A nurse stepped up to the doctor's desk:
"A new girl is here ready for duty. Is there any special place you want
her put?" she asked in a low tone.
The doctor looked up with a frown:
"One of those half-trained Americans, I suppose?" he growled. "Well,
every little helps. I'd give a good deal for half a dozen fully trained
nurses just now. Suppose you send her to relieve Miss Jennings. She can't
do any harm to number twenty-nine."
"Isn't there any hope for him?" the nurse asked, a shade of sadness in
her eyes.
"I'm afraid not!" said the doctor shortly. "He won't take any interest in
living, that's the trouble. He isn't dying of his wounds. Something is
troubling him. But it's no use trying to find out what. He shuts up like
a clam."
The new nurse flushed outside the door as she heard herself discussed and
shut her firm little lips in a determined way as she followed the head
nurse down the long rows of cots to an alcove at the end where a screen
shut the patient from view.
Miss Jennings, a plain girl with tired eyes, gave a few directions and
she was left with her patient. She turned toward the cot and stopped with
a soft gasp of recognition, her face growing white and set as she took in
the dear familiar outline of the fine young face before her. Every word
she had heard outside the doctor's office rang distinctly in her ears. He
was dying. He did not want to live. With another gasp that was like a sob
she slipped to her knees beside the cot, forgetful of her duties, of the
ward outside, or the possible return of the nurses, forgetful of
everything but that he was there, her hero of the years!
She reached for one of his hands, the one that was not bandaged, and she
laid her soft cheek against it, and held her breath to listen. Perhaps
even now behind that quiet face the spirit had departed beyond her grasp.
There was no flutter of the eyelids even. She could not see that he still
breathed, although his hand was not cold, and his face when she touched
it still seemed human. She drew closer in an agony of fear, and laid her
lips against his cheek, and then her face softly, with one hand about his
other cheek. Her lips were close to his ear now.
"John!" she whispered softly, "John! My dear knight!"
There was a quiver of the eyelids now, a faint hesitating sigh. She
touched her lips to his and spoke his name again. A faint smile flickered
over his features as if he were seeing other worlds of beauty that had no
connection here. But still she continued to press her face against his
cheek and whisper his name.
At last he opened his eyes, with a bewildered, wondering gaze and saw
her. The old dear smile broke forth:
"Ruth! You here? Is this--heaven?"
"Not yet," she whispered softly. "But it's earth, and the war is over!
I've come to help you get well and take you home! It's really you and
you're not 'Missing' any more."
Then without any excuse at all she laid her lips on his forehead and
kissed him. She had read her permit in his eyes.
His well arm stole out and pressed her to him hungrily:
"It's--really you and you don't belong to anybody else?" he asked,
anxiously searching her face for his answer.
"Oh, John! I never did belong to anybody else but you. All my life ever
since I was a little girl I've thought you were wonderful! Didn't you
know that? Didn't you see down at camp? I'm sure it was written all over
my face."
His hand crept up and pressed her face close against his:
"Oh, my darling!" he breathed, "_my_ darling! The most wonderful girl in
the world!"
When the doctor and nurse pushed back the screen and entered the little
alcove the new nurse sat demurely at the foot of the cot, but a little
while later the voice of the patient rang out joyously:
"Doctor, how soon can I get out of this. I think I've stayed here about
long enough."
The wondering doctor touched his patient's forehead, looked at him
keenly, felt his pulse with practised finger, and replied:
"I've been thinking you'd get to this spot pretty soon. Some beef tea,
nurse, and make it good and strong. We've got to get this fellow on his
feet pretty quick for I can see he's about done lying in bed."
Then the wounds came in for attention, and Ruth stood bravely and
watched, quivering in her heart over the sight, yet never flinching in
her outward calm.
When the dressing of the wounds was over the doctor stood back and
surveyed his patient:
"Well, you're in pretty good shape now, and if you keep on you can leave
here in about a week. Thank fortune there isn't any more front to go back
to! But now, if you don't mind I'd like to know what's made this
marvellous change in you?"
The light broke out on Cameron's face anew. He looked at the doctor
smiling, and then he looked at Ruth, and reached out his hand to get
hers:
"You see," he said, "I--we--Miss Macdonald's from my home town and----"
"I see," said the doctor looking quizzically from one happy face to the
other, "but hasn't she always been from your home town?"
Cameron twinkled with his old Irish grin:
"Always," he said solemnly, "but, you see, she hasn't always been here."
"I see," said the doctor again looking quizzically into the sweet face of
the girl, and doing reverence to her pure beauty with his gaze. "I
congratulate you, corporal," he said, and then turning to Ruth he said
earnestly: "And you, too, Madame. He is a man if there ever was one."
In the quiet evening when the wards were put to sleep and Ruth sat beside
his cot with her hand softly in his, Cameron opened his eyes from the nap
he was supposed to be taking and looked at her with his bright smile.
"I haven't told you the news," he said softly. "I have found God. I found
Him out on the battlefield and He is great! It's all true! But you have
to search for Him with _all_ your heart, and not let any little old hate
or anything else hinder you, or it doesn't do any good."
Ruth, with her eyes shining, touched her lips softly to the back of his
bandaged hand that lay near her and whispered softly:
"I have found Him, too, dear. And I realize that He has been close beside
me all the time, only my heart was so full of myself that I never saw Him
before. But, oh, hasn't He been wonderful to us, and won't we have a
beautiful time living for Him together the rest of our lives?"
Then the bandaged hand went out and folded her close, and Cameron uttered
his assent in words too sacred for other ears to hear.