Watson understood.
He liked this expression of sentiment.
He was sorry for Jennie.
He was sorry for Lester.
He wondered what the world would think if it could know of this bit of romance in connection with so prominent a man.
Lester was decent. He had made Watson prosperous.
The latter was only too glad to serve him in any way.
He called a carriage and rode out to Jennie's residence.
He found her watering some plants; her face expressed her surprise at his unusual presence.
"I come on a rather troublesome errand, Mrs. Stover," he said, using her assumed name.
"Your—that is, Mr. Kane is quite sick at the Auditorium.
His wife is in Europe, and he wanted to know if I wouldn't come out here and ask you to come and see him.
He wanted me to bring you, if possible. Could you come with me now?"
"Why yes," said Jennie, her face a study.
The children were in school.
An old Swedish housekeeper was in the kitchen.
She could go as well as not.
But there was coming back to her in detail a dream she had had several nights before.
It had seemed to her that she was out on a dark, mystic body of water over which was hanging something like a fog, or a pall of smoke.
She heard the water ripple, or stir faintly, and then out of the surrounding darkness a boat appeared.
It was a little boat, oarless, or not visibly propelled, and in it were her mother, and Vesta, and some one whom she could not make out.
Her mother's face was pale and sad, very much as she had often seen it in life.
She looked at Jennie solemnly, sympathetically, and then suddenly Jennie realized that the third occupant of the boat was Lester.
He looked at her gloomily—an expression she had never seen on his face before—and then her mother remarked,
"Well, we must go now."
The boat began to move, a great sense of loss came over her, and she cried,
"Oh, don't leave me, mamma!"
But her mother only looked at her out of deep, sad, still eyes, and the boat was gone.
She woke with a start, half fancying that Lester was beside her.
She stretched out her hand to touch his arm; then she drew herself up in the dark and rubbed her eyes, realizing that she was alone.
A great sense of depression remained with her, and for two days it haunted her.
Then, when it seemed as if it were nothing, Mr. Watson appeared with his ominous message.
She went to dress, and reappeared, looking as troubled as were her thoughts.
She was very pleasing in her appearance yet, a sweet, kindly woman, well dressed and shapely.
She had never been separated mentally from Lester, just as he had never grown entirely away from her.
She was always with him in thought, just as in the years when they were together.
Her fondest memories were of the days when he first courted her in Cleveland—the days when he had carried her off, much as the cave-man seized his mate—by force.
Now she longed to do what she could for him.
For this call was as much a testimony as a shock. He loved her—he loved her, after all.
The carriage rolled briskly through the long streets into the smoky down-town district.
It arrived at the Auditorium, and Jennie was escorted to Lester's room. Watson had been considerate. He had talked little, leaving her to her thoughts.
In this great hotel she felt diffident after so long a period of complete retirement.
As she entered the room she looked at Lester with large, gray, sympathetic eyes.
He was lying propped up on two pillows, his solid head with its growth of once dark brown hair slightly grayed.
He looked at her curiously out of his wise old eyes, a light of sympathy and affection shining in them—weary as they were.
Jennie was greatly distressed. His pale face, slightly drawn from suffering, cut her like a knife.
She took his hand, which was outside the coverlet, and pressed it.
She leaned over and kissed his lips.
"I'm so sorry, Lester," she murmured. "I'm so sorry.
You're not very sick though, are you?