THE STRENGTH OF LOVE.
The anxious days came and went until Daisie had been ill almost two
weeks, with scarcely a conscious moment; but still no word went
to Royall Sherwood of her illness, because of the promise she had
extracted not to let him know unless she was actually dying.
And, though the fever rose to its greatest height, and her delirious
ravings made their hearts ache with the fear that she could not live,
still the crisis had not come yet, and the letter was not sent.
There was no lack of skillful nursing, no lack of medical care, no
lack of love, for Aunt Alice and Annette gave her all their time; but
it almost seemed as if nothing could hold Daisie back from the land of
shadows to which she was hastening. She had no hold on life, because
she was weary of it.
On that beautiful day when the sun came out so brightly, and the blue
waves lapped the golden shore at Gull Beach, Doctor Burns thought he
saw a subtle change in his patient, whether for better or worse he
could not yet say, but he told them that the crisis would come that
night.
“Had we not better telegraph Mr. Sherwood now?” he asked anxiously.
“No; I would wait the result of the crisis,” Annette answered, so
decidedly that he hesitated and gave in.
About sunset he came again, but he found no change in his patient, who
still remained in the stupor that had fallen on her at noonday.
The trained nurse had gone out for a breath of fresh air, and Annette
sat by the window, watching the sunset lights upon the sea, her eyes
sad and her bright face pale with anxiety.
Doctor Burns sat down at her side, and whispered abruptly:
“I have news for you. Royall Sherwood’s Fifth Avenue residence was
burned to the ground just before daylight this morning.”
Annette gave a wild start of surprise, and he added:
“I read it a while ago in an evening paper--a telegraphic item.”
Annette thought with horror of the helpless paralytic.
A lump rose up in her throat, almost choking her, as she gasped:
“Don’t tell me that Mr. Sherwood----”
“Forgive me for alarming you--I read your thought--he is safe.”
“Thank Heaven!” she breathed, clasping her little hands in joy; and the
doctor continued:
“He was saved by the heroism of a gentleman staying in the house, who
carried him out through smoke and flame, in his arms. But here is the
paper. You can read it for yourself. Very short, but I suppose the
morning papers will give us full particulars.”
The tears sprang to her eyes, almost blinding her, as she grasped the
paper and devoured the short paragraph from New York:
The elegant Fifth Avenue house of the millionaire, Royall
Sherwood, was burned to the ground this morning just before
daylight, by a fire whose origin could not be discovered. Mr.
Sherwood, who is a helpless cripple, must have perished in
the flames but for the heroism of a Mr. Raymond, his private
secretary, who carried his employer out in his arms through dense
fire and smoke at the peril of his life, and sustained fatal
injuries in the performance of his noble act.
“Oh!” gasped Annette; and there rushed over her memory the last words
she had heard from Ray Dering’s lips.
It was when they were leaving New York that day when Daisie had turned
to him in the hall and begged him not to let Royall miss her, but to
try to make him happy, he had answered so earnestly:
“Have no fears, dear madam--I will devote my life to him.”
To Annette he had bowed, without a word, feeling that she preferred it
so; but the sad, yearning glance of his fine dark eyes had haunted her
painfully ever since.
“I will devote my life to him,” he had promised; and in those two
words, “fatal injuries,” Annette read the story of that devotion.
Freely, gladly he had sacrificed himself in atonement for the wrong he
had unwittingly done Royall Sherwood in a moment of jealous rage and
madness.
Something seemed to snap asunder in Annette’s tortured heart, and she
astonished the good old doctor by sinking back unconscious in her chair.
“Good gracious, what a nervous little thing!” he ejaculated, hastening
to apply restoratives; and when she opened her eyes presently he
exclaimed:
“Tut, tut! You are too tender-hearted.”
“Oh, you do not know--you do not understand,” shuddered Annette,
leaning her little dark head against the windowpane.
At that moment the rumble of carriage wheels stopping at the gate drew
her attention down into the street.
She started in wonder, and swept her hand across her eyes, as if to
clear their vision, exclaiming:
“I must be dreaming! This cannot be reality!”
The old doctor was looking, too, and he blurted out, in amazement:
“Bless my heart! If that is not Royall Sherwood stepping out of the
carriage, too, with two strong legs as limber as mine. It’s a miracle!”
But their eyes had not deceived them. It was indeed Royall Sherwood,
stepping with old-time grace and lightness, and Aunt Alice met him at
the door and led him in.
They waited with bated breath five minutes, and they came upstairs
together.
Royall Sherwood did not seem to see any one but the wreck of beautiful
Daisie, lying so still and silent on the bed. He went and stood by her,
gazing in horror at the wasted face and form, and the shorn head whence
all the golden curls had been clipped away so as to apply ice to the
burning brain.
“Can this be Daisie--my wife, Daisie!” he muttered, in grief and dread,
and fell on his knees, his arms clasping the unconscious girl, his
slight frame heaving with emotion.
They stood around in reverent silence till the storm of grief spent
itself, and he looked up indignantly, crying:
“Why was I not told of this? How dared you keep it from me that she was
dying?”
They could pardon his anger for the sake of his grief, and very gently
they explained the reason.
But Royall Sherwood would not be pacified. He insisted that he had been
badly treated--that they should not have listened to a sick girl’s
ravings--that his place was by her side.
But, as if disturbed by his complaints, Daisie moved restlessly, threw
her wasted arms about, and called pleadingly:
“Dallas! Dallas! Dallas!”
Royall Sherwood started as if stung, and stifled an oath between his
blanched lips, while Annette bent and whispered in his ear:
“You see now why it was better for you not to come. She is always
calling for him.”
The kind-faced nurse came in, and said frankly to the doctor:
“I am afraid there is too much excitement for my patient. Please leave
her alone with me.”
They led Royall most unwillingly into the next room, and then Doctor
Burns exclaimed:
“But, my dear fellow, we are just dying to hear about your recovery
from your paralytic state. When you arrived we were just reading of
your rescue from your burning house, and----”
“That was it, doctor; that was what wrought the miracle of my
recovery,” exclaimed Royall radiantly, and he went on to explain: “You
see, I woke up in the midst of blinding smoke and flame. I shrieked for
my valet, who usually slept in a little room opening off from mine.
There was no answer. The wretch had escaped, leaving me to perish.
In my agony, I tried to spring from bed. My crippled limbs refused
assistance, and I hung face downward, stifling, dying, in that hell
of fire and smoke, shrieking and cursing, I am afraid, too, in my
despair. After an eternity of waiting, till I was almost dead, I heard
a voice in the room calling and praying: ‘Sherwood, where are you? I am
coming. God, help me to save him if I perish myself! God, be good to
me--let me atone by a noble death.’ It was Raymond, my companion. He
got to me somehow, clutched me, wrapped me in bedclothes, and staggered
away with me. Oh, it was so long before he got me to the outside! I
thought we both must perish in the fire, but he battled on, praying,
always praying, that same prayer: ‘God, let me save this man, if I
perish myself!’ But I must not harrow up your feelings. His prayer was
granted. He staggered to the door with me, and fell. When they got us
up, he--poor fellow!--had such horrible burns on his legs and shoulders
he could not live. But for me--oh, for me, a miracle had been wrought.
The shock, something--perhaps the fellow’s prayers--had cured my
paralysis, restored me to myself--I could walk!”
The tears ran down their cheeks, while his face glowed with joy.
“I cannot tell you what joy I felt, what triumph; it is beyond words,”
he cried. “My first thought was for Daisie--to go to her, to hear her
rejoice over my restoration. But they sent for me to Raymond, who had
been taken to the hospital. I had to go. He wished to tell me something
before he died--a--a secret--so I cannot tell you any more,” he added,
with a meaning look at Annette.
She sobbed aloud:
“And he is dead, brave soul?”
“No--not when I came away. He might linger some time. It was impossible
for the doctors to say.”
“And you deserted his dying bed, Royall Sherwood, when he had given his
life for yours? Cruel!” she cried, with passionate indignation.
He looked abashed for a moment, then answered:
“Poor fellow! I could do him no good staying till the last, and I was
eager to see Daisie, of course. Who could blame me?”
“Let me go home!” the girl cried chokingly, rushing from among them to
seek her mother’s sympathetic arms.
Passionate sobs, a meek confession, eager entreaties, and mother and
daughter set out on the first train for New York.
In the gray dawn, they reached the hospital.
“Is he alive yet?”
“Oh, yes; and there is the barest chance he may pull through, in spite
of his awful injuries. So glad that some of his friends are come at
last. Poor fellow! He seemed so lonely,” said the kind nurse.
Soon she was kneeling by his cot, her lips against his cheek, sobbing:
“Ray, do you know me--your little Annette? My hero, will you forgive
me?”
“Oh, my darling, how noble of you to come to me before--I died! I have
done all I could to atone. It is for you to forgive,” the weak voice
murmured.
“Oh, Ray, you will not die. I will pray, pray, pray, as you did when
you brought Royall through the fire to safety. God will let you live
for me, my own love, and we will forgive each other everything and be
happy at last.”
Oh, the strength of Love! It fought with death and came out triumphant.
There were long and weary weeks of patient suffering, but love and care
brought him back at last from the dark borders of the grave to life and
happiness.
* * * * *
Annette’s precipitate flight created such consternation in the minds of
the doctor and Mrs. Bell that Royall felt called on to explain.
“Poor fellow! He was Annette’s sweetheart, and I would give half my
fortune to save his life as he so nobly saved mine. But they said at
Bellevue that it was impossible for him to live.”
Then his thoughts flew back to Daisie, and he cried pleadingly:
“Doctor, you must not let my wife die now, when I am so miraculously
restored to her as from the grave. No expense must be spared. Have you
had consulting physicians?”
“Two of the best in Baltimore. Everything that is possible has been
done. We can only await the issue with hope and prayer. The crisis will
almost certainly come to-night.”
“You will let me share the watch by her side?” pleadingly.
“Yes, if the good nurse will consent, though she is very arbitrary. But
we cannot afford to go against her wishes. She is from the Baltimore
Hospital, and the best nurse procurable.”
He went into the sick room to look at the patient again, and to ask
leave for her husband to stay in the room.
“He may try it, but she is very susceptible to the influence of any one
who enters the room,” replied the clever nurse, whose patient had again
relapsed into seeming stupor.
So by and by Royall went in and sat by the window to watch the night
out in mingled hope and fear.
How deathly his wife looked, as if the grim King of Terrors had already
claimed her as his own. She lay so still and so seemingly lifeless that
it was almost a relief when she began to toss and turn again, and to
mutter wild, incoherent words.
When this had gone on some time, the intelligent nurse whispered in his
ear:
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Sherwood, but it would almost seem as if your
presence had some disturbing influence on her, and not for the best,
either. Will you kindly retire a while, and let me see what effect it
may have on her restlessness?”
Bitterly chagrined, he left the house and went down to the sea to pace
the yellow sands for an hour, brooding bitterly over his sorrow.
With what sanguine hopes he had left New York this morning, expecting
to find Daisie bright and beautiful as ever, and believing that it
might not be hard to win her love at last, now that he was well and
strong again.
But to see her stricken so--her beauty faded, her golden glory of
tresses shorn away, her life ebbing out, it seemed, so fast. Oh, it was
cruel, unbearable.
The wish came to him that he had never seen the fair face that he had
determined to make his own in spite of opposing obstacles.
“She was not for me--Heaven never meant it so--she will die to punish
me for my masterful will,” he groaned to himself, in passionate
rebellion against his untoward fate.
He went back to the house, and they told him she had been lying quietly
for some time, almost ever since he went out.
He went in to look at her, to press a tender kiss on her damp, white
brow; but again she became restless, tossing wildly, and calling:
“Dallas! Dallas! Dallas!”
“It is quite evident that your presence disturbs her, sir, so you had
better go to bed and rest. You can do no good here,” the nurse said
candidly.
Mrs. Bell led him to a quiet chamber, and begged him to retire.
“After your thrilling experiences of last night, you must be very
weary, and a night’s sleep will refresh you. Have no fear for Daisie.
We will do our best,” she said kindly.
He retired, but it seemed to him at first that he could never
rest again, so keen was his humiliation that Daisie, even in
unconsciousness, could never endure his proximity, and kept calling on
the name of his hated rival.
But at last weariness overpowered him, and he fell into a heavy,
dreamless sleep that lasted till the morning sun peeped in through the
shutters.
He rose in a tumult of fear, and began to dress, but almost immediately
Doctor Burns came in, exclaiming:
“Good news! She passed the crisis safely at midnight, and will live.”