III.

As Lloyd Searight turned into Calumet Square on her way from the

bookseller's, with her purchases under her arm, she was surprised to

notice a drop of rain upon the back of one of her white gloves. She

looked up quickly; the sun was gone. On the east side of the square,

under the trees, the houses that at this hour of the afternoon should

have been overlaid with golden light were in shadow. The heat that had

been palpitating through all the City's streets since early morning was

swiftly giving place to a certain cool and odorous dampness. There was

even a breeze beginning to stir in the tops of the higher elms. As the

drops began to thicken upon the warm, sun-baked asphalt under foot Lloyd

sharply quickened her pace. But the summer storm was coming up rapidly.

By the time she reached the great granite-built agency on the opposite

side of the square she was all but running, and as she put her key in

the door the rain swept down with a prolonged and muffled roar.

She let herself into the spacious, airy hallway of the agency, shutting

the door by leaning against it, and stood there for an instant to get

her breath. Rownie, the young mulatto girl, one of the servants of the

house, who was going upstairs with an armful of clean towels, turned

about at the closing of the door and called:

"Jus' in time, Miss Lloyd; jus' in time. I reckon Miss Wakeley and Miss

Esther Thielman going to get for sure wet. They ain't neither one of 'em

took ary umberel."

"Did Miss Wakeley and Miss Thielman both go out?" demanded Lloyd

quickly. "Did they both go on a call?"

"Yes, Miss Lloyd," answered Rownie. "I don't know because why Miss

Wakeley went, but Miss Esther Thielman got a typhoid call--another one.

That's three f'om this house come next Sunday week. I reckon Miss

Wakeley going out meks you next on call, Miss Lloyd."

While Rownie had been speaking Lloyd had crossed the hall to where the

roster of the nurses' names, in little movable slides, hung against the

wall. As often as a nurse was called out she removed her name from the

top of this list and slid it into place at the bottom, so that whoever

found her name at the top of the roster knew that she was "next on call"

and prepared herself accordingly.

Lloyd's name was now at the top of the list. She had not been gone five

minutes from the agency, and it was rare for two nurses to be called out

in so short a time.

"Is it your tu'n?" asked Rownie as Lloyd faced quickly about.

"Yes, yes," answered Lloyd, running up the stairs, adding, as she passed

the mulatto: "There's been no call sent in since Miss Thielman left, has

there, Rownie?" Rownie shook her head.

Lloyd went directly to her room, tossed her books aside without removing

the wrappers, and set about packing her satchel. When this was done she

changed her tailor-made street dress and crisp skirt for clothes that

would not rustle when she moved, and put herself neatly to rights,

stripping off her rings and removing the dog-violets from her waist.

Then she went to the round, old-fashioned mirror that hung between the

windows of her room, and combed back her hair in a great roll from her

forehead and temples, and stood there a moment or so when she had done,

looking at her reflection.

She was tall and of a very vigorous build, full-throated, deep-chested,

with large, strong hands and solid, round wrists. Her face was rather

serious; one did not expect her to smile easily; the eyes dull blue,

with no trace of sparkle and set deep under heavy, level eyebrows. Her

mouth was the mouth of the obstinate, of the strong-willed, and her chin

was not small. But her hair was a veritable glory, a dull-red flame,

that bore back from her face in one great solid roll, dull red, like

copper or old bronze, thick, heavy, almost gorgeous in its sombre

radiance. Dull-red hair, dull-blue eyes, and a faint, dull glow forever

on her cheeks, Lloyd was a beautiful woman; much about her that was

regal, for she was very straight as well as very tall, and could look

down upon most women and upon not a few men.

Lloyd turned from the mirror, laying down the comb. She had yet to pack

her nurse's bag, or, since this was always ready, to make sure that none

of its equipment was lacking. She was very proud of this bag, as she had

caused it to be made after her own ideas and design. It was of black

russia leather and in the form of an ordinary valise, but set off with a

fine silver clasp bearing her name and the agency's address. She brought

it from the closet and ran over its contents, murmuring the while to

herself:

"Clinical thermometer--brandy--hypodermic syringe--vial of oxalic-acid

crystals--minim-glass--temperature charts; yes, yes, everything right."

While she was still speaking Miss Douglass, the fever nurse, knocked at

her door, and, finding it ajar, entered without further ceremony.

"Are you in, Miss Searight?" called Miss Douglass, looking about the

room, for Lloyd had returned to the closet and was busy washing the

minim-glass.

"Yes, yes," cried Lloyd, "I am. Sit down."

"Rownie told me you are next on call," said the other, dropping on

Lloyd's couch.

"So I am; I was very nearly caught, too. I ran over across the square

for five minutes, and while I was gone Miss Wakeley and Esther Thielman

were called. My name is at the top now."

"Esther got a typhoid case from Dr. Pitts. Do you know, Lloyd,

that's--let me see, that's four--seven--nine--that's ten typhoid cases

in the City that I can think of right now."

"It's everywhere; yes, I know," answered Lloyd, coming out of the room,

carefully drying the minim-glass.

"We are going to have trouble with it," continued the fever nurse;

"plenty of it before cool weather comes. It's almost epidemic."

Lloyd held the minim-glass against the light, scrutinising it with

narrowed lids.

"What did Esther say when she knew it was an infectious case?" she

asked. "Did she hesitate at all?"

"Not she!" declared Miss Douglass. "She's no Harriet Freeze."

Lloyd did not answer. This case of Harriet Freeze was one that the

nurses of the house had never forgotten and would never forgive. Miss

Freeze, a young English woman, newly graduated, suddenly called upon to

nurse a patient stricken with smallpox, had flinched and had been found

wanting at the crucial moment, had discovered an excuse for leaving her

post, having once accepted it. It was cowardice in the presence of the

Enemy. Anything could have been forgiven but that. On the girl's return

to the agency nothing was said, no action taken, but for all that she

was none the less expelled dishonourably from the midst of her

companions. Nothing could have been stronger than the _esprit de corps_

of this group of young women, whose lives were devoted to an unending

battle with disease.

Lloyd continued the overhauling of her equipment, and began ruling forms

for nourishment charts, while Miss Douglass importuned her to subscribe

to a purse the nurses were making up for an old cripple dying of cancer.

Lloyd refused.

"You know very well, Miss Douglass, that I only give to charity through

the association."

"I know," persisted the other, "and I know you give twice as much as all

of us put together, but with this poor old fellow it's different. We

know all about him, and every one of us in the house has given

something. You are the only one that won't, Lloyd, and I had so hoped I

could make it tip to fifty dollars."

"No."

"We need only three dollars now. We can buy that little cigar stand for

him for fifty dollars."

"No."

"And you won't give us just three dollars?"

"No."

"Well, you give half and I'll give half," said Miss Douglass.

"Do you think it's a question of money with me?" Lloyd smiled.

Indeed this was a poor argument with which to move Lloyd--Lloyd whose

railroad stock alone brought her some fifteen thousand dollars a year.

"Well, no; I don't mean that, of course, but, Lloyd, do let us have

three dollars, and I can send word to the old chap this very afternoon.

It will make him happy for the rest of his life."

"No--no--no, not three dollars, nor three cents."

Miss Douglass made a gesture of despair. She might have expected that

she could not move Lloyd. Once her mind was made up, one might argue

with her till one's breath failed. She shook her head at Lloyd and

exclaimed, but not ill-naturedly:

"Obstinate! Obstinate! Obstinate!"

Lloyd put away the hypodermic syringe and the minim-glass in their

places in the bag, added a little ice-pick to its contents, and shut the

bag with a snap.

"Now," she announced, "I'm ready."

When Miss Douglass had taken herself away Lloyd settled herself in the

place she had vacated, and, stripping the wrappings from the books and

magazines she had bought, began to turn the pages, looking at the

pictures. But her interest flagged. She tried to read, but soon cast the

book from her and leaned back upon the great couch, her hands clasped

behind the great bronze-red coils at the back of her head, her dull-blue

eyes fixed and vacant.

For hours the preceding night she had lain broad awake in her bed,

staring at the shifting shadow pictures that the electric lights,

shining through the trees down in the square, threw upon the walls and

ceiling of her room. She had eaten but little since morning; a growing

spirit of unrest had possessed her for the last two days. Now it had

reached a head. She could no longer put her thoughts from her.

It had all come back again for the fiftieth time, for the hundredth

time, the old, intolerable burden of anxiety growing heavier month by

month, year by year. It seemed to her that a shape of terror, formless,

intangible, and invisible, was always by her, now withdrawing, now

advancing, but always there; there close at hand in some dark corner

where she could not see, ready at every instant to assume a terrible and

all too well-known form, and to jump at her from behind, from out the

dark, and to clutch her throat with cold fingers. The thing played with

her, tormented her; at times it all but disappeared; at times she

believed she had fought it from her for good, and then she would wake of

a night, in the stillness and in the dark, and know it to be there once

more--at her bedside--at her back--at her throat--till her heart went

wild with fear, and the suspense of waiting for an Enemy that would not

strike, but that lurked and leered in dark corners, wrung from her a

suppressed cry of anguish and exasperation, and drove her from her sleep

with streaming eyes and tight-shut hands and wordless prayers.

For a few moments Lloyd lay back upon the couch, then regained her feet

with a brusque, harassed movement of head and shoulders.

"Ah, no," she exclaimed under her breath, "it is too dreadful."

She tried to find diversion in her room, rearranging the few ornaments,

winding the clock that struck ships' bells instead of hours, and turning

the wicks of the old empire lamps that hung in brass brackets on either

side the fireplace. Lloyd, after building the agency, had felt no

scruple in choosing the best room in the house and furnishing it

according to her taste. Her room was beautiful, but very simple in its

appointments. There were great flat wall-space unspoiled by bric-à-brac,

the floor marquetry, with but few rugs. The fireplace and its

appurtenances were of brass. Her writing-desk, a huge affair, of ancient

and almost black San Domingo mahogany.

But soon she wearied of the small business of pottering about her clock

and lamps, and, turning to the window, opened it, and, leaning upon her

elbows, looked down into the square.

By now the thunderstorm was gone, like the withdrawal of a dark curtain;

the sun was out again over the City. The square, deserted but half an

hour ago, was reinvaded with its little people of nurse-maids,

gray-coated policemen, and loungers reading their papers on the benches

near the fountain. The elms still dripped, their wet leaves glistening

again to the sun. There was a delicious smell in the air--a smell of

warm, wet grass, of leaves and drenched bark from the trees. On the far

side of the square, seen at intervals in the spaces between the foliage,

a passing truck painted vermilion set a brisk note of colour in the

scene. A newsboy appeared chanting the evening editions. On a sudden and

from somewhere close at hand an unseen hand-piano broke out into a gay,

jangling quickstep, marking the time with delightful precision.

A carriage, its fine lacquered flanks gleaming in the sunlight, rolled

through the square, on its way, no doubt, to the very fashionable

quarter of the City just beyond. Lloyd had a glimpse of the girl leaning

back in its cushions, a girl of her own age, with whom she had some

slight acquaintance. For a moment Lloyd, ridden with her terrors, asked

herself if this girl, with no capabilities for either great happiness or

great sorrow, were not perhaps, after all, happier than she. But she

recoiled instantly, murmuring to herself with a certain fierce energy:

"No, no; after all, I have lived."

And how had she lived? For the moment Lloyd was willing to compare

herself with the girl in the landau. Swiftly she ran over her own life

from the time when left an orphan; in the year of her majority she had

become her own mistress and the mistress of the Searight estate. But

even at that time she had long since broken away from the conventional

world she had known. Lloyd was a nurse in the great St Luke's Hospital

even then, had been a probationer there at the time of her mother's

death, six months before. She had always been ambitious, but vaguely so,

having no determined object in view. She recalled how at that time she

knew only that she was in love with her work, her chosen profession, and

was accounted the best operating nurse in the ward.

She remembered, too, the various steps of her advancement, the positions

she had occupied; probationer first, then full member of the active

corps, next operating nurse, then ward manager, and, after her

graduation, head nurse of ward four, where the maternity cases were

treated. Then had come the time when she had left the hospital and

practised private nursing by herself, and at last, not so long ago, the

day when her Idea had so abruptly occurred to her; when her ambition, no

longer vague, no longer personal, had crystallised and taken shape; when

she had discovered a use for her money and had built and founded the

house on Calumet Square. For a time she had been the superintendent of

nurses here, until her own theories and ideas had obtained and prevailed

in its management. Then, her work fairly started, she had resigned her

position to an older woman, and had taken her place in the rank and file

of the nurses themselves. She wished to be one of them, living the same

life, subject to the same rigorous discipline, and to that end she had

never allowed it to be known that she was the founder of the house. The

other nurses knew that she was very rich, very independent and

self-reliant, but that was all. Lloyd did not know and cared very little

how they explained the origin and support of the agency.

Lloyd was animated by no great philanthropy, no vast love of humanity in

her work; only she wanted, with all her soul she wanted, to count in the

general economy of things; to choose a work and do it; to help on,

_donner un coup d'epaule_; and this, supported by her own stubborn

energy and her immense wealth, she felt that she was doing. To do things

had become her creed; to do things, not to think them; to do things, not

to talk them; to do things, not to read them. No matter how lofty the

thoughts, how brilliant the talk, how beautiful the literature--for her,

first, last, and always, were acts, acts, acts--concrete, substantial,

material acts. The greatest and happiest day of her life had been when

at last she laid her bare hand upon the rough, hard stone of the house

in the square and looked up at the facade, her dull-blue eyes flashing

with the light that so rarely came to them, while she murmured between

her teeth:

"I--did--this."

As she recalled this moment now, leaning upon her elbows, looking down

upon the trees and grass and asphalt of the square, and upon a receding

landau, a wave of a certain natural pride in her strength, the

satisfaction of attainment, came to her. Ah! she was better than other

women; ah! she was stronger than other women; she was carrying out a

splendid work. She straightened herself to her full height abruptly,

stretching her outspread hands vaguely to the sunlight, to the City, to

the world, to the great engine of life whose lever she could grasp and

could control, smiling proudly, almost insolently, in the consciousness

of her strength, the fine steadfastness of her purpose. Then all at once

the smile was struck from her lips, the stiffness of her poise suddenly

relaxed. There, there it was again, the terror, the dreadful fear she

dared not name, back in its place once more--at her side, at her

shoulder, at her throat, ready to clutch at her from out the dark.

She wheeled from the window, from the sunlight, her hands clasped before

her trembling lips, the tears brimming her dull-blue eyes. For

forty-eight hours she had fought this from her. But now it was no longer

to be resisted.

"No, no," she cried half aloud. "I am no better, no stronger than the

others. What does it all amount to when I know that, after all, I am

just a woman--just a woman whose heart is slowly breaking?"

But there was an interruption. Rownie had knocked twice at her door

before Lloyd had heard her. When Lloyd had opened the door the girl

handed her a card with an address written on it in the superintendent's

hand.

"This here jus' now come in f'om Dr. Street, Miss Lloyd," said Rownie;

"Miss Bergyn" (this was the superintendent nurse) "ast me to give it to

you."

It was a call to an address that seemed familiar to Lloyd at first; but

she did not stop at that moment to reflect. Her stable telephone hung

against the wall of the closet. She rang for Lewis, and while waiting

for him to get around dressed for the street.

For the moment, at the prospect of action, even her haunting fear drew

off and stood away from her. She was absorbed in her work upon the

instant--alert, watchful, self-reliant. What the case was she could only

surmise. How long she would be away she had no means of knowing--a week,

a month, a year, she could not tell. But she was ready for any

contingency. Usually the doctors informed the nurses as to the nature of

the case at the time of sending for them, but Dr. Street had not done so

now.

However, Rownie called up to her that her coupé was at the door. Lloyd

caught up her satchels and ran down the stairs, crying good-bye to Miss

Douglass, whom she saw at the farther end of the hall. In the hallway by

the vestibule she changed the slide bearing her name from the top to the

bottom of the roster.

"How about your mail?" cried Miss Douglass after her.

"Keep it here for me until I see how long I'm to be away," answered

Lloyd, her hand upon the knob. "I'll let you know."

Lewis had put Rox in the shafts, and while the coupé spun over the

asphalt at a smart clip Lloyd tried to remember where she had heard of

the address before. Suddenly she snapped her fingers; she knew the case,

had even been assigned to it some eight months before.

"Yes, yes, that's it--Campbell--wife dead--Lafayette Avenue--little

daughter, Hattie--hip disease--hopeless--poor little baby."

Arriving at the house, Lloyd found the surgeon, Dr. Street, and Mr.

Campbell, who was a widower, waiting for her in a small drawing-room off

the library. The surgeon was genuinely surprised and delighted to see

her. Most of the doctors of the City knew Lloyd for the best trained

nurse in the hospitals.

"Oh, it's you, Miss Searight; good enough!" The surgeon introduced her

to the little patient's father, adding: "If any one can pull us through,

Campbell, it will be Miss Searight."

The surgeon and nurse began to discuss the case.

"I think you know it already, don't you, Miss Searight?" said the

surgeon. "You took care of it a while last winter. Well, there was a

little improvement in the spring, not so much pain, but that in itself

is a bad sign. We have done what we could, Farnham and I. But it don't

yield to treatment; you know how these things are--stubborn. We made a

preliminary examination yesterday. Sinuses have occurred, and the probe

leads down to nothing but dead bone. Farnham and I had a consultation

this morning. We must play our last card. I shall exsect the joint

to-morrow."

Mr. Campbell drew in his breath and held it for a moment, looking out of

the window.

Very attentive, Lloyd merely nodded her head, murmuring:

"I understand."

When Dr. Street had gone Lloyd immediately set to work. The operation

was to take place at noon the following day, and she foresaw there would

be no sleep for her that night. Street had left everything to her, even

to the sterilising of his instruments. Until daylight the following

morning Lloyd came and went about the house with an untiring energy, yet

with the silence of a swiftly moving shadow, getting together the things

needed for the operation--strychnia tablets, absorbent cotton, the

rubber tubing for the tourniquet, bandages, salt, and the like--and

preparing the little chamber adjoining the sick-room as an

operating-room.

The little patient herself, Hattie, hardly into her teens, remembered

Lloyd at once. Before she went to sleep Lloyd contrived to spend an hour

in the sick-room with her, told her as much as was necessary of what

was contemplated, and, by her cheery talk, her gentleness and sympathy,

inspired the little girl with a certain sense of confidence and trust in

her.

"But--but--but just how bad will it hurt, Miss Searight?" inquired

Hattie, looking at her, wide-eyed and serious.

"Dear, it won't hurt you at all; just two or three breaths of the ether

and you will be sound asleep. When you wake up it will be all over and

you will be well."

Lloyd made the ether cone from a stiff towel, and set it on Hattie's

dressing-table. Last of all and just before the operation the gauze

sponges occupied her attention. The daytime brought her no rest. Hattie

was not to have any breakfast, but toward the middle of the forenoon

Lloyd gave her a stimulating enema of whiskey and water, following it

about an hour later by a hundredth grain of atropia. She braided the

little girl's hair in two long plaits so that her head would rest

squarely and flatly upon the pillow. Hattie herself was now ready for

the surgeon.

Now there was nothing more to be done. Lloyd could but wait. She took

her place at the bedside and tried to talk as lightly as was possible to

her patient. But now there was a pause in the round of action. Her mind

no longer keenly intent upon the immediate necessities of the moment,

began to hark back again to the one great haunting fear that for so long

had overshadowed it. Even while she exerted herself to be cheerful and

watched for the smiles on Hattie's face her hands twisted tight and

tighter under the folds of her blouse, and some second self within her

seemed to say:

"Suppose, suppose it should come, this thing I dread but dare not name,

what then, what then? Should I not expect it? Is it not almost a

certainty? Have I not been merely deceiving myself with the forlornest

hopes? Is it not the most reasonable course to expect the worst? Do not

all indications point that way? Has not my whole life been shaped to

this end? Was not this calamity, this mighty sorrow, prepared for me

even before I was born? And one can do nothing, absolutely nothing,

nothing, but wait and hope and fear, and eat out one's heart with

longing."

There was a knock at the door. Instead of calling to enter Lloyd went to

it softly and opened it a few inches. Mr. Campbell was there.

"They've come--Street and the assistant."

Lloyd heard a murmur of voices in the hall below and the closing of the

front door.

Farnham and Street went at once to the operating-room to make their

hands and wrists aseptic. Campbell had gone downstairs to his

smoking-room. It had been decided--though contrary to custom--that Lloyd

should administer the chloroform.

At length Street tapped with the handle of a scalpel on the door to say

that he was ready.

"Now, dear," said Lloyd, turning to Hattie, and picking up the ether

cone.

But the little girl's courage suddenly failed her. She began to plead in

a low voice choked with tears. Her supplications were pitiful; but

Lloyd, once more intent upon her work, every faculty and thought

concentrated upon what must be done, did not temporise an instant.

Quietly she gathered Hattie's frail wrists in the grip of one strong

palm, and held the cone to her face until she had passed off with a long

sigh. She picked her up lightly, carried her into the next room, and

laid her upon the operating-table. At the last moment Lloyd had busied

herself with the preparation of her own person. Over her dress she

passed her hospital blouse, which had been under a dry heat for hours.

She rolled her sleeves up from her strong white forearms with their

thick wrists and fine blue veining, and for upward of ten minutes

scrubbed them with a new nail-brush in water as hot as she could bear

it. After this she let her hands and forearms lie in the permanganate of

potash solution till they were brown to the elbow, then washed away the

stain in the oxalic-acid solution and in sterilised hot water. Street

and Farnham, wearing their sterilised gowns and gloves, took their

places. There was no conversation. The only sounds were an occasional

sigh from the patient, a direction given in a low tone, and, at

intervals, the click of the knives and scalpel. From outside the window

came the persistent chirping of a band of sparrows.

Promptly the operation was begun; there was no delay, no hesitation;

what there was to be done had been carefully planned beforehand, even to

the minutest details. Street, a master of his profession, thoroughly

familiar with every difficulty that might present itself during the

course of the work in hand, foreseeing every contingency, prepared for

every emergency, calm, watchful, self-contained, set about the exsecting

of the joint with no trace of compunction, no embarrassment, no

misgiving. His assistants, as well as he himself, knew that life or

death hung upon the issue of the next ten minutes. Upon Street alone

devolved the life of the little girl. A second's hesitation at the wrong

stage of the operation, a slip of bistoury or scalpel, a tremor of the

wrist, a single instant's clumsiness of the fingers, and the

Enemy--watching for every chance, intent for every momentarily opened

chink or cranny wherein he could thrust his lean fingers--entered the

frail tenement with a leap, a rushing, headlong spring that jarred the

house of life to its foundations. Lowering close over her head Lloyd

felt the shadow of his approach. He had arrived there in that

commonplace little room, with its commonplace accessories, its

ornaments, that suddenly seemed so trivial, so impertinent--the stopped

French clock, with its simpering, gilded cupids, on the mantelpiece; the

photograph of a number of picnickers "grouped" on a hotel piazza gazing

with monolithic cheerfulness at this grim business, this struggle of the

two world forces, this crisis in a life.

Then abruptly the operation was over.

The nurse and surgeons eased their positions immediately, drawing long

breaths. They began to talk, commenting upon the operation, and Lloyd,

intensely interested, asked Street why he had, contrary to her

expectations, removed the bone above the lesser trochanter. He smiled,

delighted at her intelligence.

"It's better than cutting through the neck, Miss Searight," he told her.

"If I had gone through the neck, don't you see, the trochanter major

would come over the hole and prevent the discharges."

"Yes, yes, I see, of course," assented Lloyd.

The incision was sewn up, and when all was over Lloyd carried Hattie

back to the bed in the next room. Slowly the little girl regained

consciousness, and Lloyd began to regard her once more as a human being.

During the operation she had forgotten the very existence of Hattie

Campbell, a little girl she knew. She had only seen a bit of mechanism

out of order and in the hands of a repairer. It was always so with

Lloyd. Her charges were not infrequently persons whom she knew, often

intimately, but during the time of their sickness their personalities

vanished for the trained nurse; she saw only the "case," only the

mechanism, only the deranged clockwork in imminent danger of running

down.

But the danger was by no means over. The operation had been near the

trunk. There had been considerable loss of blood, and the child's power

of resistance had been weakened by long periods of suffering. Lloyd

feared that the shock might prove too great. Farnham departed, but for a

little while the surgeon remained with Lloyd to watch the symptoms. At

length, however, he too, pressed for time, and expected at one of the

larger hospitals of the City, went away, leaving directions for Lloyd to

telephone him in case of the slightest change. At this hour, late in the

afternoon, there were no indications that the little girl would not

recover from the shock. Street believed she would rally and ultimately

regain her health.

"But," he told Lloyd as he bade her good-bye, "I don't need to impress

upon you the need of care and the greatest vigilance; absolute rest is

the only thing; she must see nobody, not even her father. The whole

system is numbed and deadened just yet, but there will be a change

either for better or worse some time to-night."

For thirty-six hours Lloyd had not closed an eye, but of that she had no

thought. Her supper was sent up to her, and she prepared herself for her

night's watch. She gave the child such nourishment as she believed she

could stand, and from time to time took her pulse, making records of it

upon her chart for the surgeon's inspection later on. At intervals she

took Hattie's temperature, placing the clinical thermometer in the

armpit. Toward nine in the evening, while she was doing this for the

third time within the hour, one of the house servants came to the room

to inform her that she was wanted on the telephone. Lloyd hesitated,

unwilling to leave Hattie for an instant. However, the telephone was

close at hand, and it was quite possible that Dr. Street had rung her up

to ask for news.

But it was the agency that had called, and Miss Douglass informed her

that a telegram had arrived there for her a few moments before. Should

she hold it or send it to her by Rownie? Lloyd reflected a moment.

"Oh--open it and read it to me," she said. "It's a call, isn't

it?--or--no; send it here by Rownie, and send my hospital slippers with

her, the ones without heels. But don't ring up again to-night; we're

expecting a crisis almost any moment."

Lloyd returned to the sick-room, sent away the servant, and once more

settled herself for the night. Hattie had roused for a moment.

"Am I going to get well, am I going to get well, Miss Searight?"

Lloyd put her finger to her lips, nodding her head, and Hattie closed

her eyes again with a long breath. A certain great tenderness and

compassion for the little girl grew big in Lloyd's heart. To herself she

said:

"God helping me, you shall get well. They believe in me, these

people--'If any one could pull us through it would be Miss Searight.' We

will 'pull through,' yes, for I'll do it."

The night closed down, dark and still and very hot. Lloyd, regulating

the sick-room's ventilation, opened one of the windows from the top. The

noises of the City steadily decreasing as the hours passed, reached her

ears in a subdued, droning murmur. On her bed, that had for so long been

her bed of pain, Hattie lay with closed eyes, inert, motionless, hardly

seeming to breathe, her life in the balance; unhappy little invalid,

wasted with suffering, with drawn, pinched face and bloodless lips, and

at her side Lloyd, her dull-blue eyes never leaving her patient's face,

alert and vigilant, despite her long wakefulness, her great bronze-red

flame of hair rolling from her forehead and temples, the sombre glow in

her cheeks no whit diminished by her day of fatigue, of responsibility

and untiring activity.

For the time being she could thrust her fear, the relentless Enemy that

for so long had hung upon her heels, back and away from her. There was

another Enemy now to fight--or was it another--was it not the same

Enemy, the very same, whose shadow loomed across that sick-bed, across

the frail, small body and pale, drawn face?

With her pity and compassion for the sick child there arose in Lloyd a

certain unreasoned, intuitive obstinacy, a banding together of all her

powers and faculties in one great effort at resistance, a steadfastness

under great stress, a stubbornness, that shut its ears and eyes. It was

her one dominant characteristic rising up, strong and insistent the

instant she knew herself to be thwarted in her desires or checked in a

course she believed to be right and good. And now as she felt the

advance of the Enemy and saw the shadow growing darker across the bed

her obstinacy hardened like tempered steel.

"No," she murmured, her brows levelled, her lips compressed, "she shall

not die. I will not let her go."

A little later, perhaps an hour after midnight, at a time when she

believed Hattie to be asleep, Lloyd, watchful as ever, noted that her

cheeks began alternately to puff out and contract with her breathing. In

an instant the nurse was on her feet. She knew the meaning of this sign.

Hattie had fainted while asleep. Lloyd took the temperature. It was

falling rapidly. The pulse was weak, rapid, and irregular. It seemed

impossible for Hattie to take a deep breath.

Then swiftly the expected crisis began to develop itself. Lloyd ordered

Street to be sent for, but only as a matter of form. Long before he

could arrive the issue would be decided. She knew that now Hattie's life

depended on herself alone.

"Now," she murmured, as though the Enemy she fought could hear her, "now

let us see who is the stronger. You or I."

Swiftly and gently she drew the bed from the wall and raised its foot,

propping it in position with half a dozen books. Then, while waiting for

the servants, whom she had despatched for hot blankets, administered a

hypodermic injection of brandy.

"We will pull you through," she kept saying to herself, "we will pull

you through. I shall not let you go."

The Enemy was close now, and the fight was hand to hand. Lloyd could

almost feel, physically, actually, feel the slow, sullen, resistless

pull that little by little was dragging Hattie's life from her grip. She

set her teeth, holding back with all her might, bracing herself against

the strain, refusing with all inborn stubbornness to yield her position.

"No--no," she repeated to herself, "you shall not have her. I will not

give her up; you shall not triumph over me."

Campbell was in the room, warned by the ominous coming and going of

hushed footsteps.

"What is the use, nurse? It's all over. Let her die in peace. It's too

cruel; let her die in peace."

The half-hour passed, then the hour. Once more Lloyd administered

hypodermically the second dose of brandy. Campbell, unable to bear the

sight, had withdrawn to the adjoining room, where he could be heard

pacing the floor. From time to time he came back for a moment,

whispering:

"Will she live, nurse? Will she live? Shall we pull her through?"

"I don't know," Lloyd told him. "I don't know. Wait. Go back. I will let

you know."

Another fifteen minutes passed. Lloyd fancied that the heart's action

was growing a little stronger. A great stillness had settled over the

house. The two servants waiting Lloyd's orders in the hall outside the

door refrained even from whispering. From the next room came the muffled

sound of pacing footsteps, hurried, irregular, while with that strange

perversity which seizes upon the senses at moments when they are more

than usually acute Lloyd began to be aware of a vague, unwonted movement

in the City itself, outside there behind the drawn curtains and

half-opened window--a faint, uncertain agitation, a trouble, a passing

ripple on the still black pool of the night, coming and going, and

coming again, each time a little more insistent, each time claiming a

little more attention and notice. It was about half past three o'clock.

But the little patient's temperature was rising--there could be no doubt

about that. The lungs expanded wider and deeper. Hattie's breathing was

unmistakably easier; and as Lloyd put her fingers to the wrist she could

hardly keep back a little exultant cry as she felt the pulse throbbing

fuller, a little slower, a little more regularly. Now she redoubled her

attention. Her hold upon the little life shut tighter; her power of

resistance, her strength of purpose, seemed to be suddenly quadrupled.

She could imagine the Enemy drawing off; she could think that the grip

of cold fingers was loosening.

Slowly the crisis passed off, slowly the reaction began. Hattie was

still unconscious, but there was a new look upon her face--a look that

Lloyd had learned to know from long experience, an intangible and most

illusive expression, nothing, something, the sign that only those who

are trained to search for it may see and appreciate--the earliest faint

flicker after the passing of the shadow.

"Will she live, will she live, nurse?" came Mr. Campbell's whisper at

her shoulder.

"I think--I am almost sure--but we must not be too certain yet. Still

there's a chance; yes, there's a chance."

Campbell, suddenly gone white, put out his hand and leaned a moment

against the mantelpiece. He did not now leave the room. The door-bell

rang.

"Dr. Street," murmured Lloyd.

But what had happened in the City? There in the still dark hours of that

hot summer night an event of national, perhaps even international,

importance had surely transpired. It was in the air--a sense of a Great

Thing come suddenly to a head somewhere in the world. Footsteps sounded

rapidly on the echoing sidewalks. Here and there a street door opened.

From corner to corner, growing swiftly nearer, came the cry of newsboys

chanting extras. A subdued excitement was abroad, finding expression in

a vague murmur, the mingling of many sounds into one huge note--a note

that gradually swelled and grew louder and seemed to be rising from all

corners of the City at once.

There was a step at the sick-room door. Dr. Street? No, Rownie--Rownie

with two telegrams for Lloyd.

Lloyd took them from her, then with a sharp, brusque movement of her

head and suddenly smitten with an idea, turned from them to listen to

the low, swelling murmur of the City. These despatches--no, they were no

"call" for her. She guessed what they might be. Why had they come to her

now? Why was there this sense of some great tidings in the wind? The

same tidings that had come to the world might come to her--in these

despatches. Might it not be so? She caught her breath quickly. The

terror, the fearful anxiety that had haunted and oppressed her for so

long, was it to be lifted now at last? The Enemy that lurked in the dark

corners, ever ready to clutch her, was it to be driven back and away

from her forever? She dared not hope for it. But something was coming to

her; she knew it, she felt it; something was preparing for her, coming

to her swifter with every second--coming, coming, coming from out the

north. She saw Dr. Street in the room, though how and when he had

arrived she could not afterward recall. Her mind was all alert, intent

upon other things, listening, waiting. The surgeon had been leaning over

the bed. Suddenly he straightened up, saying aloud to Campbell:

"Good, good, we're safe. We have pulled through."

Lloyd tore open her telegrams. One was signed "Bennett," the other

"Ferriss."

"Thank God!" exclaimed Mr. Campbell.

"Oh," cried Lloyd, a great sob shaking her from head to heel, a smile of

infinite happiness flashing from her face. "Oh--yes, thank God, we--we

_have_ pulled through."

"Am I going to get well, am I going to get well, Miss Searight?" Hattie,

once more conscious, raised her voice weak and faint.

Lloyd was on her knees beside her, her head bent over her.

"Hush; yes, dear, you are safe." Then the royal bronze-red hair bent

lower still. The dull-blue eyes were streaming now, the voice one low

quiver of sobs. Tenderly, gently Lloyd put an arm about the child, her

head bending lower and lower. Her cheek touched Hattie's. For a moment

the little girl, frail, worn, pitifully wasted, and the strong, vigorous

woman, with her imperious will and indomitable purpose, rested their

heads upon the same pillow, both broken with suffering, the one of the

body, the other of the mind.

"Safe; yes, dear, safe," whispered Lloyd, her face all but hidden.

"Safe, safe, and saved to me. Oh, dearest of all the world!"

And then to her ears the murmur of the City seemed to leap suddenly to

articulate words, the clanging thunder of the entire nation--the whole

round world thrilling with this great news that had come to it from out

the north in the small hours of this hot summer's night. And the

chanting cries of the street rolled to her like the tremendous diapason

of a gigantic organ:

"Rescued, rescued, rescued!"