Nor in all this was Annie Maconie more
extravagant than are nineteen-twentieths of the thousand millions in the
world who still cling to occult causes.
And with those there came other equally strange thoughts; but beyond all
she could not for the very life of her comprehend that most inexcusable
apathy of her father, who, though he had heard with his own ears, from
good authority, that her beloved Mary was lying in the next bedroom
dying, never seemed to think of hurrying away to town--even to that very
Pelican who had so generously undertaken to insure Mary's life. It was
an apathy unbecoming a father; and the blood of her little heart warmed
with indignation at the very time that the said heart was down in sorrow
as far as its loose strings would enable it to go. But was there no
remedy? To be sure there was, and Annie knew, moreover, what it was; but
then it was to be got only by a sacrifice, and that sacrifice she also
knew, though it must of necessity be kept in the meantime as secret as
the wonderful doings in the death-chamber of the palace of a certain
Bluebeard.
Great thoughts these for so little a woman as Annie Maconie; and no
doubt the greatness and the weight of them were the cause why, for all
that day--every hour of which her father was allowing to pass--she was
more melancholy and thoughtful than she had ever been since Mary began
to be ill.
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