AN UNDELIVERED MESSAGE
Dawn, which came as slowly as the dawns of winter, brought a returning
Bill in the car of a physician whom he had found after much forgetful
wandering. A lifeless body lay upon the bed.
Stephen looked curiously at the old doctor who descended stiffly from
his car.
"You don't know me, Dr. Weller?"
"No."
"I'm Albert Lanfair's son."
"How do you happen to be here?"
"I lost the road and came in to ask directions, and once here, could
do nothing but stay." He meant to exhibit his hand, but thought better
of it. He must get home without wasting time. He had not undone the
bandage, he felt less pain, and in the cheerful light of day believed
that he had exaggerated the seriousness of his condition. If trouble
appeared, however, he wished to be at home.
He drove with reckless speed southward, remembering grimly,
"The King of France, with twenty thousand men,
Marched up the hill and then marched down again."
He tried not to think of Ellen; when, sometimes, her face appeared
before him, his cheeks burned. The strange night had affected all his
thoughts; his heart had somehow changed; he saw clearly what he would
have made of Ellen.
As he drove into Harrisburg he felt the first premonition of a chill,
and understood its significance. The pain in his hand had returned and
when he stepped into his office he stumbled. The young assistant looked
up from her desk and Miss Knowlton appeared at once from the inner
room. He held out his hand.
"Ever see anything like that?"
Miss Knowlton undid the bandage. At his touch a blush covered her pale
cheek, but when she looked up the color had vanished.
"Dr. Lanfair! What have you done?"
"I scratched myself on a wire. It's nothing."
"A girl in the hospital jabbed her hand with an icepick and infected
it, and it had red streaks round it like this!"
"Well, she has her hand, hasn't she?" asked Stephen banteringly.
"She nearly lost it. You're going to see Dr. Salter?"
"Yes; telephone for him, there's a good girl."
He crossed the passageway to the library and sat down, suddenly fearing
that his pain might bring tears; then he laughed at himself. There was
nothing seriously the matter with him.
"It was foolish to have called you," he apologized to Dr. Salter. "Miss
Knowlton is to blame."
Dr. Salter bent above the outstretched hand, a stout, blue-eyed,
cheerful soul who possessed the secrets of hundreds of men and women,
and held in spite of them the most hopeful views of humanity. He had
known Hilda and Hilda's mother.
"What in the world have you done?" he asked.
"I scratched it on a wire."
"Why didn't you come home?"
"I did. I'm here."
Having concluded a cruel opening of the wound, the doctor gave a
hovering Miss Knowlton minute directions.
"You have an ugly-looking hand, Lanfair."
For the moment Stephen felt neither pain nor fear, only a leaping
excitement.
"I'm not to be frightened," he said with a defiant laugh.
By evening he walked the library floor. At ten o'clock he went to his
room and walked there. Miss Knowlton said lightly that she would spend
the night--the doctor wished the dressing changed frequently.
"Your professional manner is absurd," declared Stephen. "You'll come
presently and take my temperature and watch to see that I don't read
it."
Miss Knowlton smiled and put a thermometer under his tongue and placed
herself beside him, her hand on his wrist, her air important. She had
sent for a fresh uniform which billowed about her when she walked.
At midnight Stephen went to bed. Exhaustion dulled his pain for half
an hour; then he sat up, roused, he believed, by a ghastly dream of
Ellen in danger. But he knew in a second that it was not Ellen's
danger. When he lifted his hand, it felt heavy and tight and burned
like fire, and he understood exactly what might happen to him. The
infection suffered by his father had affected him slowly, paralyzing
irremediably both body and brain; this was different; it could be
fought, but it must be fought quickly and with cruel weapons.
Miss Knowlton, hearing him stir, came in from the next room.
"I'll look at your hand," she said in a new, smooth voice. "You'd
better lie down." Stephen obeyed, his mind not on his pain, but on a
graver necessity. "It doesn't look any worse," said Miss Knowlton when
the bandage was again in place. "Would you like me to sit by you?"
Stephen's negative sounded drowsy. But he was not drowsy. There was an
amazing fact to which he must give his mind and he wished to be alone.
He saw his father lying with half-closed eyes upon his pillow; he saw
that he himself lay fever-flushed with a swollen, bandaged, torturing
object by his side, and that he had come to the same dark brink. His
father had stepped out bravely; he did not believe that he should go
bravely. His father had had a hope, but he had no hope. When his father
had recited the creed, he had spoken with conviction; but he had no
convictions.
He believed suddenly that even to say the words would help if he could
remember them. Childishly pleased, he recited, "Credo in Deum Patrem
omnipotentem," in a tone which brought Miss Knowlton to his side.
"Did you speak to me?" She began to open the bandage.
"I was only trying to remember some old Latin."
Miss Knowlton remembered afterward that as Stephen said this and as she
saw his wrist, purple above the bandage, the market-wagons had begun to
rumble past and dawn was in the sky.
"I'm going for hot water," she said soothingly as one speaks to a sick
man.
Outside the door she found Miss MacVane, pale and shocked, her hand
lifted to rap.
"There was a call on the telephone from the Sanatorium," she said in
an awed tone, her eyes blinking behind her thick glasses. "I don't know
what to do about it."
"Anything the matter?"
"Mrs. Lanfair is dead," said Miss MacVane. "They say 'suddenly,' that
is all."
Miss Knowlton grew a little paler and more important.
"Well, he can't be told now," she said. "You get Dr. Salter, quickly,
will you?"
Stephen did not realize that daylight had not yet fully come when Dr.
Salter appeared in his room. It seemed a long, long time since he had
come home--was it a day and night or two days and nights or four? He
didn't think it queer that there was another man with Salter--nothing
seemed queer or of any moment whatsoever, not even a strange question
put to him. They did not mean to let Stephen die.
"Lanfair, can you understand me?"
"Oh, yes!" Stephen laughed.
"Do you trust Mayne and me to use our best judgment for you?"
"About what?" asked Stephen. In a moment of full consciousness he
recognized Mayne, who bore upon his expansive face the record of more
than one shock. If clearness of mind had lasted for another instant,
Stephen might have suspected the cause of Mayne's disturbance of mind.
But he grew confused and asked in a jovial and impertinent tone,
"What's the matter with you, old boy?"
"About your welfare," said Mayne earnestly.
"Oh, bosh!" cried Stephen, and turned on his side. There was but one
thing he desired, peace to pursue a search. What was it his father had
said? He presently began to mix his English and Latin. He knew that
that which he sought was an ineffable happiness, but he could not quite
grasp it.