In a quiet corner of the crowded hospital at Johannesburg, one
narrow bed was screened away from its neighbors. Beside the bed sat
Ethel Dent, and Weldon leaned against the wall beyond. Both of them
were smiling bravely down into the dark-fringed blue eyes which met
their eyes with a steady wishfulness. With the end so plain in
sight, why keep up the pretence of being blind to its approach?
An operation had been the final chance, and the chance had failed.
Out from the stupor of ether, out from the hours of bewildering
pain, Captain Frazer had come back to an interval of full
consciousness, of fuller knowledge that, for him, this painless
interval was but the prelude to the final painless sleep.
Nevertheless, the man who had helped other men to die unflinchingly
was facing death with a grave, unflinching smile, albeit life to him
was good and full of promise. The interval was short. He would pass
through it in manlike fashion, and, meanwhile, give thanks that
beside his bed sat the one woman in whom his whole future so long
had centered.
The slow moments passed by, unheeded. It was an hour since the
surgeons had gone away; it was nearly an hour since Alice Mellen had
followed the surgeons. Instinctively she realized that her place was
otherwhere. There was no need now for skilled nurses. Ethel could do
all the little which would be required, and it was Ethel's right to
stay.
Since Alice had left them, no word had been spoken. The Captain had
little strength for words as yet. It was taking all his energy and
courage to face the truth and to accept it. Only an hour before, his
crippled career had seemed to him unbearable. Now, as he lay with
his eyes fixed on the girl beside him, he realized how much of
potential sweetness that dreary alternative had held. And yet, Fate
had drawn him into the battle, and it was something that he had met
Fate bravely and in the foremost rank. So far, he had never funked a
fight; if it took his last bit of strength, he would go pluckily
through this last, worse fight which he was destined to face. He
stirred slightly, and shut his teeth on his lower lip; but his eyes
never dropped from Ethel's face. From the farther side of the bed,
Weldon, too, was watching Ethel. If he lived to full fivescore
years, he could never forget her face as he had met her at the
hospital door, that morning. Exhausted with the excitement of the
battle, stiff with his half-dressed wounds, soiled and untidy and
haggard, he had paused beside the ambulance while the attendants had
lifted the stretcher and borne the Captain up the low flight of
steps. Then, like a man in a dream, he had followed along behind
them until, on the very threshold, he had raised his heavy eyes to
see Ethel standing before him, a broad shaft of sunshine pouring
down upon her to rest in the locks of sunshiny hair which straggled
out from beneath her crisp white cap.
"Cooee!" he said huskily, as he took her hand. Then, for the first
time in all those terrible hours since the battle, his lips had
quivered, and two big, boyish tears had rolled out across his
cheeks.
Already the fight seemed to him to be months old. From the first, it
had been the Captain's wish that Weldon should go with him to the
hospital, and Weldon would have allowed no other man to go in his
place. Wounded and weak from loss of blood, nevertheless he forgot
his own weakness as he saw the leg, shattered by two bullets,
explosive bullets such as are denied to warfare of any but barbarous
nations. Young though he was, Weldon had seen many a man wounded
before now. He was not slow to realize the nature of the
alternatives which lay before the man who was at once his hero and
his friend. Mercifully, he had as yet no knowledge how soon the one
alternative must be taken from him.
The case was too grave a one for the surgeons of the field hospital.
In after years, that ambulance journey into Kroonstad seemed branded
upon Weldon's memory: the baking heat of the February sun, the
interminable miles of dusty road stretching away between other
interminable miles of grassy veldt, scarred and seamed here and
there with ridges of naked rock. And at last the ambulance had
jogged into Kroonstad, only to find that no help lay in the hospital
there, that the journey must be dragged onward through a night ride
to Johannesburg.
If the jolting, crawling ambulance had been bad, the jarring train
was infinitely worse. The Captain made no complaints; he was
grateful for every slight attention; he even forced himself to joke
a little now and then. Nevertheless, Weldon, sitting beside him and
occasionally laying his own fingers across the steady hand on the
blanket, was maddened by the noise of the engine, by the ceaseless
thud, thud as the wheels took every new rail, by the roar, and the
rush, and the dust which filtered in upon them. There was nothing he
could do. He merely sat there beside his friend, and thought.
Occasionally, he thought of Ethel; but, for the most part, his mind
was on the man before him, the man whose active career all at once
had been cut in two. Now and then he thought of the one who had
chosen to fire those bullets, taboo of all but the most brutal
warfare. At such times, he rose and fell to pacing restlessly up and
down the car. Then he controlled himself and resumed his seat.
Moment by moment, almost second by second, the dreary night had worn
away. It was full morning when the train had halted inside the
familiar station. After his vigil, the healthy stir of the streets
appeared to Weldon like the confused picture of a dream, and it had
been like a man in a dream that he had been driven away to the
hospital. Then, on the steps, he had seen Ethel, and the dream had
been shattered, giving way, for the instant, to the perfect
happiness of reality.
But the surgeons at Johannesburg had shaken their heads. The delay,
although unavoidable, had been full of danger. One only chance
remained, and they would take that chance. Weldon had lingered until
he was ordered away; then, with Ethel beside him, he had gone to
find a doctor who could dress his own wounds and make him fit to
face the ordeal which he knew was awaiting him. For one short
moment, he had felt Ethel's hands busy about his shoulder and head
and wrist, had rejoiced in the quiet strength of their soothing
touch. For another moment, their eyes had met; but no word had been
spoken between them. Then Alice had come to them, bringing the
surgeon's verdict. That had been an hour before. Now they still were
there, watching the slow approach of the inevitable summons.
Slowly the day waxed--and waned. For the waning life, there was no
interval of waxing. Slowly, steadily, by infinitesimal degrees, Leo
Frazer was sinking down into the Valley of the Shadow. Once the head
surgeon had stepped behind the screens and bent over the bed. Only
Ethel had seen the brief contraction of his brows; but no one of
them was deceived by his cheery words of parting. And still the blue
eyes rested upon Ethel, as if seeking to gain from her the answer to
some unspoken question, as if begging her to share with him some
fraction of her quiet strength. Now and then Ethel wondered at her
own quiet. This was the second week of her promised month with her
cousin; but it was the first time she had come face to face with
death, the first time, too, that her work had taken on any hint of
personality. Now, suddenly confronted with these three, Death and
the two men who, during the past fourteen months, had played so
active parts in her life, she was surprised to find that she faced
them steadily and in silence. As yet, she felt no wish to make any
moan. That would come later, when her nerves had relaxed a little
from the stretching strain. And, meanwhile, as she sat watching the
face on the pillow, grieving for the waning life, now and then she
raised her eyes to the other face on the opposite side of the bed,
and told herself that Fate, harsh as it was, was yet not altogether
unpitying. Although wounded and worn and sick at heart, Weldon was
with her, and intensely alive.
"Ethel!"
Bending forward, she laid her strong, firm hand upon the hand of the
Captain, noting, as she did so, that the finger tips were cold to
her own warm touch.
"Yes?" she said gently.
"You are here? It troubles me to see. Stay with me to the end,
Ethel. It won't be so very long."
She bowed her head; but the answer came firmly.
"I will stay."
There was a short silence. Then, gathering together all his
strength, the Captain went on quite steadily,--
"It won't be so very long, Ethel. I am sorry. I liked to live. I
have had a good time, and I had no idea that my good times were so
nearly over. Not that it would have made much difference, though.
And yet, when one comes to the end, all of a sudden, one finds a
great many things that are left unfinished."
She made no attempt to answer.
Gently he urged the final words upon her attention.
"There are always so many things left unfinished," he repeated.
"Yes," she said faintly.
Slowly, as if its weight dragged sorely upon his failing strength,
he raised her hand to the pillow and rested his cheek upon it.
"Don't cry, Ethel," he said then. "Of course, if I had lived, it
might have meant so much to us both."
Involuntarily she caught her breath and made a swift gesture, as if
to withdraw her hand. Then, with a hasty glance at Weldon, leaning
against the opposite wall, she controlled herself and allowed her
hand to rest where it was.
"It would have meant so much to all of us, Captain Frazer."
"Perhaps. But to you and me--Ethel, I can't go out of life and give
you up!" Pitifully, longingly, the blue eyes stared up at her face
through the growing shadows of waning day and waning life.
Longingly, although the questioning look had left them. In its place
was an infinite, contented love, an absolute trust.
The girl nerved herself to meet his eyes. Then she drew her own eyes
away, to give another hasty, appealing glance up into Weldon's
paling face. For him, as for her, the moment was all unexpected. For
him, as for her, there was need of all the reserve strength in life
to go through it honorably and without flinching.
Up to that very hour, no thought of Leo Frazer's love had crossed
the mind of Ethel Dent. They had been friends, good comrades,
meeting often and always with much pleasure. She had acknowledged to
herself, long since, that he was a man among men; she honored him,
admired him, cared for him as she might have cared for an only
brother. Beyond that, she could not go. Moreover, it had never
occurred to her that Captain Frazer could mistake her attitude to
himself, could differentiate her light, bright cordiality from the
cordiality she showed to other men. When she had met him first, she
had been a mere girl in character and experience; love had had scant
place in her girlish dreams. Later, Weldon had come into her life.
His coming had changed many things for her; but it had made no
change in her attitude to the Captain. She was now, as always, his
loyal, admiring friend, no less, no more. She had supposed that he
had felt the same loyal friendship for her. Too late, she realized
her mistake.
"You must have known it all, Ethel," the Captain was saying
steadily; "how my whole life has seemed to go into yours. I have
never told you. I was sure you knew it, without any telling, and I
have been waiting until the war was over, before asking you to go
home with me, as my wife. The--" he caught his breath sharply, "the
war is over for me now, dearest. I can't ask you to go home with me;
but--Tell me, Ethel, I have not been mistaken, all these months? You
have cared for me, as I have cared for you?" The last words came out
with the roundness of tone he had used in health; but there was a
weary drag to the hand that drew her hand still nearer to his cheek.
Ethel faltered. Then, soldier-like, she braced herself to fight to a
finish. It was not her fault that the man had mistaken her friendly,
cordial liking for something deeper, infinitely more lasting. She
had never consciously played with him, never sought to win his love.
Blame there was none; it was all only a mistake, albeit a terrible
one. Nevertheless--
Desperately she glanced up from the blue eyes, still so wishfully
fixed upon her own, up to the drawn, white face of the haggard man
on the farther side of the bed. In that instant, the girl fought
madly with herself. Then her eyes dropped back to the bed once more.
Eternity and time; a final short, comforting word to the one, a long
explanation to the other. The mistake, if mistake there were, had
been all of her doing. Bravely she would take the bitter
consequences. Captain Frazer's day was passing fast. The night
remained for her talk with Weldon. Her eyes dropped back to the bed,
and her hand yielded itself to the pressure of the ice-cold fingers.
"Yes," she said slowly and so faintly that Weldon, standing
breathless, could scarcely hear the words; "I have cared for you, as
you have cared for me."
The fingers tightened over her hand; but the lids drooped heavily
above the dark blue eyes.
"Dearest--girl." Then, smiling to himself, Captain Leo Frazer fell
asleep. The next moment counted itself out by slow seconds. Then
Ethel raised her head and turned to smile drearily up at Weldon.
Instead, she found herself smiling up at an empty wall. Harvard
Weldon had vanished and had left for her no word of farewell.