The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fruit of the Tree, by Edith Wharton

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Title: The Fruit of the Tree

Author: Edith Wharton

Illustrator: Alonzo Kimball

Release Date: September 6, 2006 [EBook #19191]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE FRUIT OF THE TREE

[Illustration: He stood by her in silence, his eyes on the injured
man.]

THE FRUIT OF THE TREE
BY
EDITH WHARTON

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALONZO KIMBALL

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
MDCCCCVII

COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

[Illustration: mark]

ILLUSTRATIONS

_He stood by her in silence, his eyes on the injured man_ _Frontispiece_
_"No--I shall have to ask you to take my word for it"_ _Facing p. 82_
_Half-way up the slope they met_ 130

BOOK I

THE FRUIT OF THE TREE

I

IN the surgical ward of the Hope Hospital at Hanaford, a nurse was
bending over a young man whose bandaged right hand and arm lay stretched
along the bed.

His head stirred uneasily, and slipping her arm behind him she effected
a professional readjustment of the pillows. "Is that better?"

As she leaned over, he lifted his anxious bewildered eyes, deep-sunk
under ridges of suffering. "I don't s'pose there's any kind of a show
for me, is there?" he asked, pointing with his free hand--the stained
seamed hand of the mechanic--to the inert bundle on the quilt.

Her only immediate answer was to wipe the dampness from his forehead;
then she said: "We'll talk about that to-morrow."

"Why not now?"

"Because Dr. Disbrow can't tell till the inflammation goes down."

"Will it go down by to-morrow?"

"It will begin to, if you don't excite yourself and keep up the fever."

"Excite myself? I--there's four of 'em at home----"

"Well, then there are four reasons for keeping quiet," she rejoined.

She did not use, in speaking, the soothing inflection of her trade: she
seemed to disdain to cajole or trick the