After a lapse of time--an unremembered period of whose length he had no
conception--Pats awoke.
Was it a little temple of carved wood in which he lay? At each corner
stood a column; above him a little dome of silk, ancient and much faded.
Gradually--and slowly--he realized that he was reposing on a bed of vast
dimensions and in a room whose furnishings belonged to a previous
century. A mellow, golden light pervaded the apartment. This light,
which gave to all things in the room an air of unreality--as in an
ancient painting luminous with age--came from the sunshine entering
through a piece of antiquated silk, placed by considerate hands against
the window.
Pats's wandering eyes encountered a lady in a chair. She sat facing him,
a few feet away, her head resting easily against the carved woodwork
behind, a hand upon each arm of the seat. She was asleep. In this golden
mist she seemed to the half-dreaming man a vision from another
world--something too good to be true--a divine presence that might
vanish if he moved. Or, perhaps, she might fade back into a frame and
prove to be only another of the portraits that hung about the room. So
far as he could judge, with his slowly awakening senses, he was gazing
upon the most entrancing face he had ever beheld. At first the face was
unfamiliar, but soon, with returning memory, he recalled it. But it
seemed thinner now. There were dark lines beneath the eyes, and
something about the mouth gave an impression of weariness and care; and
these were not in the face as he had known it. However, the closed lids,
and the head resting calmly against the back of the high chair made a
tranquil picture. For a long time he lay immovable, his eyes drinking in
the vision. There was nothing to disturb the silence save the solemn
ticking of a clock in another part of the cottage. He heard, beyond the
big tapestry, the sound of a dog snapping at a fly. Pats smiled and
would have whistled to Solomon, but he remembered the weary angel by his
bed. With a sort of terror he recalled this lady's capacity for
contempt.
Being too warm for comfort he pushed, with exceeding gentleness and
caution, the bed-clothes farther from his chin. But the movement,
although absolutely noiseless, as he believed, caused the eyes of the
sleeper to open. She arose, then stood beside him. A cool hand was laid
gently upon his forehead; another drew up the bed-clothes to his chin,
as they were before. With anxious eyes he studied her face, and when he
found therein neither contempt nor aversion he experienced an
overwhelming joy. And she, detecting in the invalid's eyes an unwonted
look, bent over and regarded him more intently. As his eyes looked into
hers he smiled, faintly, experimentally, in humble adoration. The face
above him lit up with pleasure. In a very low tone she exclaimed:
"You are feeling better!"
He undertook to reply but no voice responded. He tried again, and
succeeded in whispering:
"Has anything happened?"
"You have been very ill."
"How long?"
"This is the eighth day."
"The eighth day!" He frowned in a mental effort to unravel the past.
"Then I must have been--out of my head."
"Yes, most of the time." She was watching him with anxious eyes.
"Perhaps you had better not talk much now. Try and sleep again."
"No, I am--full of sleep. Is this the same house--we discovered that
first day?"
"Yes."
He closed his eyes, and again she rested a hand upon his brow.
"Who is here besides you?" he asked.
"No one--except Solomon."
"Solomon!" and he smiled. "Is Solomon well?"
"Oh, yes! Very well."
"Then you have taken care of me all this time?"
She turned away and took up a glass of water from a table near the bed.
"Yes; Solomon and I together. Are you thirsty? Would you like anything?"
Pats closed his eyes and took a long breath. There was no use in trying
to say what he felt, so he answered in a husky voice, which he found
difficult to control:
"Thank you. I _am_ thirsty."
"Would you like tea or a glass of water?"
"Water, please."
"Or, would you prefer grapes?"
"Grapes!"
"Yes, grapes, or oranges, or pears, whichever you prefer."
His look of incredulity seemed to amuse her. "Do you remember the two
boxes and the barrel left by the _Maid of the North_ on the beach
with our baggage?"
He nodded.
"Well, one of those boxes was filled with fruit."
"Is there plenty for both of us?"
"More than enough."
"Then I will have a glass of water first and then grapes--and all the
other things."
He drank the water, and as she took away the empty glass, he said, in a
serious tone: "Miss Marshall, I wish I could tell you how mortified I am
and how--how--"
"Mortified! At what?"
"All this trouble--this--whole business."
"But you certainly could not help it!"
"That's very kind of you, but it's all wrong--all wrong!"
She smiled and moved away, and as she drew aside the tapestry and
disappeared, he turned his face to the wall, and muttered, "Disgraceful!
Disgraceful! I must get well fast."
And he carried out this resolve. Every hour brought new strength. In
less than a week he was out of bed and sitting up. During this early
period of convalescence--the period of tremulous legs and ravenous
hunger--the Fourth of July arrived, and they celebrated the occasion by
a sumptuous dinner. There was soup, sardines, cold tongue, dried-apple
sauce, baked potatoes, fresh bread, and preserved pears, and the last of
the grapes. At table, Elinor faced the empty chair that held the
miniature, for the absent lady's right to that place was always
respected. Pats sat at the end facing the door. They dined at noon. A
bottle of claret was opened and they drank to the health of Uncle Sam.
Toward the end of the dinner, Pats arose, and with one hand on the table
to reinforce his treacherous legs, held aloft his glass. Looking over to
the dog, who lay by the open door, his head upon his paws, he said:
"Solomon, here's to a certain woman; of all women on earth the most
unselfish and forgiving, the most perfect in spirit and far and away the
most beautiful--the Ministering Angel of the Pines. God bless her!"
At these words Solomon, as if in recognition of the sentiment, arose
from his position near the door, walked to Elinor's side and, with his
habitual solemnity, looked up into her eyes.
"Solomon," said Pats, "you have the soul of a gentleman."
In Elinor's pale face there was a warmer color as she bent over and
caressed the dog.
After the dinner all three walked out into the pines, Pats leaning on
the lady's arm. The day was warm. But the gentle, southerly breeze came
full of life across the Gulf. And the water itself, this day, was the
same deep, vivid blue as the water that lies between Naples and
Vesuvius. The convalescent and his nurse stopped once or twice to drink
in the air--and the scene.
Pats filled his lungs with a long, deep breath. "I feel very light. Hold
me fast, or I may float away."
Both his head and his legs seemed flighty and precarious. Those two
glasses of claret were proving a little too much--they had set his brain
a-dancing. But this he kept to himself. She noticed the high spirits,
but supposed them merely an invalid's delight in getting out of doors.
Under the big trees they rested for a time, in silence, Elinor gazing
out across the point, over the glistening sea beyond. The shade of the
pines they found refreshing. The convalescent lay at full length, upon
his back, looking up with drowsy eyes into the cool, dark canopy, high
above. Soothing to the senses was the sighing of the wind among the
branches.
"This is good!" he murmured. "I could stay here forever."
"That may be your fate," and her eyes moved sadly over the distant,
sailless sea. "It is a month to-day that we have been here."
"So it is, a whole month!"
Elinor sighed. "There is something wrong, somewhere. It seems to me the
natural--the only thing--would be for somebody to hunt us up."
"Certainly."
"Could they have sailed by this bay and missed us?"
"Not unless they were idiots. Everybody on the steamer knew we sailed
into a bay to get here."
"Still, they may have missed us."
"Well, suppose they did go by us, once or twice, or several times;
people don't abandon their best friends and brothers in that off-hand
fashion."
After a pause he added, "Something may have happened to Father Burke or
to Louise."
"But even then," said Elinor, turning toward him, "wouldn't they try and
discover why I had not arrived? And wouldn't they hunt _you_ up?"
"No, I was to be a surprise. None of them knew I was coming. They think
I am still in South Africa."
There was a long silence, broken at last by Pats. "What a hideous
practical joke I have turned out! In the first place I strand you here
and--"
"No! I was very unjust that day and have repented--and tried to atone."
"Atone! You! Angels defend us! If atonement was due from you, where am
I? Instead of getting you away, I go out of my head and have a
fever--and am fed--like a baby."