VI.

Two days after Dr. Pitts had brought Ferriss to his country house in the

outskirts of Medford he had been able to diagnose his sickness as

typhoid fever, and at once had set about telegraphing the fact to

Bennett. Then it had occurred to him that he did not know where Bennett

had gone. Bennett had omitted notifying him of his present whereabouts,

and, acting upon Dr. Pitts' advice, had hidden himself away from

everybody. Neither at his club nor at his hotel, where his mail

accumulated in extraordinary quantities, had any forwarding address been

left. Bennett would not even know that Ferriss had been moved to

Medford. So much the worse. It could not be helped. There was nothing

for the doctor to do but to leave Bennett in ignorance and go ahead and

fight for the life of Ferriss as best he could. Pitts arranged for a

brother physician to take over his practice, and devoted himself

entirely to Ferriss. And Ferriss sickened and sickened, and went

steadily from bad to worse. The fever advanced regularly to a certain

stage, a stage of imminent danger, and there paused. Rarely had Pitts

been called upon to fight a more virulent form of the disease.

What made matters worse was that Ferriss hung on for so long a time

without change one way or another. Pitts had long since been convinced

of ulceration in the membrane of the intestines, but it astonished him

that this symptom persisted so long without signs either of progressing

or diminishing. The course of the disease was unusually slow. The first

nurse had already had time to sicken and die; a second had been

infected, and yet Ferriss "hung on," neither sinking nor improving, yet

at every hour lying perilously near death. It was not often that death

and life locked horns for so long, not often that the chance was so

even. Many was the hour, many was the moment, when a hair would have

turned the balance, and yet the balance was preserved.

At her abrupt recognition of Ferriss, in this patient whom she had been

summoned to nurse, and whose hold upon life was so pitifully weak,

Lloyd's heart gave a great leap and then sank ominously in her breast.

Her first emotion was one of boundless self-reproach. Why had she not

known of this? Why had she not questioned Bennett more closely as to his

friend's sickness? Might she not have expected something like this? Was

not typhoid the one evil to be feared and foreseen after experiences

such as Ferriss had undergone--the fatigue and privations of the march

over the ice, and the subsequent months aboard the steam whaler, with

its bad food, its dirt, and its inevitable overcrowding?

And while she had been idling in the country, this man, whom she had

known since her girlhood better and longer than any of her few

acquaintances, had been struck down, and day by day had weakened and

sickened and wasted, until now, at any hour, at any moment, the life

might be snuffed out like the fight of a spent candle. What a miserable

incompetent had she been! That day in the park when she had come upon

him, so weak and broken and far spent, why had she not, with all her

training and experience, known that even then the flame was flickering

down to the socket, that a link in the silver chain was weakening? Now,

perhaps, it was too late. But quick her original obstinacy rose up in

protest. No! she would not yield the life. No, no, no; again and a

thousand times no! He belonged to her. Others she had saved, others far

less dear to her than Ferriss. Her last patient--the little girl--she

had caught back from death at the eleventh hour, and of all men would

she not save Ferriss? In such sickness as this it was the nurse and not

the doctor who must be depended upon. And, once again, never so strong,

never so fine, never so glorious, her splendid independence, her pride

in her own strength, her indomitable self-reliance leaped in her breast,

leaped and stood firm, hard as tempered steel, head to the Enemy, daring

the assault, defiant, immovable, unshaken in its resolve, unconquerable

in the steadfast tenacity of its purpose.

The story that Ferriss had told to Bennett, that uncalled-for and

inexplicable falsehood, was a thing forgotten. Death stood at the

bed-head, and in that room the little things of life had no place. The

king was holding court, and the swarm of small, everyday issues, like a

crowd of petty courtiers, were not admitted to his presence. Ferriss'

life was in danger. Lloyd saw no more than that. At once she set about

the work.

In a few rapid sentences exchanged in low voices between her and the

doctor Lloyd made herself acquainted with the case.

"We've been using the ice-pack and wet-pack to bring down the

temperature in place of the cold bath," the doctor explained. "I'm

afraid of pericarditis."

"Quinine?" inquired Lloyd.

"From twenty to forty grains in the morning and evening. Here's the

temperature chart for the last week. If we reach this point in axilla

again--" he indicated one hundred and two degrees with a

thumb-nail--"we'll have to risk the cold bath, but only in that case."

"And the tympanites?"

Dr. Pitts put his chin in the air.

"Grave--there's an intestinal ulcer, no doubt of it, and if it

perforates--well, we can send for the undertaker then."

"Has he had hemorrhages?"

"Two in the first week, but not profuse--he seemed to rally fairly well

afterward. We have been injecting ether in case of anemia. Really, Miss

Searight, the case is interesting, but wicked, wicked as original sin.

Killed off my first nurse out of hand--good little boy, conscientious

enough; took no care of himself; ate his meals in the sick-room against

my wishes; off he went--dicrotic pulse, diarrhea, vomiting, hospital,

thrombosis of pulmonary artery, _pouf_, requiescat."

"And Miss Wakeley?"

"Knocked under yesterday, and she was fairly saturated with creolin

night and morning. I don't know how it happened.... Well, God for us

all. Here he is--that's the point for us." He glanced toward the bed,

and for the third time Lloyd looked at the patient.

Ferriss was in a quiet delirium, and, at intervals, from behind his

lips, dry and brown and fissured, there came the sounds of low and

indistinct muttering. Barring a certain prominence of the cheek-bones,

his face was not very wasted, but its skin was a strange, dusky pallor.

The cold pack was about his head like a sort of caricatured crown.

"Well," repeated Pitts in a moment, "I've been waiting for you to come

to get a little rest. Was up all last night. Suppose you take over

charge."

Lloyd nodded her head, removing her hat and gloves, making herself

ready. Pitts gave her some final directions, and left her alone in the

sick-room. For the moment there was nothing to do for the patient. Lloyd

put on her hospital slippers and moved silently about the room,

preparing for the night, and making some few changes in the matter of

light and ventilation. Then for a while the medicine occupied her

attention, and she was at some pains to carefully sort out the

antiseptic and disinfectants from the drugs themselves. These latter she

arranged on a table by themselves--studying the labels--assuring herself

of their uses. Quinine for the regular morning and evening doses,

sulphonal and trional for insomnia, ether for injections in case of

anemia after hemorrhage, morphine for delirium, citrite of caffeine for

weakness of the heart, tincture of valerian for the tympanites, bismuth

to relieve nausea and vomiting, and the crushed ice wrapped in flannel

cloths for the cold pack in the event of hyperpyrexia.

Later in the evening she took the temperature in the armpit, noted the

condition of the pulse, and managed to get Ferriss--still in his quiet,

muttering delirium--to drink a glass of peptonised milk. She

administered the quinine, reading the label, as was her custom, three

times, once as she took it up, again as she measured the dose, and a

last time as she returned the bottle to its place. Everything she did,

every minute change in Ferriss's condition, she entered upon a chart, so

that in the morning when Dr. Pitts should relieve her he could grasp the

situation at a glance.

The night passed without any but the expected variations of the pulse

and temperature, though toward daylight Lloyd could fancy that Ferriss,

for a few moments, came out of his delirium and was conscious of his

surroundings. For a few seconds his eyes seemed to regain something of

their intelligence, and his glance moved curiously about the room. But

Lloyd, sitting near the foot-board of the bed, turned her head from

him. It was not expedient that Ferriss should recognise her now.

Lloyd could not but commend the wisdom of bringing Ferriss to Dr.

Pitts's own house in so quiet a place as Medford. The doctor risked

nothing. He was without a family, the only other occupants of the house

being the housekeeper and cook. On more than one occasion, when an

interesting case needed constant watching, Pitts had used his house as a

sanatorium. Quiet as the little village itself was, the house was

removed some little distance from its outskirts. The air was fine and

pure. The stillness, the calm, the unbroken repose, was almost

Sabbath-like. In the early watches of the night, just at the turn of the

dawn, Lloyd heard the faint rumble of a passing train at the station

nearly five miles away. For hours that and the prolonged stridulating of

the crickets were the only sounds. Then at last, while it was yet dark,

a faint chittering of waking birds began from under the eaves and from

the apple-trees in the yard about the house. Lloyd went to the window,

and, drawing aside the curtains, stood there for a moment looking out.

She could see part of the road leading to the town, and, in the

distance, the edge of the town itself, a few well-kept country

residences of suburban dwellers of the City, and, farther on, a large,

rectangular, brick building with cupola and flagstaff, perhaps the

public school or the bank or the Odd Fellows' Hall. Nearer by were

fields and corners of pasture land, with here and there the formless

shapes of drowsing cows. One of these, as Lloyd watched, changed

position, and she could almost hear the long, deep breath that

accompanied the motion. Far off, miles upon miles, so it seemed, a

rooster was crowing at exact intervals. All at once, and close at hand,

another answered--a gay, brisk carillon that woke the echoes in an

instant. For the first time Lloyd noticed a pale, dim belt of light low

in the east.

Toward eight o'clock in the morning the doctor came to relieve her, and

while he was examining the charts and she was making her report for the

night the housekeeper announced breakfast.

"Go down to your breakfast, Miss Searight," said the doctor. "I'll stay

here the while. The housekeeper will show you to your room."

But before breakfasting Lloyd went to the room the housekeeper had set

apart for her--a different one than had been occupied by either of the

previous nurses--changed her dress, and bathed her face and hands in a

disinfecting solution. When she came out of her room the doctor met her

in the hall; his hat and stick were in his hand. "He has gone to sleep,"

he informed her, "and is resting quietly. I am going to get a mouthful

of fresh air along the road. The housekeeper is with him. If he wakes

she'll call you. I will not be gone fifteen minutes. I've not been out

of the house for five days, and there's no danger."

Breakfast had been laid in what the doctor spoke of as the glass-room.

This was an enclosed veranda, one side being of glass and opening by

French windows directly upon a little lawn that sloped away under the

apple-trees to the road. It was a charming apartment, an idea of a

sister of Dr. Pitts, who at one time had spent two years at Medford.

Lloyd breakfasted here alone, and it was here that Bennett found her.

The one public carriage of Medford, a sort of four-seated carryall, that

met all the trains at the depot, had driven to the gate at the foot of

the yard, and had pulled up, the horses reeking and blowing. Even before

it had stopped, a tall, square-shouldered man had alighted, but it was

not until he was half-way up the gravel walk that Lloyd had recognised

him. Bennett caught sight of her at the same moment, and strode swiftly

across the lawn and came into the breakfast-room by one of the open

French windows. At once the room seemed to shrink in size; his first

step upon the floor--a step that was almost a stamp, so eager it was, so

masterful and resolute--set the panes of glass jarring in their frames.

Never had Bennett seemed more out of place than in this almost dainty

breakfast-room, with its small, feminine appurtenances, its fragile

glassware, its pots of flowers and growing plants. The incongruous

surroundings emphasized his every roughness, his every angularity.

Against its background of delicate, mild tints his figure loomed

suddenly colossal; the great span of his chest and shoulders seemed

never so huge. His face; the great, brutal jaw, with its aggressive,

bullying, forward thrust; the close-gripped lips, the contracted

forehead, the small eyes, marred with the sharply defined cast, appeared

never so harsh, never so massive, never so significant of the

resistless, crude force of the man, his energy, his overpowering

determination. As he towered there before her, one hand gripped upon a

chair-back, it seemed to her that the hand had but to close to crush the

little varnished woodwork to a splinter, and when he spoke Lloyd could

imagine that the fine, frail china of the table vibrated to the

deep-pitched bass of his voice.

Lloyd had only to look at him once to know that Bennett was at the

moment aroused and agitated to an extraordinary degree. His face was

congested and flaming. Under his frown his eyes seemed flashing

veritable sparks; his teeth were set; in his temple a vein stood

prominent and throbbing. But Lloyd was not surprised. Bennett had, no

doubt, heard of Ferriss's desperate illness. Small wonder he was excited

when the life of his dearest friend was threatened. Lloyd could ignore

her own quarrel with Bennett at such a moment.

"I am so sorry," she began, "that you could not have known sooner. But

you remember you left no address. There was--"

"What are you doing here?" he broke in abruptly. "What is the

use--why--" he paused for a moment to steady his voice--"you can't stay

here," he went on. "Don't you know the risk you are running? You can't

stay here another moment."

"That," answered Lloyd, smiling, "is a matter that is interesting

chiefly to me. I suppose you know that, Mr. Bennett."

"I know that you are risking your life and--"

"And that, too, is my affair."

"I have made it mine," he responded quickly. "Oh," he exclaimed sharply,

striking the back of the chair with his open palm, "why must we always

be at cross-purposes with each other? I'm not good at talking. What is

the use of tangling ourselves with phrases? I love you, and I've come

out here to ask you, to beg you, you understand, to leave this house,

where you are foolishly risking your life. You must do it," he went on

rapidly. "I love you too well. Your life is too much to me to allow you

to hazard it senselessly, foolishly. There are other women, other

nurses, who can take your place. But you are not going to stay here."

Lloyd felt her indignation rising.

"This is my profession," she answered, trying to keep back her anger. "I

am here because it is my duty to be here." Then suddenly, as his

extraordinary effrontery dawned upon her, she exclaimed, rising to her

feet: "Do I need to explain to you what I do? I am here because I choose

to be here. That is enough. I don't care to go any further with such a

discussion as this."

"You will not leave here, then?"

"No."

Bennett hesitated an instant, searching for his words, then:

"I do not know how to ask favours. I've had little experience in that

sort of thing. You must know how hard it is for me, and you must

understand to what lengths I am driven then, when I entreat you, when I

beg of you, as humbly as it is possible for me to do so, to leave this

house, now--at once. There is a train to the City within the hour; some

one else can take your place before noon. We can telegraph; will you

go?"

"You are absurd."

"Lloyd, can't you see; don't you understand? It's as though I saw you

rushing toward a precipice with your eyes shut."

"My place is here. I shall not leave."

But Bennett's next move surprised her. His eagerness, his agitation left

him upon the instant He took out his watch.

"I was wrong," he said quietly. "The next train will not go for an hour

and a quarter. There is more time than I supposed." Then, with as much

gentleness as he could command, he added: "Lloyd, you are going to take

that train?"

"Now, you are becoming a little more than absurd," she answered. "I

don't know, Mr. Bennett, whether or not you intend to be offensive, but

I think you are succeeding rather well. You came to this house

uninvited; you invade a gentleman's private residence, and you attempt

to meddle and to interfere with me in the practice of my profession. If

you think you can impress me with heroics and declamation, please

correct yourself at once. You have only succeeded in making yourself a

little vulgar."

"That may be true or not," he answered with an indifferent movement of

his shoulders. "It is all one to me. I have made up my mind that you

shall leave this house this morning, and believe me, Miss Searight, I

shall carry my point."

For the moment Lloyd caught her breath. For the moment she saw clearly

with just what sort of man she had to deal. There was a conviction in

his manner--now that he had quieted himself--that suddenly appeared

unanswerable. It was like the slow, still moving of a piston.

But the next moment her own character reasserted itself. She remembered

what she was herself. If he was determined, she was obstinate; if he was

resolved, she was stubborn; if he was powerful, she was unyielding.

Never had she conceded her point before; never had she allowed herself

to be thwarted in the pursuance of a course she believed to be right.

Was she, of all women, to yield now? The consciousness of her own power

of resistance came suddenly to her aid. Bennett was strong, but was she

not strong herself? Where under the blue sky was the power that could

break down her will? When death itself could not prevail against her,

what in life could shake her resolution?

Suddenly the tremendous import of the moment, the magnitude of the

situation, flashed upon Lloyd. Both of them had staked everything upon

this issue. Two characters of extraordinary power clashed violently

together. There was to be no compromise, no half-measures. Either she or

Bennett must in the end be beaten. One of them was to be broken and

humbled beyond all retrieving. There in that commonplace little room,

with its trivial accessories, its inadequate background, a battle royal

swiftly prepared itself. With the abruptness of an explosion the crisis

developed.

"Do I need to tell you," remarked Bennett, "that your life is rather

more to me than any other consideration in the world? Do you suppose

when the lives of every member of my command depended upon me I was any

less resolved to succeed than I am now? I succeeded then, and I shall

succeed now, now when there is much more at stake. I am not accustomed

to failure, and I shall not fail now. I assure you that I shall stop at

nothing."

It was beyond Lloyd to retain her calmness under such aggression. It

seemed as though her self-respect demanded that she should lose her

temper.

"And you think you can drive me as you drove your deck-hands?" she

exclaimed. "What have you to do with me? Am I your subordinate? Do you

think you can bully me? We are not in Kolyuchin Bay, Mr. Bennett."

"You're the woman I love," he answered with an abrupt return of

vehemence, "and, by God! I shall stop at nothing to save your life."

"And my love for you, that you pretend is so much to you, I suppose that

this is the means you take to awaken it. Admitting, for the moment, that

you could induce me to shirk my duty, how should I love you for it? Ask

yourself that."

But Bennett had but one answer to all her words. He struck his fist into

the palm of his hand as he answered:

"Your life is more to me than any other consideration."

"But my life--how do you know it is a question of my life? Come, if we

are to quarrel, let us quarrel upon reasonable grounds. It does not

follow that I risk my life by staying--"

"Leave the house first; we can talk of that afterward."

"I have allowed you to talk too much already," she exclaimed angrily.

"Let us come to the bottom of things at once. I will not be influenced

nor cajoled nor bullied into leaving my post. Now, do you understand?

That is my final answer. You who were a commander, who were a leader of

men, what would you have done if one of your party had left his post at

a time of danger? I can tell you what you would have done--you would

have shot him, after first disgracing him, and now you would disgrace

me. Is it reasonable? Is it consistent?"

Bennett snapped his fingers.

"That for consistency!"

"And you would be willing to disgrace me--to have me disgrace myself?"

"Your life--" began Bennett again.

But suddenly Lloyd flashed out upon him with: "My life! My life! Are

there not some things better than life? You, above all men, should

understand that much. Oh, be yourself, be the man I thought you were.

You have your code; let me have mine. You could not be what you are, you

could not have done what you did, if you had not set so many things

above merely your life. Admit that you could not have loved me unless

you believed that I could do the same. How could you still love me if

you knew I had failed in my duty? How could you still love me if you

knew that you had broken down my will? I know you better than you know

yourself. You loved me because you knew me to be strong and brave and to

be above petty deceptions and shams and subterfuges. And now you ask me

to fail, to give up, to shirk, and you tell me you do so because you

love me."

"That is all so many words to me. I cannot argue with you, and there is

no time for it. I did not come here to--converse."

Never in her life before had Lloyd been so angry as at that moment. The

sombre crimson of her cheeks had suddenly given place to an unwonted

paleness; even her dull-blue eyes, that so rarely sparkled, were all

alight. She straightened herself.

"Very well, then," she answered quietly, "our conversation can stop

where it is. You will excuse me, Mr. Bennett, if I leave you. I have my

work to do."

Bennett was standing between her and the door. He did not move. Very

gravely he said:

"Don't. Please don't bring it--to that."

Lloyd flashed a look at him, her eyes wide, exclaiming:

"You don't mean--you don't dare--"

"I tell you again that I mean to carry my point."

"And I tell you that I shall _not_ leave my patient."

Bennett met her glance for an instant, and, holding her gaze with his,

answered but two words. Speaking in a low voice and with measured

slowness, he said:

"You--shall."

There was a silence. The two stood there, looking straight into one

another's eyes, their mutual opposition at its climax. The seconds began

to pass. The conflict between the man's aggression and the woman's

resistance reached its turning point. Before another word should be

spoken, before the minute should pass, one of the two must give ground.

And then it was that Lloyd felt something breakdown within her,

something to which she could not put a name. A mysterious element of her

character, hitherto rigid and intact, was beginning at last to crumble.

Somewhere a breach had been opened; somewhere the barrier had been

undermined. The fine steadfastness that was hers, and that she had so

dearly prized, her strength in which she had gloried, her independence,

her splendid arrogant self-confidence and conscious power seemed all at

once to weaken before this iron resolve that shut its ears and eyes,

this colossal, untutored, savage intensity of purpose.

And abruptly her eyes were opened, and the inherent weakness of her sex

became apparent to her. Was it a mistake, then? Could not a woman be

strong? Was her strength grafted upon elemental weakness--not her

individual weakness, but the weakness of her sex, the intended natural

weakness of the woman? Had she built her fancied impregnable fortress

upon sand?

But habit was too strong. For an instant, brief as the opening and

shutting of an eye, a vision was vouchsafed to her, one of those swift

glimpses into unplumbed depths that come sometimes to the human mind in

the moments of its exaltation, but that are gone with such rapidity that

they may not be trusted. For an instant Lloyd saw deep down into the

black, mysterious gulf of sex--down, down, down where, immeasurably

below the world of little things, the changeless, dreadful machinery of

Life itself worked, clashing and resistless in its grooves. It was a

glimpse fortunately brief, a vision that does not come too often, lest

reason, brought to the edge of the abyss, grow giddy at the sight and,

reeling, topple headlong. But quick the vision passed, the gulf closed,

and she felt the firm ground again beneath her feet.

"I shall not," she cried.

Was it the same woman who had spoken but one moment before? Did her

voice ring with the same undaunted defiance? Was there not a note of

despair in her tones, a barely perceptible quaver, the symbol of her

wavering resolve? Was not the very fact that she must question her

strength proof positive that her strength was waning?

But her courage was unshaken, even if her strength was breaking. To the

last she would strive, to the end she would hold her forehead high. Not

till the last hope had been tried would she acknowledge her defeat.

"But in any case," she said, "risk is better than certainty. If I risk

my life by staying, it is certain that he will die if I leave him at

this critical moment."

"So much the worse, then--you cannot stay."

Lloyd stared at him in amazement.

"It isn't possible; I don't believe you can understand. Do you know how

sick he is? Do you know that he is lying at the point of death at this

very moment, and that the longer I stay away from him the more his life

is in peril? Has he not rights as well as I; has he not a right to live?

It is not only my own humiliation that is at stake, it is the life of

your dearest friend, the man who stood by you, and helped you, and who

suffered the same hardships and privations as yourself."

"What's that?" demanded Bennett with a sudden frown.

"If I leave Mr. Ferriss now, if he is left alone here for so much as

half an hour, I will not answer--"

"Ferriss! What are you talking about? What is your patient's name?"

"Didn't you know?"

"Ferriss! Dick Ferriss! Don't tell me it's Dick Ferriss."

"I thought all the time you knew--that you had heard. Yes, it is Mr.

Ferriss."

"Is he very sick? What is he doing out here? No, I had not heard; nobody

told me. Pitts was to write--to--to wire. Will he pull through? What's

the matter with him? Is it he who had typhoid?"

"He is very dangerously ill. Dr. Pitts brought him here. This is his

house. We do not know if he will get well. It is only by watching him

every instant that we can hope for anything. At this moment there is no

one with him but a servant. _Now_, Mr. Bennett, am I to go to my

patient?"

"But--but--we can get some one else."

"Not before three hours, and it's only the truth when I tell you he may

die at any minute. Am I to go?"

In a second of time the hideous situation leaped up before Bennett's

eyes. Right or wrong, the conviction that Lloyd was terribly imperilling

her life by remaining at her patient's bedside had sunk into his mind

and was not to be eradicated. It was a terror that had gripped him close

and that could not be reasoned away. But Ferriss? What of him? Now it

had brusquely transpired that his life, too, hung in the balance. How to

decide? How to meet this abominable complication wherein he must

sacrifice the woman he so dearly loved or the man who was the Damon to

his Pythias, the Jonathan to his David?

"Am I to go?" repeated Lloyd for the third time.

Bennett closed his eyes, clasping his head with both hands.

"Great God, wait--wait--I can't think--I--I, oh, this is terrible!"

Lloyd drove home her advantage mercilessly.

"Wait? I tell you we can't wait."

Then Bennett realised with a great spasm of horror that for him there

was no going back. All his life, accustomed to quick decisions in

moments of supreme peril, he took his decision now, facing, with such

courage as he could muster, its unspeakable consequences, consequences

that he knew must harry and hound him all the rest of his life.

Whichever way he decided, he opened his heart to the beak and talons of

a pitiless remorse. He could no longer see, in the dreadful confusion of

his mind, the right of things or the wrong of things, could not

accurately weigh chances or possibilities. For him only two alternatives

presented themselves, the death of Ferriss or the death of Lloyd. He

could see no compromise, could imagine no escape. It was as though a

headsman with ready axe stood at his elbow, awaiting his commands. And,

besides all this, he had long since passed the limit--though perhaps he

did not know it himself--where he could see anything but the point he

had determined to gain, the goal he had determined to reach. His mind

was made up. His furious energy, his resolve to conquer at all costs,

had become at last a sort of directed frenzy. The engine he had set in

motion was now beyond his control. He could not now--whether he would or

no--reverse its action, swerve it from its iron path, call it back from

the monstrous catastrophe toward which it was speeding him.

"God help us all!" he muttered.

"Well," said Lloyd expectantly.

Bennett drew a deep breath, his hands falling helplessly at his sides.

In a way he appeared suddenly bowed; the great frame of bone and sinew

seemed in some strange, indefinable manner to shrink, to stagger under

the sudden assumption of an intolerable burden--a burden that was never

to be lifted.

Even then, however, Bennett still believed in the wisdom of his course,

still believed himself to be right. But, right or wrong, he now must go

forward. Was it fate, was it doom, was it destiny?

Bennett's entire life had been spent in the working out of great ideas

in the face of great obstacles; continually he had been called upon to

overcome enormous difficulties with enormous strength. For long periods

of time he had been isolated from civilisation, had been face to face

with the simple, crude forces of an elemental world--forces that were to

be combated and overthrown by means no less simple and crude than

themselves. He had lost the faculty, possessed, no doubt, by smaller

minds, of dealing with complicated situations. To resort to expedients,

to make concessions, was all beyond him. For him a thing was absolutely

right or absolutely wrong, and between the two there was no gradation.

For so long a time had he looked at the larger, broader situations of

life that his mental vision had become all deformed and confused. He saw

things invariably magnified beyond all proportion, or else dwarfed to a

littleness that was beneath consideration. Normal vision was denied him.

It was as though he studied the world through one or the other ends of a

telescope, and when, as at present, his emotions were aroused, matters

were only made the worse. The idea that Ferriss might recover, though

Lloyd should leave him at this moment, hardly presented itself to his

mind. He was convinced that if Lloyd went away Ferriss would die; Lloyd

had said as much herself. The hope that Lloyd might, after all, nurse

him through his sickness without danger to herself was so remote that he

did not consider it for one instant. If Lloyd remained she, like the

other nurse, would contract the disease and die.

These were the half-way measures Bennett did not understand, the

expedients he could no longer see. It was either Lloyd or Ferriss. He

must choose between them.

Bennett went to the door of the room, closed it and leaned against it.

"No," he said.

Lloyd was stricken speechless. For the instant she shrank before him as

if from a murderer. Bennett now knew precisely the terrible danger in

which he left the man who was his dearest friend. Would he actually

consent to his death? It was almost beyond belief, and for the moment

Lloyd herself quailed before him. Her first thoughts were not of

herself, but of Ferriss. If he was Bennett's friend he was her friend

too. At that very moment he might be dying for want of her care. She was

fast becoming desperate. For the moment she could put all thought of

herself and of her own dignity in the background.

"What is it you want?" she cried. "Is it my humiliation you ask? Well,

then, you have it. It is as hard for me to ask favours as it is for you.

I am as proud as you, but I entreat you, you hear me, as humbly as I

can, to let me go. What do you want more than that? Oh, can't you

understand? While we talk here, while you keep me here, he may be dying.

Is it a time for arguments, is it a time for misunderstandings, is it a

time to think of ourselves, of our own lives, our own little affairs?"

She clasped her hands. "Will you please--can I, can I say more than

that; will you please let me go?"

"No."

With a great effort Lloyd tried to regain her self-control. She paused a

moment, then:

"Listen!" she said. "You say that you love me; that I am more to you

than even Mr. Ferriss, your truest friend. I do not wish to think of

myself at such a time as this, but supposing that you should make

me--that I should consent to leave my patient. Think of me then,

afterward. Can I go back there to the house, the house that I built? Can

I face the women of my profession? What would they think of me? What

would my friends think of me--I who have held my head so high? You will

ruin my life. I should have to give up my profession. Oh, can't you see

in what position you would place me?" Suddenly the tears sprang to her

eyes. "No!" she cried vehemently. "No, no, no, I will not, I will not be

disgraced!"

"I have no wish to disgrace you," answered Bennett. "It is strange for

you to say that to me, if I love you so well that I can give up Ferriss

for--"

"Then, if you love me so much as that, there must be one thing that you

would set even above my life. Do you wish to make me hate you?"

"There is nothing in the world more to me than your life; you know that.

How can you think it of me?"

"Because you don't understand--because you don't know that--oh, that I

love you! I--no--I didn't mean--I didn't mean--"

What had she said? What had happened? How was it that the words that

yesterday she would have been ashamed to so much as whisper to herself

had now rushed to her lips almost of their own accord? After all those

years of repression, suddenly the sweet, dim thought she had hidden in

her secretest heart's heart had leaped to light and to articulate words.

Unasked, unbidden, she had told him that she loved him. She, she had

done this thing when, but a few moments before, her anger against him

had shaken her to her very finger-tips. The hot, intolerable shame of it

smote like fire into her face. Her world was cracking about her ears;

everything she had prized the dearest was being torn from her,

everything she had fancied the strongest was being overthrown. Had she,

she who had held herself so proud and high, come at last to this?

Swiftly she turned from him and clasped her hands before her eyes and

sank down into the chair she had quitted, bowing her head upon her arms,

hiding her face, shutting herself from the light of day, quivering and

thrilling with an agony of shame and with an utter, an abject

self-contempt that was beyond all power of expression. But the instant

she felt Bennett's touch upon her shoulder she sprang up as if a knife

had pierced her, and shrank from him, turning her head away, her hand,

palm outward, before her eyes.

"Oh, please!" she begged piteously, almost inarticulately in the stress

of her emotion, "don't--if you are a man--don't take advantage--please,

please don't touch me. Let me go away."

She was talking to deaf ears. In two steps Bennett had reached her side

and had taken her in his arms. Lloyd could not resist. Her vigour of

body as well as of mind was crushed and broken and beaten down; and why

was it that in spite of her shame, that in spite of her unutterable

self-reproach, the very touch of her cheek upon his shoulder was a

comfort? Why was it that to feel herself carried away in the rush of

this harsh, impetuous, masculine power was a happiness? Why was it that

to know that her prided fortitude and hitherto unshaken power were being

overwhelmed and broken with a brutal, ruthless strength was an

exultation and a glory? Why was it that she who but a moment before

quailed from his lightest touch now put her arms about his neck and

clung to him with a sense of protection and of refuge, the need of which

she had always and until that very moment disdained?

"Why should you be sorry because you spoke?" said Bennett. "I knew that

you loved me and you knew that I loved you. What does it matter if you

said it or did not say it? We know each other, you and I. We understand.

You knew that I loved you. You think that I have been strong and

determined, and have done the things I set out to do; what I am is what

you made me. What I have done I have done because I thought you would

approve. Do you think I would have come back if I had not known that I

was coming back to you?" Suddenly an impatient exclamation escaped him,

and his clasp about her tightened. "Oh! words--the mere things that one

can _say_, seem so pitiful, so miserably inadequate. Don't you know,

can't you feel what you are to me? Tell me, do you think I love you?"

But she could not bear to meet his glance just yet. Her eyes were

closed, and she could only nod her head.

But Bennett took her head in both his hands and turned her face to his.

Even yet she kept her eyes closed.

"Lloyd," he said, and his voice was almost a command; "Lloyd, look at

me. Do you love me?"

She drew a deep breath. Then her sweet dull-blue eyes opened, and

through the tears that brimmed them and wet her lashes she looked at him

and met his glance fearlessly and almost proudly, and her voice trembled

and vibrated with an infinite tenderness as she answered:

"I do love you, Ward; love you with all my heart."

Then, after a pause, she said, drawing a little from him and resting a

hand upon either shoulder:

"But listen, dear; we must not think of ourselves now. We must think of

him, so sick and weak and helpless. This is a terrible moment in our

lives. I don't know why it has come to us. I don't know why it should

all have happened as it has this morning. Just a few moments ago I was

angry as I never was in my life before--and at you--and now it seems to

me that I never was so happy; I don't know myself any more. Everything

is confused; all we can do is to hold to what we know is right and trust

that everything will be well in the end. It is a crisis, isn't it? And

all our lives and all our happiness depend upon how we meet it. I am all

different now. I am not the woman I was a half-hour ago. You must be

brave for me now, and you must be strong for me and help me to do my

duty. We must live up to the best that is in us and do what we think is

right, no matter what risks we run, no matter what the consequences are.

I would not have asked you to help me before--before what has

happened--but now I need your help. You have said I helped you to be

brave; help me to be brave now, and to do what I know is right."

But Bennett was still blind. If she had been dear to him before, how

doubly so had she become since she had confessed her love for him!

Ferriss was forgotten, ignored. He could not let her go, he could not

let her run the slightest risk. Was he to take any chance of losing her

now? He shook his head.

"Ward!" she exclaimed with deep and serious earnestness. "If you do not

wish me to risk my life by going to my post, be careful, oh, be very

careful, that you do not risk something that is more to us both than

life itself, by keeping me from it. Do you think I could love you so

deeply and so truly as I do if I had not kept my standards high; if I

had not believed in the things that were better than life, and stronger

than death, and dearer to me than even love itself? There are some

things I cannot do: I cannot be false, I cannot be cowardly, I cannot

shirk my duty. Now I am helpless in your hands. You have conquered, and

you can do with me as you choose. But if you make me do what is false,

and what is cowardly, and what is dishonourable; if you stand between me

and what I know is my duty, how can I love you, how can I love you?"

Persistently, perversely, Bennett stopped his ears to every

consideration, to every argument. She wished to hazard her life. That

was all he understood.

"No, Lloyd," he answered, "you must not do it."

"--and I want to love you," she went on, as though she had not heard. "I

want you to be everything to me. I have trusted you so long--had faith

in you so long, I don't want to think of you as the man who failed me

when I most needed his help, who made me do the thing that was

contemptible and unworthy. Believe me," she went on with sudden energy,

"you will kill my love for you if you persist."

But before Bennett could answer there was a cry.

"It is the servant," exclaimed Lloyd quickly. "She has been

watching--there in the room with him."

"Nurse--Miss Searight," came the cry, "quick--there is something

wrong--I don't know--oh, hurry!"

"Do you hear?" cried Lloyd. "It is the crisis--he may be dying. Oh,

Ward, it is the man you love! We can save him." She stamped her foot in

the frenzy of her emotion, her hands twisting together. "I _will_ go. I

forbid you to keep--to hinder--to--to, oh, what is to become of us? If

you love me, if you love him--_Ward, will you let me go?_"

Bennett put his hands over his ears, his eyes closed. In the horror of

that moment, when he realised that no matter how he might desire it he

could not waver in his resolution, it seemed to him that his reason must

give way. But he set his back to the door, his hand gripped tight upon

the knob, and through his set teeth his answer came as before:

"No."

"Nurse--Miss Searight, where are you? Hurry, oh, hurry!"

"Will you let me go?"

"No."

Lloyd caught at his hand, shut so desperately upon the knob, striving to

loosen his clasp. She hardly knew what she was doing; she threw her arms

about his neck, imploring, commanding, now submissive, now imperious,

her voice now vibrating with anger, now trembling with passionate

entreaty.

"You are not only killing him, you are killing my love for you; will you

let me go--the love that is so dear to me? Let me love you, Ward; listen

to me; don't make me hate you; let me love you, dear--"

"Hurry, oh, hurry!"

"Let me love you; let him live. I want to love you. It's the best

happiness in my life. Let me be happy. Can't you see what this moment is

to mean for us? It is our happiness or wretchedness forever. Will you

let me go?"

"No."

"For the last time, Ward, listen! It is my love for you and his life.

Don't crush us both--yes, and yourself. You who can, who are so

powerful, don't trample all our happiness under foot."

"Hurry, hurry; oh, will nobody come to help?"

"Will you let me go?"

"No."

Her strength seemed all at once to leave her. All the fabric of her

character, so mercilessly assaulted, appeared in that moment to reel,

topple, and go crashing to its wreck. She was shattered, broken,

humbled, and beaten down to the dust. Her pride was gone, her faith in

herself was gone, her fine, strong energy was gone. The pity of it, the

grief of it; all that she held dearest; her fine and confident

steadfastness; the great love that had brought such happiness into her

life--that had been her inspiration, all torn from her and tossed aside

like chaff. And her patient--Ferriss, the man who loved her, who had

undergone such suffering, such hardship, who trusted her and whom it was

her duty to nurse back to life and health--if he should perish for want

of her care, then what infinite sorrow, then what endless remorse, then

what long agony of unavailing regret! Her world, her universe grew dark

to her; she was driven from her firm stand. She was lost, she was

whirled away--away with the storm, landmarks obliterated, lights gone;

away with the storm; out into the darkness, out into the void, out into

the waste places and wilderness and trackless desolation.

"Hurry, oh, hurry!"

It was too late. She had failed; the mistake had been made, the question

had been decided. That insensate, bestial determination, iron-hearted,

iron-strong, had beaten down opposition, had carried its point. Life and

love had been crushed beneath its trampling without pity, without

hesitation. The tragedy of the hour was done; the tragedy of the long

years to come was just beginning.

Lloyd sank down in the chair before the table, and the head that she had

held so high bowed down upon her folded arms. The violence of her grief

shook her from head to foot like a dry, light reed. Her heart seemed

literally to be breaking. She must set her teeth with all her strength

to keep from groaning aloud, from crying out in her hopeless sorrow her

impotent shame and despair.

Once more came the cry for help. Then the house fell silent. The minutes

passed. But for Lloyd's stifled grief there was no sound.

Bennett--leaning heavily against the door, his great shoulders stooping

and bent, his face ashen, his eyes fixed--did not move. He did not speak

to Lloyd. There was no word of comfort he could address to her--that

would have seemed the last mockery. He had prevailed, as he knew he

should, as he knew he must, when once his resolve was taken. The force

that, once it was unleashed, was beyond him to control, had accomplished

its purpose. His will remained unbroken; but at what cost? However, that

was for future consideration. The costs? Had he not his whole life

before him in which to count them? The present moment still called upon

him to act. He looked at his watch.

The next quarter of an hour was all a confusion to him. Its incidents

refused to define themselves upon his memory when afterward he tried to

recall them. He could remember, however, that when he helped Lloyd into

the carryall that was to take her to the depot in the village she had

shrunk from his touch and had drawn away from him as if from a

criminal--a murderer. He placed her satchel on the front seat with the

driver, and got up beside the driver himself. She had drawn her veil

over her face, and during the drive sat silent and motionless.

"Can you make it?" asked Bennett of the driver, watch in hand. The time

was of the shortest, but the driver put the whip to his horses and, at a

run, they reached the railway station a few moments ahead of time.

Bennett told the driver to wait, and while Lloyd remained in her place

he bought her ticket for the City. Then he went to the telegraph office

and sent a peremptory despatch to the house on Calumet Square.

A few moments later the train had come and gone, an abrupt eruption of

roaring iron and shrieking steam. Bennett was left on the platform

alone, watching it lessen to a smoky blur where the rails converged

toward the horizon. For an instant he stood watching, watching a

resistless, iron-hearted force whirling her away, out of his reach, out

of his life. Then he shook himself, turning sharply about.

"Back to the doctor's house, now," he commanded the driver; "on the run,

you understand."

But the other protested. His horses were all but exhausted. Twice they

had covered that distance at top speed and under the whip. He refused to

return. Bennett took the young man by the arm and lifted him from his

seat to the ground. Then he sprang to his place and lashed the horses to

a gallop.

When he arrived at Dr. Pitts's house he did not stop to tie the horses,

but threw the reins over their backs and entered the front hall, out of

breath and panting. But the doctor, during Bennett's absence, had

returned, and it was he who met him half-way up the stairs.

"How is he?" demanded Bennett. "I have sent for another nurse; she will

be out here on the next train. I wired from the station."

"The only objection to that," answered the doctor, looking fixedly at

him, "is that it is not necessary. Mr. Ferriss has just died."