In the dimmed light Margaret bent above Daunt’s bed to wipe away the
creeping, beady sweat that lay on the forehead, and laid her fingers on
his wrist. Then she came close to Lois. She had bitten her lip raw and
her neck throbbed out and in above her close collar.
“It’s fluttering,” she whispered piteously, “and he’s so cold! See how
pinched and blue his nose is. Oh, God--Lois!”
The rustle and stir of the early waking city soaked in fine-filtered
sounds through the window. Of what use were its multitudinous
strivings, its tangled hopes, its varied suffering? The unending quiet
of softened noises beyond the spotless, ruffled screens hurt her. She
could have screamed, inarticulately, frantically, to scare away that
dreadful, stolid, lethargic thing that sprawled in the air. Her nails
left little, curved, purpled dents in her palms that smarted when she
unclenched her fingers. It would be easier to bear it if he cried
out--if he babbled unmeaningness, or hurled reproaches. Only--that
still prostration, that anxious expression about the lines of the
forehead, that silence, growing into---- No, no! Not that! Not--death!
Lois sat aching fiercely at the smouldering longing in the shadowy
depths of the other’s spaniel-like eyes. The tawny-brown surge of her
hair, swept back from her forehead, stood out against the white of the
blank wall, cameo-like. She suddenly crouched by Lois’s chair, grasping
at her. “Lois, Lois!” she said, low and with fearful intensity; “it’s
come! Help me to fight it! Help me!”
“What has come? What?”
“Fear! It’s looking at me everywhere. It’s looking between the
screens! I must keep it away. If I give up to it, he’ll die! Press my
hands--that’s good. Look at him! Didn’t he move then? Wasn’t his face
turned more? I’m--cold, Lois.”
An icy frost had silvered her soul. Gaunt arms seemed to stretch from
the dimness toward the bed. Then, with an effort which left her weak,
she thrust back her imaginings, rose, and sat down by the pillow.
Her eyes glanced fearfully from side to side, then above, as though
questioning from what direction would come this relentless foe.
Through her dazed brain rushed, clamorous, reiterating, a prayer-blent,
defiant appeal. She saw God sitting on a draped throne, but His
face was merciless. He would not help her! Of what virtue was this
all-filling love of hers if it could not save one little human life? He
was dying--dying--dying! And he _must not_ die! She remembered a night,
far back in her misty childhood, when she had crept through evening
shadows to see a soul take flight. The Death Angel then was a kindly
friend sent to set free a shining twin; now it was a ghastly monster,
lying in wait and chuckling in the silences.
She pressed Daunt’s nerveless hand between her warm palms and strove
to put the whole force of her being into a great passionate desire--a
desire to send along this human conductivity the extra current of
vitality which she felt throbbing and pressing in her every vein. It
seemed as though she must give--give of her own bounding life, to eke
out the fading powers of that dying frame. Again and again she breathed
out her longing, until the very intensity of her will made her feel
dizzy and weak. She would have opened her veins for him. Like the Roman
daughter, she would have given her breast to his lips and the warmth
from her limbs to aid him.
Once she started. “You shall! You shall!” seemed to patter in flying
echoes all about her. It was Daunt’s cry by the fields at Warne, that
had gone leaping from his lips to her heart like a vibrant, inspiring
fire. Did that virile will still lie living, overlapped with the wing
of disease, sending its stubborn strength out now to bolster her own?
She glanced at the waxy face, half expecting to see the bloodless lips
falling back from the words.
Daunt lay motionless. The ice-pack had been removed from his head, and
the shaven temple showed paste-like beneath the bandage-edge. From time
to time Lois poured between his lips a teaspoonful of diluted brandy,
and, at such times, Margaret would put her strong arms under his head
and raise it from the pillow, outwardly calm, but inwardly shuddering
with wrenching jerks of pain.
* * * * *
So the slow, weary night dragged away. The house surgeon looked in
once, bent over the patient a moment, and, without examination, went
away.
The morning broke, and through the walls the dim, murmurous hum of
street traffic penetrated in a muffled whisper. Then the gray of the
late dawn crept about the room, noiseless-footed, like one walking
over graves. Suddenly Lois, who had been sitting with closed eyes, felt
a touch on her shoulder. It was Margaret, and she pointed silently to
Daunt. Lois started forward with a shrinking fear that the end had come
unperceived, but a glance reassured her. The rigid outlines of his
features seemed to have relaxed; an indefinable something, a warmth, a
tinge, a flexibility seemed to have fallen upon the drawn cheeks. It
was something scarce tangible enough to be noted; something evasive,
and yet, to Lois’s trained senses, unmistakable. It was a light
loosening of the grip of Death, a tentative withdrawing of the forces
of the destroyer.
Lois turned with a quick and silent gesture, and the two girls looked
at each other steadfastly. Into Margaret’s eyes sprang a trembling,
eager light of joy.
“We mustn’t hope too much, dear,” Lois whispered, “but I think--I
think that there is a little change. Wait until I call Dr. Irwin.”
The house surgeon bent over the cot with his finger upon Daunt’s pulse.
“This is another one on Faulkner,” he said. “It beats all how things
will go. Said he’d give him twelve hours, did he? Well, this patient
has his own ideas about that. He evidently has marvellous recuperative
powers or else the age of miracles isn’t past. Better watch this case
very carefully and report to me every hour or so. You can count,” he
smiled at Lois, “on being mighty unpopular with Faulkner. He doesn’t
like to have his opinions reversed this way, and he is pretty sure to
lay it on the nurse.”
As the doctor disappeared, all the strength which Margaret had summoned
to her aid seemed to vanish in one great wave of weakening which
overspread her spirit. Everything swam before her eyes. She sank upon
the chair and laid her arms outstretched upon the table. Then she
slowly dropped her head upon them.