Chapter CXCVI: Section 6: Each night the doctor would look anxiously at his

thermometer; it was a source of great worry to him and to Corydon’s parents that the fever did not abate. Also, needless to say, the news worried Thyrsis; all the more, because it meant a long stay in the hospital, and more of their money gone. At last he came up to town to see about it; and Corydon thought to herself, “This is very wrong of me. It is Thyrsis I ought to be interested in, it is his sympathy I ought to be craving.”

She brought the image of Thyrsis before her; it seemed vague and unreal. She found that she remembered mostly the unattractive aspects of him. And this brought a pang to her. “He is good and noble,” she told herself; she forced herself to think of generous things that he had done.

He came; and then she felt still more ashamed. He had been working very hard, and was pale and haggard; it was becoming to him to be that way. Recollections came back to her in floods; yes, he was truly good and noble!

He sat by her bedside, and she told him about the operation, and poured out the hunger of her soul to him. He stayed all the morning with her, and he came again and spent the afternoon with her. He read to her and kissed her and soothed her--his influence was very calming, she found. After he had gone for the night, Corydon lay thinking, “I still love him!”

How strange it was that she could love two men at once! It was surely very wrong! She would never have dreamed that she, Corydon, could do such a thing. She thought of Harry Stuart, and of the unacknowledged thrill of excitement which his presence had brought to her. “And now here it is again,” she mused--“only this time it is worse! What _can_--be the matter with me?”

Then she wondered, “Do I really love Mr. Harding? Haven’t I got over it now?” But the least thinking of him sufficed to set her heart to thumping again; and so she shrunk from that train of thought. She wanted to love her husband.

He came again the next morning, and Corydon found that she was very happy in his presence. Her fever was slightly lower, and she thought, “I will get well quickly now.”

But alas, she had reckoned in this without Thyrsis! To sit in the hospital all day was a cruel strain upon him; the more so as he had been entirely unprepared for it. Corydon had assured him that the operation would be nothing, and that she would not need him; and so he had just finished a harrowing piece of labor on the book. Now to stay all day and witness her struggle, to satisfy her craving for sympathy and to meet and wrestle with her despair--it was like having the last drops of his soul-energy squeezed out of him. He did not know what was troubling Corydon, but the _rapport_ between them was so close, that he knew she was in some distress of mind.

He stood the ordeal as long as he could, and then he had to beg for respite. Cedric was down on the farm, with no one but the servants to care for him; so he would go back, and see that everything was all right, and after he had rested up for two or three days, he would come again. Corydon smiled faintly and assented--for that morning she had received a note from Mr. Harding, saying that he would be in town the next day, and would call.

So Thyrsis went away, and Corydon lay and thought the problem over again. “Yes, I love my husband; but it’s such an effort for him to love me! And why should that be? I don’t believe it would be such an effort for Mr. Harding to love me!”

So again she was seized by the thought of the young clergyman. And she was astonished at the difference in her feelings--the flood of emotion that swept over her. Her heart began to beat fast and her cheeks once more to burn. He was coming up to the city on purpose, this time; it must be that he wanted to see her very much!

That night was an especially hard one for her; she felt as though the frail shell that held her were breaking, as though her endurance were failing altogether. The fever had risen, and her bed had seemed like the burning arms of Moloch. Once she imagined that the room was stifling her, and in a sudden frenzy of impatience she struggled upon one elbow and flung her pillow across the room. In that instant she had noticed a new and sharp pain in her side; it did not leave her, though at the time she thought little about it.

She was all absorbed in the coming of Mr. Harding; by the time morning had come she had made up her mind that her one hope of deliverance was in confession. She must tell him, she must make known to him her love; and he would forgive her, and then her heart would not beat so violently at sight of him, her fever would abate and she might rest.

But when he sat there, talking to her, and looking so beautiful and so strange, she trembled, and made half a dozen vain efforts to begin. Finally she asked, “Have you ever read that poem of Heine’s--‘Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen, Die hat einen Andern erwählt?’”

“Oh, yes,” he answered; then they were silent again. Finally Corydon nerved herself to yet another effort. “Mr. Harding,” she said, “will you come a little nearer, please. I have something very important to say to you.” And then, waveringly and brokenly, now in agonized abashment, now rushing ahead as she felt his encouragement and sympathy, she gave him the whole story of her suffering and its cause. When she came to the words “because I love you”, she closed her eyes and her spirit sank back with a great gasp of relief.

When she opened them again, his head was bowed in his hands and he did not move. “Mr. Harding,” she whispered, “Mr. Harding, you forgive me, do you not? You do not hate me?”

He roused himself with an effort. “Dear child,” said he, and as he looked at her she thought she had never seen a face so sad, so exquisite--“it is I who ask forgiveness.”

He rose and came to her bedside, and took her hand in both of his. “It would not be right for me to say to you what you have said to me. We must not speak of this any more. You will promise me this, and then you will rest, and to-morrow you will be better. Soon you will be well; and how glad your husband will be--and all of us.”

With that he pressed her hand firmly, and left the room; and Corydon turned her face to the wall, and whispered happily to herself, “Yes, he loves me, he loves me! And now I shall rest!”