HARBOR LIGHT
Anthony's sanatorium was an enlargement of an old mansion which had
belonged to his grandfather. The wide green lawns swept down to the sea.
There was an orchard to the left of the house, and to the right a rose
garden, and the barn had been turned into a weaving room.
Within the house everything was restful and harmonious. Money had been
spent without stint to produce beauty in its most subtle expression;
each window framed a view of sea or sky or of sunlighted trees; the
walls, the hangings, the rugs were of that ashes-of-rose tint which give
light to an interior without glare.
Diana, entering, with her arms full of lilacs, was met by a nurse.
"Dr. Blake wants you at once," she said; "he's in his office."
"Take these, Betty." Diana thrust the lilacs into the girl's arms.
"Perhaps you'd better go back and sit in the car with Justin and
Sophie, or you can wait in the reception room. I won't be long."
But she was longer than she had anticipated. The seconds lengthened into
minutes, and the minutes in quarters and into half hours. Justin came in
once and found Bettina sitting stiffly on the edge of a chair with the
flowers in her arms.
"Come out and we'll take a spin across the causeway, while we wait," he
said.
Bettina shook her head. "Diana said she wouldn't be long. I don't see
what's keeping her."
"There's that operation this morning, you know, on the girl with
appendicitis. And Diana has always been a great help with Anthony's
patients. He told me that when she went to Europe her loss was felt
deeply here----"
"But the girl--with appendicitis?" Bettina's face was white. "Is she
afraid----?"
"Yes."
"Oh, I should be afraid. I--I don't see how Anthony can do it."
"Do what?"
"Operate on such a little scared thing----" She was shivering.
"You mustn't stay here," Justin insisted; "you'll get nervous, you
know, and all that; you really mustn't stay--you weren't made to have
your mind on such things."
"But Diana's mind is on them."
"Diana is--different."
That Diana was different was being demonstrated at that very moment in
an upper room, where a little white slip of a girl had welcomed her with
a wailing cry--"I'm afraid."
"My dear," Diana bent over the bed, "there's nothing to be afraid of,
not with your doctor."
"But--if I should die."
"You're not going to die."
"But how do you know?"
"Because your good doctor has said so--and he knows----"
"But sometimes people do--die."
Diana signed to the nurse to go out, and then she knelt by the bed.
"Dear child," she said, softly, "life is such a short journey for all of
us, and beyond is a wonder land. When I was a little girl I used to wish
that I might die, and I thought that my lonely little soul might sail
and sail in a silver boat until I came to the shores of that far country
where I should find my father and mother waiting. I was such a dreary
little orphan, and I wanted love. And I knew that in that country Love
waited for me--as it is waiting for you. Would it be so hard to go after
all the pain, if Love willed it so?"
"I hadn't thought of it that way."
"Then think of it now. But most of all think of life, and of what it
will mean to you when wise Dr. Blake has made you well. And think of
this, too, that when you wake up from your long sleep there will be a
bunch of white lilacs right here on this little table--to welcome you
back to the world--will you promise to think of the white lilacs until
you go to sleep?"
She was talking against time, trying to get the tense look out of the
girl's eyes. And now she was rewarded by the lowered lids and the
relaxing of the little figure in her arms.
"I am going to think of the lilacs," the girl whispered. "Are you very
sure they will be there?"
"Very sure, dear."
"Then I'm ready----"
* * * * *
Diana, going out, met Anthony.
"She's all right," she said. "I'm glad you had me come.
"She confided in me at once. She just needed her mind diverted, and I
turned it on white lilacs. I will have a bunch for her when she wakes,
and she is going to think of them. Is there really any danger, Anthony?"
"Scarcely any--and there was no choice. She couldn't live without it."
"How wonderful that you can save life, Anthony."
"In saving others I save myself, Diana. It has kept me in these later
years from--chaos----"
Something in his voice made Diana say, quickly, "Betty is down-stairs.
Poor child, she has waited for a long time. Can you come down?"
"No. She ought not to be here, Diana."
"She would come. I think she hoped to see you. And why shouldn't she
come? Your work is here."
"She isn't fitted for it. She is born for the brightness of life, not
for its shadows. I fancy if she could see me in my operating outfit that
she'd look upon me as something between a brute and a butcher. Poor
child!" His laugh was grim.
Diana's progress down the corridor partook of the nature of an ovation.
From one room to another she went, and was welcomed by patients, many of
whom made periodical visits to "Harbor Light"--which was the
picturesque name Anthony had given his house because, as he explained,
it was to be a beacon to such derelicts as drifted there. There were men
and women of wealth who came to be fortified for another season of
excitement, and there were men and women to whom the doctor gave lodging
and his skill without financial recompense. But no one knew to whom such
charity was extended, and all were equal in care and treatment.
Most of the nurses, too, had been there long enough to know the
inspiration and uplift which was brought by the gracious lady in the
white gown.
When the patients asked, "Who is she?" the reply was whispered, "Diana
Gregory. Everybody hopes she'll marry the doctor. He's dead in love with
her."
At last Diana slipped away, promising to come again soon to look at the
weaving, to see the new pottery--
"But not now," she insisted, brightly; "there's some one waiting for me
down-stairs."
She found Bettina still sitting stiffly on the edge of the chair. She
had sent Justin back to Sophie, and a nurse had taken away the lilacs.
All the glory had gone out of her morning when Anthony had asked for
Diana.
"Why didn't he want me?" she demanded, when Diana came toward her with
an eager apology. "Why didn't Anthony want me?"
"My dear, he always wants you, but there's an operation on now."
"On that girl with appendicitis?"
"Yes."
"Oh, how can he do it, Diana? I think it's dreadful--to--to hurt
people----"
"He doesn't hurt them, dear."
"But it's horrid. I--I hate it."
"Betty!"
"I--I shan't ever let him talk about it to me." The child's breath was
coming quickly. "Never--never--never, when we are married--and I'm going
to make him give it up----"
"Give it up?" Diana's voice rang clear and sharp. "Give what up?"
"His surgery. I didn't mind the other--when he came to mother and gave
her medicine in bottles--but this is different, and the women
here----Why, Diana, some of them looked in at the door, and they
were--freaks."
"They're sick, dear."
"I don't like sick things. I loved mother, and I could stand it, but
Anthony mustn't let me see such people--not now, so soon after----!"
"Hush, Betty! Oh, you shouldn't have come in. We'll go now and have a
long ride with Justin, and to-night you'll see Anthony--and some day
you'll realize what a great man he is."
"I know he's a great surgeon, and, of course, I'll have to put up with
it--but I shall hate it just the same, Diana."
Put up with it--oh, Diana! For years she had urged him toward this end,
that he might stand at the head of that profession which combats death
with a flaming sword. For years she had watched him struggle upward, and
had gloried, not only in his fame, but in his power of healing.
Together the two women went down the path.
"Are you tired of waiting?" Diana asked as they came up to the car.
"Justin took me for a little ride," said Sophie, "and I sat in front
with him. We tried to get Bettina to go, but she wouldn't. She thought
she ought to wait for you."
"I wish I hadn't waited," said Bettina, as Justin helped her in. "I--I
don't like sick people, and I hate that queer smell----"
"Ether," said Justin, promptly; "it's because of the operation."
He leaned forward, and the car shot out toward the causeway. The way led
first through a street overarched with elms; beyond the elms there was a
vista of sea and sky. A fragrant wind blew from the blossoming trees,
and swept Bettina's veil away from her face so that it billowed above
her hat like the wings of some great bird.
The hospital was behind; ahead was the long white road. Justin was
smiling down into her eyes. For the first time she noticed his look of
joyous youth.
"I begin to understand why it is that you fly," she said, as they came
out upon the causeway and saw the stretch of harbor beyond.
"Why?"
"Because you feel that you must get up high enough to flap your wings."
"I could do that on a barn-yard fence, couldn't I--like Chantecler, and
make the sun rise?"
"You could never get up early enough."
"I flew past your window at six."
"How did you know it was my window?"
Justin glanced down at her. Her soft white hat was pulled low, so that
it almost hid her eyes, but through the veil he could see that they were
softly shining. Her lips were red, and her cheeks touched by the wind
with vivid color.
"I knew--because my heart told me," he said, ardently.
But she did not blush. "You knew it because you know which is Diana's
guest room," she stated.
"Were you awake?"
"No. I am never awake at six--I love to be lazy."
"Don't tell that to Dr. Anthony or he'll set you to weaving. You know
what I told you; he said that idleness leads to weakness or
wickedness----"
"I haven't had time to see what it leads to," Bettina informed him.
"I've always been so busy. I'm going to play for a while."
"Will you play with me?" Justin challenged her.
Shining eyes met shining eyes--youth responded to youth.
"It will be glorious," said Bettina, meeting his mood.
They laughed together, the care-free laughter of their golden age.
Diana, catching the echo of it, waked from a reverie which had to do
with Anthony back there in a big, bare room, contending with skilful and
steady hands against the evil forces which sought to destroy; saving a
life, giving to a little unknown girl a future of hope and of health.
Every breath that she had drawn since she had left him had been a prayer
that his hand might not fail, that his nerves might be like steel--she
felt as if her heart were beating with his to uphold him, as if she
could bear him on the wings of love and be his talisman against harm.
Yet in front of her was the girl he was to marry, laughing lightly up
into the eyes of a boy, unconscious of her lover's need, unconscious of
everything except that she was young and free from care--and that the
morning world was beautiful!