HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED.
For a moment it seemed to Beatrix that she could not have heard aright.
Her brain was giddy, her breath came fluttering feebly--she looked as
if she was going to swoon.
Doctor Darrow's practiced eye marked the change in his patient at once,
and he started with a low cry of alarm.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, wildly, "what have I done? Oh, Beatrix!
Beatrix! do not mind me. I was mad to speak to you of such things now
when you are so weak and ill! Forgive me, darling. I will not err in
that way again. I promise not to refer to the subject again until you
are strong enough to listen."
A faint shudder passed over the sick girl's wasted frame, her eyes
shone like stars; but she had made up her mind in a moment that, no
matter how it might excite her and retard her recovery, she must speak
out now and tell him all--this good, kind heart, this truly noble man
who was willing to devote his life to her service, yet knew all her
dread secret! And yet how little could he do--could any human being
do--to help her!
"Doctor Darrow," she said, laying her little wasted hand upon his
arm, "I must speak now. I must tell you the truth and prevent any
further misunderstanding. You must not speak to me of love or marriage.
Even--even if I were not the afflicted creature that I am, it is wrong,
it is sinful to do so; for--I am the wife of another man!"
He started with a low cry, biting his lip until the blood came. All the
color faded from his face, and his gray eyes grew black as night with
anguish. He turned aside, as though to leave the room; then he came
back to the window near which Beatrix was sitting, and sank upon a sofa
that stood near. The room was as still as death. He could not collect
his thoughts enough to speak. He sat trembling like a leaf. At last:
"I beg you to forgive me," he said, in a shaking voice. "I had no right
to speak of such things to you until I had first learned you were free.
Of course, no one looking at a child like you would imagine that you
were a married woman. I never thought of such a thing. You know that I
meant no insult, Beatrix?"
Her great, dark eyes met his gaze with a look of earnest gratitude.
"You? Why, you have saved my life, though that life is not, perhaps,
worth saving," she added, sadly. "Oh, Doctor Darrow, you have been so
good and kind to me! I can never thank you enough! But, of course, this
of which you speak can never be. If you wish, I will tell you my sad
story."
"I would be grateful for your confidence," he returned, "and will guard
it as sacred. I wish I could help you in this awful trouble. I can
only watch you well and study your case, to which I promise to devote
all my faculties. I have devoted much of my time to the study of this
strange disease and the tests by which its existence in the system is
first detected and proven. Ah, well!"--he rose as he spoke, stifling a
weary sigh--"at least I shall have that one object left in life. It is
something worth living for."
He left the room, and Beatrix was alone with her own dreary thoughts.
All the future looked dark and dismal enough, and it seemed to the poor
girl that there could never again be a ray of light to shine upon her
darkened pathway--never any more.
She bowed her head and wept bitter tears; but somehow they seemed to
relieve her, and after a time she felt stronger and better.
Here Sister Angela found her, and sat down to converse with the sick
girl upon the affairs of the institution, speaking to her of cases
where the patients suffered more in mind than body, and trying her best
to interest Beatrix in these poor creatures.
"As soon as you are strong enough, my dear," the good sister said,
gently, "we will take you into the different wards and let you see
how people suffer and still live. There is nothing better to cure one
of mourning and repining over one's own sad fate--the sorrow which
is inevitable--than to witness the sorrow of others, and to help the
helpless to bear their heavy burdens. Oh, Beatrix! truly that is worth
living for--a comforter! Blessed are the comforters!"
Beatrix lifted her head and taking the sister's hand, pressed it
warmly. Her sad heart was somehow strengthened, and she made up her
mind to try and bear her burden bravely, and in helping others, and
comforting and caring for those who were sick and in distress, she
would find her life work.
A few weeks later Beatrix was pronounced able to go into the sick wards
as assistant to the trained nurses, waiting upon them and obeying their
instructions.
Once accustomed to the routine, to the strange, sad sights and sounds,
Beatrix gave her whole attention to it. She threw all her heart and
strength and energy into the task before her--the work which God had
placed in her hands to stand between her and despair--and devoted
herself to the noble work.
* * * * *
In the meantime, at the old Dane mansion, Serena was working hard to
attain the desire of her heart. She had made up her mind to become
Mrs. Bernard Dane, if it were within the power of a human being
to accomplish it, and to that end she labored industriously and
assiduously. She made herself so necessary to the sick man's comfort
that old Bernard Dane soon began to think that he had judged her too
harshly, and that there was some good in Serena after all. She was
constantly at his bed-side. Of course, her mother and Mrs. Graves both
shared her task, for the proprieties must be observed. But still Serena
was the real head of the house, and to her the others began, after a
time, to look for direction. And now the managing part of Serena's
nature became manifest. She proved a splendid business and household
directress, and Bernard Dane began to look up to her with a feeling of
admiration, and to declare that she was a very superior woman.
Poor Keith, never dreaming of the contingency which was looming up in
the near future, went about the house with a listless, preoccupied air,
his face pale and troubled, his eyes wearing a look of heart-break.
He paid no heed to the palpable scheme which Serena had formed, and
which was apparently on the road to success--the game which was being
played before his very eyes--for he had too much else to think about,
and his own sorrow occupied him to the exclusion of all else. But Mrs.
Graves had her eyes opened suddenly one day. She entered the sick-room
in haste on some necessary errand, and found Serena kneeling at the
bedside, her eyes fixed upon the old man's ugly face with a rapt, eager
look.
"I have thought a great deal of you ever since we first met," Serena
was saying, and the old housekeeper caught the words as she crossed the
threshold.
"Yes, yes," returned the old man, hastily, "but I am too old to think
of marriage now. Serena, we will not discuss that at present."
"Very well."
Serena arose to her feet with an air of resignation, then turning
sharply about, she encountered Mrs. Graves.
"What do you want?" demanded Serena, harshly.
The old woman's face wore a look of angry displeasure.
"I came here on business with Mr. Dane," she returned, coldly, "not
with you. I beg your pardon, Miss Lynne, but I really do think that
you are overreaching yourself somewhat, and playing a dangerous game.
But it will be useless here," she added, freezingly, "for Mr. Dane is a
man of good sense, although he is old and feeble."
Serena made no reply. She did not wish to provoke a controversy right
there, in the presence of the old man; for then, of course, her plot
would miscarry--her well-laid scheme be doubtless brought to grief--and
her case was growing more desperate day by day.
The old home in Massachusetts had finally been sold, and the small
amount which remained over, after all the debts were settled, was
meager enough to make Serena's heart contract with slow horror at
the thought of a possible old age in some alms-house, and Mrs. Lynne
lived in daily and hourly dread of the day that would see them utterly
penniless.
Time went on, and Serena tried to keep up heart and courage, and worked
hard at her well-formed scheme of besieging the old man's heart.
But it was a difficult task for her to hope to reach that heart,
incrusted as it was with worldliness, selfishness, and hardness--a real
Chinese puzzle to Serena--but, with a zeal worthy of a better cause,
she kept on in the road which she had marked out for herself.
She had succeeded in making her presence indispensable to Bernard
Dane. He had long since learned to rely upon her, and to look to her
for advice and comfort, to soothe his sufferings and to cheer and
console him in his dreary moments. In short, she had, with the greatest
tact and skill, made herself a regular sunbeam in the darksome
sick-chamber, a ray of sunlight to brighten the old man's gloom; and
more than all--a sure road to the heart of a man--she had made herself
a household necessity.
Just when she had succeeded in making herself indispensable to Bernard
Dane, just when he grew to expect her coming to cheer his dreary
sick-room, when he began to rely upon her as a watcher, a gentle,
tireless nurse--Serena was a born nurse--when he had begun to believe
that there was no comfort in the whole world for him which Serena's
hand could not bestow, when he had come to a stage where he would
miss the caressing touch of her gentle hands bathing his brow and
arranging his pillow, the voice which had lost its shrill tones and
now spoke only in a low, sweet way, when he, in short, had begun to
look to Serena for every comfort, then--then came a blank, a dull,
dreary blank, for Serena suddenly disappeared. And when the old man in
querulous tones demanded of his housekeeper the cause of her absence,
Mrs. Graves informed him that Serena, worn out with watching and
nursing, was very ill and confined to her own room.