Between two sunrises Louise Mazarine had seen her old world pass in
a flash of flame and a new world trembling with a new life spread out
before her; had come to know what her old world really was. The eyes
with which she looked upon her new world had in them the glimmer not
only of awakened feeling but of awakened understanding. To this time she
had endured her aged husband as a slave comes to bear the lashes of his
master, with pain which will be renewed and renewed, but pain only, and
not the deeper torture of the soul; for she had never really grasped
what their relations meant. To her it had all been part of the
unavoidable misery of life. But on that sunny afternoon when Orlando
Guise’s voice first sounded in her ears, and his eyes looked into hers
as, pale and ill, she gazed at him from the window, a revelation came to
her of what the three years of life with Joel Mazarine had really been.
From that moment until she heard the pioneer’s wagon, escorted by her
husband, bringing the unconscious Orlando Guise to her door, she had
lived in a dream which seemed like a year of time to her.
Since the early morning of that very day, when Joel had leaned over her
bed and asked her in his slow, grinding voice how she was, she had lived
more than in all the past nineteen years of her life. The Young Doctor
had come and gone, amazed at first, but presently with a look of
apprehension in his eyes. There was not much trace of yesterday’s
illness in the alert, eager girl-wife, who twenty-four hours before had
been really nearer to the end of all things than her aged husband. The
Young Doctor knew all too well what the curious, throbbing light in her
eyes meant. He knew that the gay and splendid Orlando Guise had made the
sun for this prismatic radiance, and that the story of her life, which
Louise had wished to tell him yesterday, would never now be told--for
she would have no desire to tell it. The old vague misery, the ancient
veiled torture, was behind her, and she was presently to suffer a new
torture--but also a joy for which men and women have borne unspeakable
things. No, Louise would never tell him the story of her life, because
now she knew it was a thing which must not be told. Her mind understood
things it had never known before. To be wise is to be secret, and she
had learned some wisdom; and the Young Doctor wondered if the greater
wisdom she must learn would be drunk from the cup of folly. Before he
left her he had said to her with meaning in his voice:
“My dear young madam, your recovery is too rapid. It is not a cure:
it is a miracle; and miracles are not easily understood. We must,
therefore, make them understood; and so you will take regularly three
times a day the powerful tonic I will give you.”
She was about to interrupt him, but he waved a hand reprovingly and
added with kindly irony:
“Yes, we both know you don’t need a tonic out of a bottle; but it’s
just as well other people should think that the tonic bringing back
the colour to your cheeks comes out of a bottle and not out of a health
resort, called Slow Down Ranch, about four miles to the north-west of
Tralee.”
As he said this, he looked straight into the eyes which seemed, as it
were, to shrink into cover from what he was saying. But when, an instant
afterwards, he took her hand and said good-bye, he knew by the trembling
clasp of her fingers--even more appealing than they had yet been--that
she understood.
So it was a few moments later, outside the house, he had said to Joel
Mazarine that he had given his wife a powerful tonic, and he hoped to
see an almost instant change in her condition; but she must have her
room to herself for a time, according to his instructions of the day
before, as she was nervous and needed solitude, to induce sleep. He was
then about to start for Askatoon when the old man said:
“I suppose you won’t have to come again, as she’s going on all right.”
To this the Young Doctor had replied firmly: “Yes, I’m coming out
to-morrow. She’s not fit yet to go to Askatoon, and I must see her once
again.”
“Oh, keep coming--that’s right, keep coming!” answered the miserly old
man, who still was not so miserly that he did not want his young wife
blooming. “Coming to-morrow, eh!” he added, with something very like a
sneer.
The other had a sudden flash of fury pass through his veins. The
old Celtic quickness to resent insult swept over him. The ire of his
forefathers waked in him. This outrageous old Caliban, to attempt to
sneer at him! For an instant he was Kilkenny let loose, and then the
cool, trained brain reasserted its mastery, and he replied:
“If there should be a turn for the worse, send for me to-night--not
to-morrow!” And he looked the old man in the eyes with a steady, steelly
glance which had nothing to do with the words he had just uttered, but
was the challenge of a conquering spirit.
The Young Doctor had acted with an almost uncanny prescience. It was as
though he had foreseen that Orlando Giuse would be carried upstairs to a
room nearly opposite that of Louise, and laid unconscious on a bed, till
he himself should come again that very night and extract a bullet from
Orlando’s side; that he would open Orlando’s eyes to consciousness, hear
Orlando say, “Where am I?” and note his startled look when told he was
at Tralee.
Once during this visit, while making Orlando safe and comfortable, with
the help of Li Choo, the Chinaman, and Rada, the half-breed, he had seen
Louise for a moment. The old man had gone to the stables, and as he came
out of the room where Orlando was, Louise’s door opened softly on him.
Dimly, in the half-darkness of her room, in which no light was burning,
he saw her. She beckoned to him. Shutting the door of Orlando’s bedroom
behind him, he came quickly to her side and said:
“Go to bed at once, young woman. This will not do.”
“I’m not sick now,” she urged. “Say, I really am well again.”
“You must not be well again so soon,” he replied meaningly. “I want you
to understand that you must not,” he insisted.
There was a pause, which seemed interminable to the Young Doctor, who
was listening for the heavy footstep of Joel Mazarine outside the house;
and then at last in agitation Louise said to him:
“Will he get well? Rada told me he was shot saving Mr. Mazarine. Will he
get well?”
“Yes, he will get well, and quickly, if--”
He broke off, for there was the thud of a heavy footstep for which he
had been listening. Joel Mazarine was returning.
“Won’t they let me help nurse him?” she whispered.
The Young Doctor shook his head in negation. “His mother will be here
to-morrow,” he said quickly. “Be wise, my child.”
“You understand?” she whispered wistfully.
“I have no understanding. Go to bed,” he answered sharply. “Shut the
door at once.”
When old Joel Mazarine’s footsteps were heard upon the staircase again,
Orlando was lying with half-closed eyes, watching, yet too weak to
speak; and the Young Doctor was giving directions to Rada and Li Choo
for the night-watch in Orlando’s room. When Mazarine entered, the Young
Doctor gave him a casual nod and went on with his directions. When
he had finished, Rada said in her broken English, with an accent
half-Indian, half-French:
“His mother you send for--yes? She come queeck. Some one must take care
him when for me get breakfus and Li Choo do chores.”
“We’ll send for her in the morning,” interrupted Joel Mazarine.
“Perhaps Mrs. Mazarine would be well enough to help a little in the
morning,” remarked the Young Doctor in a colourless voice. He knew when
to be audacious; or, if he did not know, he had an instinct; and he
noticed that the wounded man’s eyelids did not even blink when he threw
out the hint concerning Louise, while the eyes of the old man took on a
sullen flame.
“Mrs. Mazarine has to be molly-coddled herself--that’s what you’ve
taught her,” he snarled.
“Well, then, send for Mrs. Guise to-night,” commanded the Young Doctor.
He thought Joel Mazarine made unnecessary noise as he stamped down the
staircase to send a farmhand to Slow Down Ranch; and he also thought
that Orlando Guise showed discretion of manner and look in a moment of
delicacy and difficulty. He knew, however, that, as the children say,
“Things must happen.”