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The Setness Of Theodosia
by
When they fell on the occupant of the bed Theodosia started in bitter surprise. All unconsciously she had been expecting to find Wesley as he had been when they parted. Could this gaunt, haggard creature, with the unkempt beard and prematurely grey hair and the hollow, beseeching eyes, be the ruddy, boyish-faced husband of her youth? She gave a choking cry of pain and shame, and the sick man turned his head. Their eyes met.
Amazement, incredulity, hope, dread, all flashed in succession over Wesley Brooke’s lined face. He raised himself feebly up.
“Dosia,” he murmured.
Theodosia staggered across the room and fell on her knees by the bed. She clasped his head to her breast and kissed him again and again.
“Oh, Wes, Wes, can you forgive me? I’ve been a wicked, stubborn woman–and I’ve spoiled our lives. Forgive me.”
He held his thin trembling arms around her and devoured her face with his eyes.
“Dosia, when did you come? Did you know I was sick?”
“Wes, I can’t talk till you say you’ve forgiven me.”
“Oh, Dosia, you have just as much to forgive. We were both too set. I should have been more considerate.”
“Just say, I forgive you, Dosia,'” she entreated.
“I forgive you, Dosia,” he said gently, “and oh, it’s so good to see you once more, darling. There hasn’t been an hour since I left you that I haven’t longed for your sweet face. If I had thought you really cared I’d have gone back. But I thought you didn’t. It broke my heart. You did though, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” she said, holding him more closely, with her tears falling.
When the young doctor from Red Butte came that evening he found a great improvement in his patient. Joy and happiness, those world-old physicians, had done what drugs and medicines had failed to do.
“I’m going to get better, Doc,” said Wesley. “My wife has come and she’s going to stay. You didn’t know I was married, did you? I’ll tell you the story some day. I proposed going back east, but Dosia says she’d rather stay here. I’m the happiest man in Red Butte, Doc.”
He squeezed Theodosia’s hand as he had used to do long ago in Heatherton church, and Dosia smiled down at him. There were no dimples now, but her smile was very sweet. The ghostly finger of old Henry Ford, pointing down through the generations, had lost its power to brand with its malediction the life of these, his descendants. Wesley and Theodosia had joined hands with their long-lost happiness.