WITH FRIENDS.
Doctor Fielding turned his kind, grave eyes upon the frightened face of
his pretty wife and shook his head.
“No, she is not dead, Minnie, but I shall have to reserve all
explanations until we have resuscitated her,” he said. “She is in a
deep swoon now, and before we try to revive her I want you to bring
some of your warm, dry garments and put them upon her. You see she is
quite damp now. She has been in the water.”
“In the water--oh, dear!” Minnie Fielding cried, with a shiver.
“I will go and light a fire in the kitchen while you change your
patient,” said her husband. “I daresay Mrs. Strangemore will need a cup
of warm coffee when she revives.”
“And I have been so lazy I have not made a drop this morning,” Mrs.
Fielding cried, penitently.
“Of course not--it is much too early for breakfast yet, but I will see
about the coffee, dear, while you attend to your friend.”
He slipped on a short gray dressing-gown and went out. Mrs. Fielding
went about the task he had set her with tearful alacrity, pausing now
and then to drop a kiss on the pale cheeks of the unconscious girl.
“Oh, my dear little pupil, my sweet Nina, what has happened to you?”
she cried, sorrowfully, as she buttoned up her own pretty blue
dressing-gown upon the slim, girlish figure.
Something in the sorrowful, tender words must have gone straight
through the sealed consciousness of Nina for she stirred faintly and
opened her eyes. Their dark wondering gaze fell on Mrs. Fielding’s
tender tearful face.
“Nina, my darling little girl,” she repeated, fondly, and chafing the
cold little hands in both her own, “Oh, my little pupil, how glad I am
to see you again. I have wished so often that you would come and see
me in my humble, happy little home, and now my hope is fulfilled!”
The dazed expression vanished out of the girl’s eyes, and full
consciousness came into them--full consciousness of her sorrow. She
could not answer the loving words of her old teacher. She looked
back at her mutely with big, heavy dark eyes circled by wide, purple
shadows, and full of hopeless misery.
Then for the first time it dawned on Mrs. Fielding that her old pupil
had come to her in sorrow and misery, not in joyful greeting. Those
dark eyes so full of despair told their own story. All the agony of a
breaking heart was in them.
The kind hearted lady uttered a cry of blended sympathy and sorrow,
and threw her arms around the passive figure, laying the golden head
against her shoulder.
“Do not speak one word to me, darling, if you do not choose,” she said,
“I see that you are in trouble and sorrow, and I am, oh, so sorry for
you!”
Doctor Fielding coming in presently, found them thus, but he did
not like the hard, cold misery of Nina’s face, lighted by the large
suffering black eyes. Her speechless calm, her stony endurance seemed
more terrible than tears.
He went to the crib to kiss his sleeping child, and the babe stirred
and awoke. He took it carefully in his arms and carried it to Nina.
“This is our little daughter--just two months old--Mrs. Strangemore,”
he said, “I hope you will kiss the little stranger, for Minnie has
named her Nina for the sake of the love she had for you.”
Nina gazed with strange, wild eyes at the sweet, pink face a moment,
then she stooped and pressed her lips to her little namesake’s cheeks.
Two great burning tears splashed on the child’s face as she did so,
and when she lifted her head it was to break into a tempest of bitter
weeping which dismayed Minnie, but at which her husband gazed in silent
satisfaction.
“Let her weep. It is better for her,” he said, under his breath, and
he carried the baby out of the room, and left Minnie alone with the
mourner.
She followed him presently with a sad, perplexed face, and took the
fretful babe from his arms.
“She has sobbed herself to sleep without saying a word. Oh, Arthur,
what has happened to the poor child?”
“Indeed, Minnie, I do not know,” he answered, “But I think she must
have had some terrible trouble greater than she could bear, for last
night I rescued her from a suicide’s grave in the deep sea.”
A cry of terror came from the lips of the happy young wife as she
pressed her infant in her arms.