“Fall to here, men, and help me revive him, else he will be dead before
we know it. Chafe his wrists and ankles. Hurry, men, but be gentle. That
is good. Slow, there, John; those horny hands of yours are strong and
rough. Samson, bring some strong coffee as quickly as God will let you.
Rub him under the blankets, men; don’t let him chill. Maybe we can
get him out of this pinch. The great thing now is to take him to my
house.... Ah, that is good work, lads! His heart is waking up a little.
That is good. That is very good.”
Dr. Malbone straightened up, and turned to the young woman, again
fastening upon her the strange, severe, suspicious, half-threatening
look that she had already learned to dread.
“I fear there is something unexplained here, madam, something concealed.
I am not accusing you. My friend is a strange, fine man, and for good
reasons he may have withheld something from you. But he would never hide
anything from me. Did he give you a letter for any one?”
“He did not.”
“Have you seen him writing?”
“No.”
“Martin, hand me his coat.”
Dr. Malbone searched the pockets, and found a sealed letter addressed to
him. He tore it open and read. As he read his astonishment grew. When he
had finished, he turned a strange, pitying look upon the young woman.
“He charges me to give you this when I shall have read it.”
He handed her the letter, which she read. It ran thus:
“My dear Friend,--This is written to give Miss Andros some unhappy
information that she ought to have at the earliest safe and proper
moment, and as a precaution against my breaking down before that moment
arrives. To have told her at first might have prevented her recovery.
The proper moment to tell her will have arrived when she is in safe
hands. I trust that they may be yours, and I know that you will show her
every kindness that your generous soul can yield.
“It is this: Her father lost his life in the accident on the grade, by
the falling of a tree upon him. His body rests under the earth in the
farther end of the cave into which the rear door of my cabin opens. The
grave is marked with a board giving his name. Nailed up in a box near
the door are his personal effects.
“Give this letter to my afflicted friend. It will convey no hint of the
profound sympathy that I feel, nor of what I suffer in thus raising my
hand to deal her so cruel a blow.
“I can only crave her forgiveness for deceiving her both as to her
father’s death and my being a physician.”
The eager hope, the anxiety, the absorption of her entire self in the
stricken man at her feet, fled before the crushing whirlwind of grief
that now overwhelmed her. The loss of her father was the loss of the
anchor of her life, the loss of the one sure thing upon which her soul
rested, in which she knew peace, security, sympathy, and strength.
She spoke no word, but gazed far down the canon, a picture of complete
desolation. Dr. Malbone stood beside her, looking down thoughtfully into
the face of his friend. The men, relieved from their work of bringing
back a faint glow of the flickering life on the ground, moved away
silently, with the instinctive delicacy of their kind, knowing that they
were facing a tragedy that they did not understand.
The letter fell from the young woman’s hand as she still gazed in mute
agony down the canon. A slight swaying of her form warned Dr. Malbone
that his time for action had arrived.
“A noble life still is left to us,” he quietly said, without looking up,
and with a certain unsteadiness in his voice; “and it appeals to us for
all that we have to give of help and strength and sympathy.”
It was a timely word. Instantly she dragged herself out of the crushing
tumult into which she had been plunged.
“Yes,” she said, radiant with love and towering above the wreck that
encompassed her, “the noblest of all lives is still left to us, and it
shall have all that lies in us to give.”
“Then,” said Dr. Malbone, “time is very precious. Let us take him to my
home at once.”
The sun had set behind the western mountains, but it still tipped the
snowy summit of Mount Shasta with a crimson glow.
“Put the horses through,” said Dr. Malbone to the man who drove.
They made good speed up the grade, Dr. Malbone pondering in silence some
problem that still sorely troubled him, the young woman sitting on
the floor of the wagon and holding the hand of the unconscious man.
Presently they arrived at Dr. Malbone’s house, where his plain, homelike
wife, a competent mountain woman, quickly had the patient comfortable
in bed, while her husband went thoroughly into the treatment. His was a
mercurial spirit, the opposite of the gentle soul now seemingly passing
away under his hands.
“I can find absolutely nothing,” he finally exclaimed, in despair,
“except simple inanition as the probable cause and a complication of
this attack, and I know that it is absurd. You must help me, madam. Tell
me how you lived.”
Numerous sharp questions were required before he finally came upon the
trail of the truth. She had delayed saying that Wilder had not eaten
with her, and that toward the last he was niggardly with the food,
because she feared that it would sound like a reproach. The moment she
mentioned it, Dr. Mal-bone was transfigured. He sprang back from the
bedside and confronted her, menacing and formidable, as Wilder had
confronted her on that terrible day when she told him the story of her
breaking up the attachment between a musician and her friend, and the
death of the girl from a broken heart. What had she done or said that
should bring this second storm of a man’s fury upon her?
“And you no doubt think,” cried Dr. Malbone, “that you have learned from
his letter the true reason for his keeping you out of the cave. In all
this broad world is there any human being so besotted with selfishness
as not to be able to burrow through its swinishness for the truth? Come
and look at this.” He dragged her to the bedside and showed her the body
of his patient. “Is there under heaven,” he continued, “a mental or
a spiritual eye so blinded with brutal egotism, so drunk with
self-interest, as not to read the story that this poor withered frame
writes large? Do you not understand that in those acts--over which you
no doubt whined and complained in your empty heart--he gave evidence of
a sublime sacrifice for you? Look at your own abundant flesh. You never
went hungry in the hut. You never asked yourself if he might have food
sufficient for two during the long winter. And now you see that he has
denied himself for your comfort. He is dying of starvation, because in
his splendid unselfishness he wanted you to be comfortable.”
Dr. Malbone paused, but his eyes were still blazing upon her, and his
body trembled with the passion that stirred him.
“One affliction has fallen upon you; may you have strength and grace to
bear it; but I say this: If ten thousand such afflictions had overtaken
you, the suffering from them would not be adequate----”
He suddenly checked himself, and gave his wife hurried instructions for
the preparation of some nutriment. While this was preparing, he resorted
to such vigorous measures as the urgency of the case demanded. All this
quickly brought him under self-control, and he worked with the sure hand
of a skilful man battling with all his might in a desperate emergency.
The young woman had sunk into a chair, where she sat dazed, weak,
ill, and ignored, not daring to offer help, and praying dumbly for the
opening of a vast gulf to entomb her.
The patient rallied under the physician’s treatment. Slowly, but with
palpable effect, Dr. Malbone dragged him a little way from the brink of
death. The doctor’s coat was off, but sweat streamed down his face.
His wife--silent, intelligent, and alert--gave him all the help that he
required, and neither of them looked toward the suffering woman sitting
crushed and miserable in the chair. Thus the time passed until the
intense anxiety in the physician’s face began to relax; and at last,
with a sigh, he sank wearily into a chair, remarking to his wife,--
“There is nothing more to do for the present. He is rallying. Give him
time. The chances are a hundred to one against him.”
He rested his head on the back of his chair and closed his eyes, while
his wife went to discharge her duties in another part of the house.
Soon he raised his head, and in his old kindly manner said to the young
woman,--
“I am sorry for the way in which I talked just now, and I ask you to
forgive me. You will understand my outburst and be more inclined to
forgive me when I tell you something of my poor friend’s life; for I am
certain that he has told you nothing. Has he?”
“No,” she answered, weakly and humbly.
“He has suffered so cruel a wrong in the past that when I see the least
approach to imposition upon his noble unselfishness it maddens me. I
ought not to have blamed you. You were not conscious of imposing upon
him. I believe that he is dying. If so, there will be no harm in my
telling you his story. If he lives, I can trust you with it.
“I had known him in San Francisco, but I came to these mountains long
before him. It was less than two years ago that he came to me, and you
can never realize the shock that his condition gave me. After a while he
told me of his trouble as he understood it. It was this: Through giving
violin lessons to a young lady of wealth and of great loveliness of
character, he became deeply attached to her, and in return she gave
him her whole affection. She was willing and anxious to marry him, even
though she knew that her parents and friends would disown her if she
did. He hesitated, from pure unselfishness, to bring upon her any
distress that their marriage might cause. The poor fool could not
understand that she would have gladly given up everything in life for
him. He was called away to fill a lucrative engagement, and in his
absence her heart changed toward him. Soon afterward she died. When he
came to me he was broken in spirit and body, and it was my privilege
to start him aright in a chastened and nobler life. He and I built the
cabin, and there he was to pass the winter in unremitting study and
self-mastery.
“That was the story as he told it to me and as he believed it to be. But
I saw that something was behind it that in his sweetness and generosity
he had never suspected. I myself learned the truth. By means of a few
inquiries made by letter to a friend in San Francisco, I found that an
old school-friend of the girl had made the trouble. It was a case of
malicious revenge. The girl whom my friend loved had innocently and
unconsciously received the love of a man for whom she cared nothing, as
her whole affection was with my friend. This man was very rich, and for
that and other reasons was regarded as a prize. It appears that before
losing his heart to this loveliest of girls he had been devoted to her
old school-friend, a beautiful and dashing belle, who expected to marry
him. When she found that she had lost him, she planned revenge. She was
utterly without heart or principle. So she traded on her old
school-mate’s confidence in her, and used that friendship to separate
the lovers with lies and cunning. She succeeded. The girl died of a
broken heart, and my friend’s life was ruined.”
A look of unutterable horror settled upon the young woman’s face, and
she sat upright and rigid, staring helplessly at him.
“I never told him what I had learned,” resumed the physician. “It might
have broken his heart, and he had suffered enough. I did not want him
to know that malice, revenge, and murder had played their part in his
story.”
The young woman’s face bore so singular an expression that the physician
marvelled. She was white, and deep and unaccustomed lines marred her
beauty.
“He knows the whole truth,” she said, quietly, and with a strange
hardness. “He knows that I am the woman who brought about their
separation. He learned it from me long ago in his cabin.” What Dr.
Malbone might have done under the spur of the horror and amazement
that filled him was checked by a violent fit of coughing with which his
patient had been seized. His physician’s training instantly sent him to
the bedside.
“Help me here!” he cried, as he raised the sufferer.
The young woman staggered to the bed. Dr. Malbone shot a malevolent
glance at her, but she did not heed it. He raised his hand to thrust her
back, but she grasped it, and quietly and firmly said,--
“I am going to help you.”
He yielded, and told her what to do, and she did it.
The cough was checked, and the sufferer was laid back upon the pillow.
His eyes were open, and he looked from one of the watchers to the other
as they stood on opposite sides of the bed. At first he was puzzled, and
then a bright look of recognition lighted up his face. He smiled as he
extended a feeble hand to each.
“You are safe,” he faintly said to the young woman. “I am glad. Dr.
Mal-bone will be kind to you.” To the physician he said, his voice
tremulous with affection, “My dear old friend, always true, always
kind.”
He wanted to say more, but Dr. Mal-bone checked him and gave him
something to strengthen him. He took it, shaking his head and smiling
sadly. Presently, as his eyes grew brighter, Dr. Malbone said,--
“You may speak now, Adrian, if you wish.”
The young woman had knelt, and, taking the sufferer’s hand in both of
hers, bowed her head over it as she pressed it to her lips.
“Look at me,” he said to her.
She raised her head, and they looked long and silently at each other. He
seemed troubled and anxious.
“My poor friend,” he said, “you have not yet learned. Dr. Malbone--a
letter--my pocket.”
“I have read the letter, my friend,” she hastened to say. “I know all
about my father, and I know how thoughtful and kind you were not to tell
me.”
“Then you forgive me?” he begged.
“Forgive you, my friend? Yes, a thousand times; but how can you
forgive----”
She buried her face in his pillow; her arm stole round him, and she drew
him against her breast.
“I did that long ago,” he replied.
“My noble, generous friend!” she said. “But can you understand what you
have been to me, what you have done for me, what you are to me? Can you
believe that you have made a true woman of me? Am I still the she-wolf,
my friend?”
A supreme agony moved her in this appeal. He feebly tried to check
her with his hand, but she nestled her cheek close against his and
pleaded,--
“Do you understand that you have made me worthy of every kind regard
that so noble a man could have for a woman? Can you believe, friend of
my life, that you have made me such a woman as would be perfect in your
eyes?”
He made no reply, and, still holding him in her arms, she raised her
head to look into his face. He was regarding her with a strange and
distant wistfulness, and there shone in his eyes a pale, far light that
stretched through infinite space. A faint smile played upon his lips,
the feeble pressure of his hand closed upon hers.
“You will not leave me, will you?” she pleaded. “You will come back to
health, my friend. You will teach me, you will guide me. The world will
be bright and beautiful, for all our suffering has been borne. We belong
each to the other, my friend, in friendship, trust, and sympathy.”
Still he smiled as he looked into her face; and as he smiled, and she
saw the strange, far light that shone from so inconceivable a distance
in the awful depths of his eyes, her eager heart found a bridge of glass
spanning the gulf between them. Then he sighed deeply, and his eyes
rolled upward. She sprang from the bed to her feet.
“Dr. Malbone!” she cried, in a suppressed voice, “quick! he has
fainted!”
The physician, who had stepped a little way apart, came forward and
looked down into the still face of his friend. Then he glanced up at the
young woman, who was trembling with eager impatience.
“There is nothing to do,” sadly replied Dr. Malbone; then he passed
round the bed, took the young woman gently by the arm, and, in a kind
voice, said, “Come with me.”
She went with him, wondering, and looking over her shoulder toward the
bed. He led her into an adjoining room, closed the door, and placed a
chair for her.
“No, Dr. Malbone!” she protested. “How can I, when he needs us both so
much? Hurry back to him; I will stay here if you wish.”
“No,” replied the physician; “my place is here.”
A look of desperate eagerness settled in her face, and she was listening
intently for a sound from the other room. The physician regarded
her pityingly, as she stood trembling in an agony of impatience and
apprehension. Unable to control herself longer, she seized him by the
arm, and cried,--
“Dr. Malbone, you know best, but I can’t bear to leave him! Do you know
that I fear he will die? He is all the world to me, and I can’t bear to
let him go. Do you understand that? I want him to live. I want to show
him what a good woman’s trust and love can be. I want to give my whole
life to his happiness. I want to atone for all the evil and suffering
that I have brought upon him. I want him to know that he has found peace
and a refuge at last. Dr. Malbone, go and save him!”