：

• Small shopkeepers carried on a long agitation against the big department stores.小店主们长期以来一直在煽动人们反对大型百货商店。
• These materials require constant agitation to keep them in suspension.这些药剂要经常搅动以保持悬浮状态。

4 unfamiliar   

adj.陌生的，不熟悉的

参考例句：

• I am unfamiliar with the place and the people here.我在这儿人地生疏。
• The man seemed unfamiliar to me.这人很面生。

5 gasping   

adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词

参考例句：

• He was gasping for breath. 他在喘气。
• "Did you need a drink?""Yes, I'm gasping!” “你要喝点什么吗？”“我巴不得能喝点！”

6 glazed   

adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神

参考例句：

• eyes glazed with boredom 厌倦无神的眼睛
• His eyes glazed over at the sight of her. 看到她时，他的目光就变得呆滞。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

8 sobbed   

哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说

参考例句：

• She sobbed out the story of her son's death. 她哭诉着她儿子的死。
• She sobbed out the sad story of her son's death. 她哽咽着诉说她儿子死去的悲惨经过。

9 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。