AT ELSIE'S BEDSIDE
The day before election, a day of hope deferred, had dragged slowly by
and night had at length settled upon the city. Doctor West had the
minute before come in from a long, dinnerless day of hastening from
case to case, and now he, Katherine, and her aunt were sitting about
the supper table. To Katherine's eye her father looked very weary and
white and frail. The day-and-night struggle at scores of bedsides was
sorely wearing him down.
As for Katherine, she was hardly less worn. She scarcely touched the
food before her. The fears that always assail one at a crisis, now
swarmed in upon her. With the election but a few hours distant, with
no word as yet from Mr. Manning, she saw all her high plans coming to
naught and saw herself overwhelmed with utter defeat. From without
there dimly sounded the beginning of the ferment of the campaign's
final evening; it brought to her more keenly that to-morrow the city
was going to give itself over unanimously to be despoiled. Across the
table, her father, pale and worried, was a reminder that, when his
fight of the plague was completed, he must return to jail. Her mind
flashed now and then to Bruce; she saw him in prison; she saw not only
his certain defeat on the morrow, but she saw him crushed and ruined
for life as far as a career in Westville was concerned; and though she
bravely tried to master her feeling, the throbbing anguish with which
she looked upon his fate was affirmation of how poignant and
deep-rooted was her love.
And yet, despite these flooding fears, she clung with a dizzy
desperation to hope, and to the determination to fight on to the last
second of the last minute.
While swinging thus between despair and desperate hope, she was
maintaining, at first somewhat mechanically to be sure, a conversation
with her father, whom she had not seen since their early breakfast
together.
"How does the fever situation seem to-night?" she asked.
"Much better," said Doctor West. "There were fewer new cases reported
to-day than any day for a week."
"Then you are getting the epidemic under control?"
"I think we can at last say we have it thoroughly in hand. The number
of new cases is daily decreasing, and the old cases are doing well. I
don't know of an epidemic of this size on record where the mortality
has been so small."
She came out of her preoccupation and breathlessly demanded:
"Tell me, how is Elsie Sherman? I could not get around to see her
to-day."
He dropped his eyes to his plate and did not answer.
"You mean she is no better?"
"She is very low."
"But she still has a chance?"
"Yes, she has a chance. But that's about all. The fever is at its
climax. I think to-night will decide which it's to be."
"You are going to her again to-night?"
"Right after supper."
"Then I'll go with you," said Katherine. "Poor Elsie! Poor Elsie!" she
murmured to herself. Then she asked, "Have they had any word from
Doctor Sherman?"
"I asked his sister this afternoon. She said they had not."
They fell silent for a moment or two. Doctor West nibbled at his ham
with a troubled air.
"There is one feature of the case I cannot approve of," he at length
remarked "Of course the Shermans are poor, but I do not think Miss
Sherman should have impaired Elsie's chances, such as they are, from
motives of economy."
"Impaired Elsie's chances?" queried Katherine.
"And certainly she should not have done so without consulting me,"
continued Doctor West.
"Done what?"
"Oh, I forgot I had not had a chance to tell you. When I made my first
call this morning I learned that Miss Sherman had discharged the
nurse."
"Discharged the nurse?"
"Yes. During the night."
"But what for?"
"Miss Sherman said they could not afford to keep her."
"But with Elsie so dangerously sick, this is no time to economize!"
"Exactly what I told her. And I said there were plenty of friends who
would have been happy to supply the necessary money."
"And what did she say?"
"Very little. She's a silent, determined woman, you know. She said
that even at such a time they could not accept charity."
"But did you not insist upon her getting another nurse?"
"Yes. But she refused to have one."
"Then who is looking after Elsie?"
"Miss Sherman."
"Alone?"
"Yes, alone. She has even discharged old Mrs. Murphy, who came in for
a few hours a day to clean up."
"It seems almost incomprehensible!" ejaculated Katherine. "Think of
running such a risk for the sake of a few dollars!"
"After all, Miss Sherman isn't such a bad nurse," Doctor West's sense
of justice prompted him to admit. "In fact, she is really doing very
well."
"All the same, it seems incomprehensible!" persisted Katherine. "For
economy's sake----"
She broke off and was silent a moment. Then suddenly she leaned across
the table.
"You are sure she gave no other reason?"
"None."
"And you believe her?"
"Why, you don't think she would lie to me, do you?" exclaimed Doctor
West.
"I don't say that," Katherine returned rapidly. "But she's shrewd and
close-mouthed. She might not have told you the whole truth."
"But what could have been her real reason then?"
"Something besides the reason she gave. That's plain."
"But what is it? Why, Katherine," her father burst out, half rising
from his chair, "what's the matter with you?"
Her eyes were glowing with excitement. "Wait! Wait!" she said quickly,
lifting a hand.
She gazed down upon the table, her brow puckered with intense thought.
Her father and her aunt stared at her in gathering amazement, and
waited breathlessly till she should speak.
After a minute she glanced up at her father. The strange look in her
face had grown more strange.
"You saw no one else there besides Miss Sherman?" she asked quickly.
"No."
"Nor signs of any one?"
"No," repeated the bewildered old man. "What are you thinking of,
Katherine?"
"I don't dare say it--I hardly dare think it!"
She pushed back her chair and arose. She was quivering all over, but
she strove to command her agitation.
"As soon as you're through supper, father, I'll be ready to go to
Elsie."
"I'm through now."
"Come on, then. Let's not lose a minute!"
They hurried out and entered the carriage which, at the city's
charge, stood always waiting Doctor West's requirements. "To Mrs.
Sherman's--quick!" Katherine ordered the driver, and the horse
clattered away through the crisp November night.
Already people were streaming toward the centre of the town to share
in the excitement of the campaign's closing night. As the carriage
passed the Square, Katherine saw, built against the Court House and
brilliantly festooned with vari-coloured electric bulbs, the speakers'
stand from which Blake and others of his party were later to address
the final mass-meeting of the campaign.
The carriage turned past the jail into Wabash Avenue, and a minute
afterward drew up beside the Sherman cottage. Pulsing with the double
suspense of her conjecture and of her concern for Elsie's life,
Katherine followed her father into the sick chamber. As they entered
the hushed room the spare figure of Miss Sherman rose from a rocker
beside the bed, greeted them with a silent nod, and drew back to give
place to Doctor West.
Katherine moved slowly to the foot of the bed and gazed down. For a
space, one cause of her suspense was swept out of her being, and all
her concern was for the flickering life before her. Elsie lay with
eyes closed, and breathing so faintly that she seemed scarcely to
breathe at all. So pale, so wasted, so almost wraithlike was she as to
suggest that when her spirit fled, if flee it must, nothing could be
left remaining between the sheets.
As she gazed down upon her friend, hovering uncertainly upon life's
threshold, a tingling chill pervaded Katherine's body. Since her
mother's loss in unremembering childhood, Death had been kind to her;
no one so dear had been thus carried up to the very brink of the
grave. All that had been sweet and strong in her friendship with Elsie
now flooded in upon her in a mighty wave of undefined emotion. She was
immediately conscious only of the wasted figure before her, and its
peril, but back of consciousness were unformed memories of their
girlhood together, of the inseparable intimacy of their young
womanhood, and of that shy and tender time when she had been the
confidante of Elsie's courtship.
There was a choking at her throat, tears slipped down her cheeks, and
there surged up a wild, wild wish, a rebellious demand, that Elsie
might come safely through her danger.
But, presently, her mind reverted to the special purpose that had
brought her hither. She studied the face of Miss Sherman, seeking
confirmation of the conjecture that had so aroused her--studying also
for some method of approaching Miss Sherman, of breaking down her
guard, and gaining the information she desired. But she learned
nothing from the expression of those spare, self-contained features;
and she realized that the lips of the Sphinx would be easier to unlock
than those of this loyal sister of a fugitive brother.
That her conjecture was correct, she became every instant more
convinced. She sensed it in the stilled atmosphere of the house; she
sensed it in the glances of cold and watchful hostility Miss Sherman
now and then stole at her. She was wondering what should be her next
step, when Doctor West, who had felt Elsie's pulse and examined the
temperature chart, drew Miss Sherman back to near where Katherine
stood.
"Still nothing from Doctor Sherman?" he whispered in grave anxiety.
"Nothing," said Miss Sherman, looking straight into her questioner's
eyes.
"Too bad, too bad!" sighed Doctor West. "He ought to be home!"
Miss Sherman let the first trace of feeling escape from her compressed
being.
"But still there is a chance?" she asked quickly.
"A fighting chance. I think we shall know which it's to be within an
hour."
At these words Katherine heard from behind her ever so faint a sound,
a sound that sent a thrill through all her nerves. A sound like a
stifled groan. For a minute or more she did not move. But when Doctor
West and Miss Sherman had gone back to their places and Doctor West
had begun the final fight for Elsie's life, she slowly turned about.
Before her was a door. Her heart gave a leap. When she had entered she
had searched the room with a quick glance, and that door had then been
closed. It now stood slightly ajar.
Some one within must have noiselessly opened it to hear Doctor West's
decree upon the patient.
Swiftly and silently Katherine slipped through the door and locked it
behind her. For a moment she stood in the darkness, striving to master
her throbbing excitement.
At length she spoke.
"Will you please turn on the light, Doctor Sherman," she said.
There was no answer; only a black and breathless silence.
"Please turn on the light, Doctor Sherman," Katherine repeated. "I
cannot, for I do not know where the electric button is."
Again there was silence. Then Katherine heard something like a gasp.
There was a click, and then the room, Doctor Sherman's study, burst
suddenly into light.
Behind the desk, one hand still upon the electric key, stood Doctor
Sherman. He was very thin and very white, and was worn, wild-eyed and
dishevelled. He was breathing heavily and he stared at Katherine with
the defiance of a desperate creature brought at last to bay.
"What do you want?" he demanded huskily.
"A little talk with you," replied Katherine, trying to speak calmly.
"You must excuse me. With Elsie so sick, I cannot talk."
She stood very straight before him. Her eyes never left his face.
"We must talk just the same," she returned. "When did you come home?"
"Last night."
"Why did you not let your friends know of your return? All day, in
fact for several days, they have been sending telegrams to every place
where they could conceive your being."
He did not answer.
"It looks very much as if you were trying to hide."
Again he did not reply.
"It looks very much," she steadily pursued, "as if your sister
discharged the nurse and the servant in order that you might hide here
in your own home without risk of discovery."
Still he did not answer.
"You need not reply to that question, for the reply is obvious. I
guessed the meaning of the nurse's discharge as soon as I heard of it.
I guessed that you were secretly hovering over Elsie, while all
Westville thought you were hundreds of miles away. But tell me, how
did you learn that Elsie was sick?"
He hesitated, then swallowed.
"I saw a notice of it in a little country paper."
"Ah, I thought so."
She moved forward and leaned across the desk. Their eyes were no more
than a yard apart.
"Tell me," she said quietly, "why did you slip into town by night? Why
are you hiding in your own home?"
A tremor ran through his slender frame. With an effort he tried to
take the upperhand.
"You must excuse me," he said, with an attempt at sharp dignity. "I
refuse to be cross-examined."
"Then I will answer for you. The reason, Doctor Sherman, is that you
have a guilty conscience."
"That is not----"
"Do not lie," she interrupted quickly. "You realize what you have
done, you are afraid it may become public, you are afraid of the
consequences to yourself--and that is why you slipped back in the dead
of night and lie hidden like a fugitive in your own house."
A spasm of agony crossed his face.
"For God's sake, tell me what you want and leave me!"
"I want you to clear my father."
"Clear your father?" he cried. "And how, if you please?"
"By confessing that he is innocent."
"When he is guilty!"
"You know he is not."
"He's guilty--he's guilty, I tell you! Besides," he added, wildly,
"don't you see that if I proclaim him innocent I proclaim myself a
perjured witness?"
She leaned a little farther across the desk.
"Is not that exactly what you are, Doctor Sherman?"
He shrank back as though struck. One hand went tremulously to his chin
and he stared at her.
"No! No!" he burst out spasmodically. "It's not so! I shall not admit
it! Would you have me ruin myself for all time? Would you have me ruin
Elsie's future! Would you have me kill her love for me?"
"Then you will not confess?"
"I tell you there is nothing to confess!"
She gazed at him steadily a moment. Then she turned back to the door,
softly unlocked and opened it. He started to rush through, but she
raised a hand and stopped him.
"Just look," she commanded in a whisper.
He stared through the open door. They could see Elsie's white face
upon the pillow, with the two dark braids beside it; and could see
Doctor West hovering over her. He had not heard them, but Miss Sherman
had, and she directed at Katherine a pale and hostile glance.
The young husband twisted his hands in agony.
"Oh, Elsie! Elsie!" he moaned.
Katherine closed the door, and turned again to Doctor Sherman.
"You have seen your work," she said. "Do you still persist in your
innocence?"
He drew a deep, shivering breath and shrank away behind his desk, but
did not answer.
Katherine followed him.
"Do you know how sick your wife is?"
"I heard your father say."
"She is swinging over eternity by a mere thread." Katherine leaned
across the desk and her eyes gazed with an even greater fixity into
his. "If the thread snaps, do you know who will have broken it?"
"Don't! Don't!" he begged.
"Her own husband," Katherine went on relentlessly.
A cry of agony escaped him.
"You saw that old man in there bending over her," she pursued,
"trying with all his skill, with all his love, to save her--to save
her from the peril you have plunged her into--and with never a bitter
feeling against you in his heart. If she lives, it will be because of
him. And yet that old man is ruined and has a blackened reputation. I
ask you, do you know who ruined him?"
"Don't! Don't!" he cried, and he sank a crumpled figure at his desk,
and buried his face in his arms.
"Look up!" cried Katherine sternly.
"Wait!" he moaned. "Wait!"
She passed around the desk and firmly raised his shoulders.
"Look me in the eyes!"
He lifted a face that worked convulsively.
She stood accusingly before him. "Out with the truth!" she commanded
in a rising voice. "In the presence of your wife, perhaps dying, and
dying as the result of your act--in the presence of that old man, whom
you have ruined with your word--do you still dare to maintain your
innocence? Out with the truth, I say!"
He sprang to his feet.
"I can stand it no longer!" he gasped in an agony that went to
Katherine's heart. "It's killing me! It's been tearing me apart for
months! What I have suffered--oh, what I have suffered! I'll tell you
all--all! Oh, let me get it off my soul!"
The desperation of his outburst, the sight of his fine face convulsed
with uttermost agony and repentance, worked a sudden revulsion in
Katherine's heart. All her bitterness, her momentary sternness, rushed
out of her, and there she was, quivering all over, hot tears in her
eyes, gripping the hands of Elsie's husband.
"I'm so glad--not only for father's sake--but for your sake," she
cried chokingly.
"Let me tell you at once! Let me get it out of myself!"
"First sit down," and she gently pressed him back into his chair and
drew one up to face him. "And wait for a moment or two, till you feel
a little calmer."
He bowed his head into his hands, and for a space breathed deeply and
tremulously. Katherine stood waiting. Through the night sounded the
brassy strains of "My Country 'Tis of Thee." Back at the Court House
Blake's party was opening its great mass-meeting.
"I'm a coward--a coward!" Doctor Sherman groaned at length into his
hands. And in a voice of utmost contrition he went on and told how, to
gain money for the proper care of Elsie, he had been drawn into
gambling in stocks; how he had made use of church funds to save
himself in a falling market, and how this church money had, like his
own, been swallowed down by Wall Street; how Blake had discovered the
embezzlement, for the time had saved him, but later by threat of
exposure had driven him to play the part he had against Doctor West.
"You must make this statement public, instantly!" Katherine exclaimed
when he had finished.
He shrank back before that supreme humiliation. "Let me do it
later--please, please!" he besought her.
"A day's delay will be----" She caught his arm. "Listen!" she
commanded.
Both held their breath. Through the night came the stirring music of
"The Star Spangled Banner."
"What is that?" he asked.
"The great rally of Mr. Blake's party at the Court House." Her next
words drove in. "To-morrow Mr. Blake is going to capture the city, and
be in position to rob it. And all because of your act, Doctor
Sherman!"
"You are right, you are right!" he breathed.
She held out a pen to him.
"You must write your statement at once."
"Yes, yes," he cried, "only let it be short now. I'll make it in full
later."
"You need write only a summary."
He seized the pen and dipped it into the ink and for a moment held it
shaking over a sheet of paper.
"I cannot shape it--the words won't come."
"Shall I dictate it then?"
"Do! Please do!"
"You are willing to confess everything?"
"Everything!"
Katherine stood thinking for a moment at his side.
"Ready, then. Write, 'I embezzled funds from my church; Mr. Blake
found me out, and replaced what I had taken, with no one being the
wiser. Later, by the threat of exposing me if I refused, he compelled
me to accuse Doctor West of accepting a bribe and still later he
compelled me to testify in court against Doctor West. Mr. Blake's
purpose in so doing was to remove Doctor West from his position, ruin
the water-works, and buy them in at a bargain. I hereby confess and
declare, of my own free will, that I have been guilty of lying and of
perjury.' Do you want to say that?"
"Yes! Yes!"
"'And I further confess and declare that Dr. David West is innocent in
every detail of the charges made against him. Signed, Harold
Sherman.'"
He dropped his pen and sprang up.
"And now may I go in to Elsie?"
"You may."
He hurried noiselessly across the room and through the door.
Katherine, picking up the precious paper she had worked so many months
to gain, followed him. Miss Sherman saw them come in, but remained
silent. Doctor West was bending over Elsie and did not hear their
entrance.
Doctor Sherman tiptoed to the bedside, and stood gazing down, his
breath held, hardly less pale than the soft-sleeping Elsie herself.
Presently Doctor West straightened up and perceived the young
minister. He started, then held out his hand.
"Why, Doctor Sherman!" he whispered eagerly. "I'm so glad you've come
at last!"
The younger man drew back.
"You won't be willing to shake hands with me--when you know." Then he
took a quick half step forward. "But tell me," he breathed, "is
there--is there any hope?"
"I dare not speak definitely yet--but I think she is going to live."
"Thank God!" cried the young man.
Suddenly he collapsed upon the floor and embraced Doctor West about
the knees, and knelt there sobbing out broken bits of sentences.
"Why--why," stammered Doctor West in amazement, "what does this mean?"
Katherine moved forward. Her voice quavered, partly from joy, partly
from pity for the anguished figure upon the floor.
"It means you are cleared, father! This will explain." And she gave
him Doctor Sherman's confession.
The old man read it, then passed a bewildered hand across his face.
"I--I don't understand this!"
"I'll explain it later," said Katherine.
"Is--is this true?" It was to the young minister that Doctor West
spoke.
"Yes. And more. I can't ask you to forgive me!" sobbed Doctor Sherman.
"It's beyond forgiveness! But I want to thank you for saving Elsie. At
least you'll let me thank you for that!"
"What I have done here has been only my duty as a physician," said
Doctor West gently. "As for the other matter"--he looked the paper
through, still with bewilderment--"as for that, I'm afraid I am not
the chief sufferer," he said slowly, gently. "I have been under a
cloud, it is true, and I won't deny that it has hurt. But I am an old
man, and it doesn't matter much. You are young, just beginning life.
Of us two you are the one most to be pitied."
"Don't pity me--please!" cried the minister. "I don't deserve it!"
"I'm sorry--so sorry!" Doctor West shook his head. Apparently he had
forgotten the significance of this confession to himself. "I have
always loved Elsie, and I have always admired you and been proud of
you. So if my forgiveness means anything to you, why I forgive you
with all my heart!"
A choking sound came from the bowed figure, but no words. His
embracing arms fell away from Doctor West. He knelt there limply, his
head bowed upon his bosom. There was a moment of breathless silence.
In the background Miss Sherman stood looking on, white, tense,
dry-eyed.
Doctor Sherman turned slowly, fearfully, toward the bed.
"But, Elsie," he whispered in a dry, lost voice. "It's all bad--but
that's the worst of all. When she knows, she never can forgive me!"
Katherine laid a hand upon his shoulder.
"If you think that, then you don't know Elsie. She will be pained, but
she loves you with all her soul; she would forgive you anything so
long as you loved her, and she would follow you through every misery
to the ends of the world."
"Do you think so?" he breathed; and then he crept to the bed and
buried his face upon it.
Katherine looked down upon him for a moment. Then her own concerns
began flooding back upon her. She realized that she had not yet won
the fight. She had only gained a weapon.
"I must go now," she whispered to her father, taking the paper from
his hand.
Throbbing with returned excitement, she hurried out to the dimly
comprehended, desperate effort that lay before her.