as white as her linen gown, but her eyes were shining with strange
fires.
"White Rose," he said, wearily, "I have been through hell."
"I know," she answered, softly, drawing up a chair beside him. "Aunt
Francesca and I have wished that we might divide it with you and help
you bear it."
He stretched a trembling hand toward her and she took it in both her
own. They were soft and cool, and soothing.
"Thank you for wanting to share it," he said. "Thank you for coming, for
playing--for everything."
"Either of us would have come whenever you wanted us, night or day."
"Suppose it was night, and I'd wanted you to come and play to me. Would
you have come?"
"Why, yes. Of course I would!"
"I didn't know," he stammered, "that there was so much kindness in the
world. I have been very lonely since--"
Her eyes filled and she held his hand more closely. "You won't be lonely
any more. I'll come whenever you want me, night or day, to play, to
read--or anything. Only speak, and I'll come."
"How good you are!" he murmured, gratefully. "No, please don't let go of
my hand." In some inexplicable fashion strength seemed to flow to him
from her.
"I think you'll be glad to know," she said, "how sympathetic everybody
has been. Strangers stop us on the street to ask for you, and people
telephone every day. Down in the library, there's a pile of letters that
would take days to read, and many of them have foreign stamps. It makes
one feel warm around the heart, for it brings the ideal of human
brotherhood so near."
He sighed and his face looked haggard. The brotherhood of man was among
the things that did not concern him now. The weariness of the ages was
in every line of his body.
"I have been thinking," he went on, after a little, "what a difference
one little hour can make, a minute, even. Once I had everything--youth,
health, strength, a happy home, love, a dear father, and every promise
of success in my chosen career. Now I'm old and broken; health,
strength, and love have been taken away in an instant, my father is
gone, and my career is only an empty memory. I have no violin, and, if I
had, what use would it be to me without--why Rose, I haven't even
fingers to make the notes nor hands to hold it."
Rose could bear no more. She sprang to her feet with arms outstretched,
all her love and longing swelling into infinite appeal. "Oh Boy!" she
cried, "take mine! Take my hands, for always!"
For a tense instant they faced each other. Her breast rose and fell with
every quick breath; her eyes met his, then faltered, and the crimson of
shame mantled her white face.
"Oh," she breathed, painfully, and turned away from him. When she was
half way to the door, he called to her. "Rose! Dear Rose!"
She hesitated, her hand upon the knob. "Close the door and come back,"
he pleaded. "Please--oh, please!"
Trembling from head to foot, she obeyed him, but her face was pitiful.
She could not force herself to look at him. "Forgive," she murmured,
"and forget."
The hand he took in his was cold, but her nearness gave him comfort, as
never before. His heart was unspeakably tender toward her.
"Rose," he went on, softly, "I've been too near the other world not to
have the truth now. Tell me what you mean! Make me understand!"
She did not answer, nor even lift her eyes. She breathed hard, as though
she were in pain.
"Rose," he said again, tightening his clasp upon the hand she tried to
draw away, "did you mean that you would be my--"
"In name," she interrupted, throwing up her head proudly. "Just to help
you--that was all."
He drew her hand to his hot lips and kissed it twice. "Oh, how divinely
kind you are," he whispered, "even to think of stooping to such as I!"
"Have pity," she said brokenly, "and let me go."
"Pity?" he repeated. "In all the world there is none like yours. To
think of your being willing to sacrifice yourself, through pity of me!"
The blood came back into her heart by leaps and bounds. She had not
utterly betrayed herself, then, since he translated it thus.
"Listen," he was saying. "I cared--terribly, but it's gone, and my heart
is empty. It's like an open grave, waiting for something that does not
come. Did you ever care?"
"Yes," she answered, with eyes downcast.
"Did you care for someone who did not care for you?"
"Yes," she replied, again.
"And he never knew?"
"No." The word was almost a whisper.
"He must have been a brute, not to have cared. Was it long ago?"
"Not very."
"Have I ever met him?"
The suggestion of an ironical smile hovered for a moment around her pale
lips, then vanished. "No."
"I have no right to--to ask his name."
"No. What difference does a name make?"
"None. Could you never bring yourself to care for anyone else?"
"No," she breathed. "Oh, no!"
"And yet, with your heart as empty as mine you still have pity enough
to--"
"To serve you," she answered. Her eyes met his clearly now. "To help
you--as your best friend might."
"Rose, dear Rose! You give me new courage, but how can I let you
sacrifice yourself for me?" "Believe me," she said diffidently, "there
is no question of sacrifice. Have you never thought of what you might
do, that would be even better than the career you had planned?"
"Why, no. What could I do, without--"
"Write," she said, with her eyes shining. "Let others play what you
write. Immortality comes by way of the printed page."
"I couldn't," he returned, doubtfully.
"I never composed anything except two or three little things that I
never dared to play, even for encores."
"Never say you can't. Say 'I must,' and 'I will.'"
"You're saying them for me. You almost make me believe in myself."
"That's the very best of beginnings, isn't it?"
She was quite calm now, outwardly, and she drew her hand away. Allison
remembered the long, happy hours they had spent together before Isabel
came into his life. Now that she was gone, the old comradeship had
returned, the sweeter because of long absence. Rose had never fretted
nor annoyed him; she seemed always to understand.
"You don't know how glad I'd be," he sighed, "to feel that I wasn't
quite out of it--that there was something in life for me still. I didn't
want to be a bit of driftwood on the current of things."
"You're not going to be--I won't let you. Haven't you learned that
sometimes we have to wait; that we can't always be going on? Just moor
your soul at the landing place, and when the hour comes, you'll swing
out into the current again. Much of the driftwood is only craft that
broke away from the landing."
He smiled, for her fancy pleased him. An abiding sense of companionship
crept into his loneliness; his isolation seemed to be shared. "And
you'll stay at the landing with me," he whispered, "until the time comes
to set sail again?"
"Yes."
"And--after the worst that can come--is over, we'll make it right with
the world and go abroad together?"
"Yes." Her voice was very low now.
"And we'll be the best of friends, for always?"
"Yes--the best of friends in all the world."
"And you'll promise me that, if you're ever sorry, you'll come straight
and tell me--that you'll ask me to set you free?"
"I promise."
"Then everything is all right between you and me?"
"Yes, but I'm ashamed--bitterly ashamed."
"You mustn't be, for I'm very glad. We'll try to forget the wreckage
together. I couldn't have asked, unless I had known about--the other
man, and you wouldn't have told me, I know. It wouldn't have been like
you to tell me."
There was a knock, the door opened, and the nurse came in, watch in
hand. "I'm sorry, Miss Bernard, but you can come to-morrow if he's well
enough."
"I'll be well enough," said Allison, smiling.
"Of course," Rose assured him, shaking hands in friendly fashion. "Don't
forget that it's a secret."
"I won't. Good-bye, Rose."
When she had gone, the nurse studied him furtively, from across the
room. He had changed in some subtle way--he seemed stronger than before.
Unless it was excitement, to be followed by a reaction, Miss Bernard had
done him good. The night would prove it definitely, one way or the
other.
Allison slept soundly until daybreak, for the first time--not stupor,
but natural sleep. The nurse began to wonder if it was possible that a
hand so badly crushed and broken could be healed. Hitherto her service
had been mechanically kind; she had taken no interest because she saw no
hope. How wonderful it would be if that long procession of learned
counsellors should be mistaken after all!
Rose walked home, disdaining the waiting carriage. She had forgotten her
hat and the sunset lent radiance to a face that needed no more. By rare
tact and kindness, Allison had removed the sting from her shame and the
burden she had borne so long was lifted from her heavy heart.
She was happier now than she had ever been before in her life, but she
must hide her joy from the others as she had previously hidden her pain
--or tried to. She knew that Isabel would not see, but Aunt Francesca's
eyes were keen and she could not tell even her just now.
How strange it would be to wake in the night, without that dull, dead
pain! How strange it was to feel herself needed, and oh, the joy of
serving him!
She thrilled with the ecstasy of sacrifice; with that maternal
compassion which is a vital element in woman's love for man. Sublimated
beyond passion and self-seeking, and asking only the right to give, she
poured out the treasure of her soul at his feet, though her pride
demanded that he must never know.
When she went into the house, light seemed to enter the shaded room with
her. No one was there, but the open piano waited, ready to receive a
confidence. With a laugh that was half a sob of joy, she sat down, her
fingers readily finding the one thing that suited her mood.
The wild, half-savage music rang through the house in full, deep chords,
but only Rose knew the words, which, in her mind, fitted themselves to
the melody as though she dared to sing them:
"Less than the dust, beneath thy Chariot wheel,
Less than the rust, that never stained thy Sword,
Less than the trust thou hast in me, O Lord,
Even less then these.
"Less than the weed that grows beside thy door,
Less than the speed of hours spent far from thee,
Less than the need thou hast in life of me;
Even less am I."
Upstairs, Isabel yawned lazily, and wondered why Rose should play so
loud, but Aunt Francesca smiled to herself, for she knew that Allison
was better and that Rose was glad.
XIX
OVER THE BAR
As a flower may bloom in a night, joy returned to Madame Bernard's house
after long absence. There was no outward sign, for Rose was still quiet
and self-controlled, but her face was a shade less pale and there was a
tremulous music in her voice.
Isabel had ceased to limp, but still dwelt upon the shock and its
lingering effects. She amused herself in her own way, reading paper-
covered novels, feasting upon chocolates, teasing Mr. Boffin, and
playing solitaire. Madame remarked to Rose that Isabel seemed to have a
cosmic sense of time.
The guest never came down-stairs till luncheon was announced, and did
not trouble herself to make an elaborate, or even appropriate toilet.
Madame began to wonder how long Isabel intended to remain and to see the
wisdom of the modern fashion of appointing the hour of departure in the
invitation.
Yet, as she said to herself rather grimly, she would have invited Isabel
to remain through the Summer, and perhaps, in the early Autumn she might
return to town of her own accord. Moreover, there appeared to be no
graceful way of requesting an invited guest to leave.
Though Madame was annoyed by the mere fact of Isabel's presence, she had
ceased to distress Rose, who dwelt now in a world apart from the others.
She spent her afternoons at the other house, playing softly downstairs,
reading to Allison, or talking to him of the brilliant future that she
insisted was to be his.
Neither of them spoke of the hour in which Rose had unwittingly revealed
herself, nor did they seem to avoid the subject. Allison had taken her
for granted, on a high plane of pure friendliness, and not for an
instant did he translate her overpowering impulse as anything but
womanly pity.
She practised for an hour or two every morning that she might play
better in the afternoon, she ransacked the library for interesting and
cheerful things to read to him, and she even found a game or two that he
seemed to enjoy. From Madame Francesca's spotless kitchen came many a
dainty dish to tempt his capricious appetite, and all the flowers from
both gardens, daily, made a bower of his room.
Constantly, too, Rose brought the message of hopefulness and good cheer.
From her abounding life and superb vitality he drew unconscious
strength; the hidden forces that defy analysis once more exerted
themselves in his behalf. So far as man is of the earth, earthy, by the
earth and its fruits may he be healed, but the heavenly part of him may
be ministered unto only by the angels of God.
His old fear of the darkness had gone and the night light had been taken
out into the hall. In the faint glow, he could see the objects in his
room distinctly, during the brief intervals of wakefulness. A flower
dropped from its vase, a book lying half open, a crumpled handkerchief
upon his chiffonier, the pervading scent of attar of roses and dried
petals--all these brought him a strange sense of nearness to Rose, as a
perfume may be distilled from a memory.
Day by day, Isabel became more remote. He thought of her without emotion
when he thought of her at all, for only women may know the agony of love
enduring after the foundation upon which it was built has been swept
away.
The strange men from distant places came less frequently. Days would
pass, and bring no word. The country doctor who had first been called
stopped occasionally when time permitted, and his faithful old horse
needed a little rest, but he only shook his head. He admitted to the
nurse that he was greatly surprised because the inevitable operation had
not yet become imperative.
Colonel Kent seemed to have been lost for almost a week. During that
time no word had been received from him and Madame's daily bulletin: "No
change for the worse," had been returned, marked "not found." She was
vaguely troubled and uneasy, fearing that something might have happened
to him, but forebore to speak of her fears.
One morning, while Allison was still asleep, the nurse wakened him
gently. "A new man, Mr. Allison; can you see him now?"
"I don't care," he replied. "Bring him in."
The newcomer was a young man--one would have guessed that the ink was
scarcely dry on his diploma. He had a determined mouth, a square chin,
kind eyes, and the buoyant youthful courage that, by itself, carries one
far upon any chosen path.
He smiled at Allison and Allison smiled back at him, in friendly
fashion. "Now," said the young man, "let's see."
His big fingers were astonishingly gentle, they worked with marvellous
dexterity, and, for the first time, the dreaded examination was almost
painless. He asked innumerable questions both of Allison and the nurse,
and wanted to know who had been there previously.
The nurse had kept no record, but she knew some of the men, and
mentioned their names--names to conjure with in the professional world.
Even the two great Germans had said it was of no use.
The young man wrinkled his brows in deep thought. "What have you been
using?" he inquired, of the nurse.
"Everything. Come here."
She led him into the next room, where a formidable array of bottles and
boxes almost covered a large table. He looked them all over, carefully,
scrutinising the names on the druggist's labels, sniffing here and
there, occasionally holding some one bottle to the light, and finally,
out of sheer youthful curiosity, counting them.
Then he laughed--a cheery, hearty laugh that woke long-sleeping echoes
in the old house and made Allison smile, in the next room. "It seems,"
he commented, "that a doctor has to leave a prescription as other men
leave cards--just as a polite reminder of the call."
"What shall I do with them?"
"Dump 'em all out--I don't care. Or, wait a minute; there's no rush."
He went back to Allison. "I see you've got quite a drug store here. Are
you particularly attached to any special concoction?"
"Indeed I'm not. Most of 'em have hurt--sinfully."
"I don't know that anything has to be painful or disagreeable in order
to be healing," remarked the young man, thoughtfully. "Would you like to
throw 'em all out of the window?"
"I certainly would."
"All right--that'll be good business." He swung Allison's bed around so
that his right arm rested easily on the window sill, requested the nurse
to wheel the drug store within easy reach, and rapidly uncorked bottle
after bottle with his own hands.
"Now then, get busy."
He sat by, smiling, while Allison poured the varying contents of the
drug store on the ground below and listened for the sound of breaking
glass when the bottle swiftly followed the last gurgling drop. When all
had been disposed of, the nurse took out the table, and the young man
smiled expansively at Allison.
"Feel better?"
"I--think so."
"Good. Now, look here. How much does your hand mean to you?"
"How much does it mean?" repeated Allison, pitifully. "It means life,
career--everything."
"Enough to make a fight for it then, I take it."
Dull colour surged by waves into Allison's white face. "What do you
mean?" he asked, in a broken voice. "Tell me what you mean!"
But the young man was removing his coat. "Hot day," he was saying, "and
the young lady won't mind my negligee as long as the braces don't show.
Strange--how women hate nice new braces. Say," he said to the nurse as
she returned, "get somebody to go up to the station and bring down my
trunk, will you?"
"Trunk?" echoed Allison.
"Sure," smiled the young man. "My instructions were to stay if I saw any
hope, so I brought along my trunk. I'm always looking for a chance to
hope, and I've discovered that it's one of the very best ways to find
it."
The nurse had hastened away upon her errand. The new element in the
atmosphere of the sick room had subtly affected her, also.
"Don't fence," Allison was saying, huskily. "I've asked so much that
I've quit asking."
The young man nodded complete understanding. "I know. The moss-backs sit
around and look wise, and expect to work miracles on a patient who
doesn't know what they're doing and finally gets the impression that he
isn't considered fit to know. Far be it from me to disparage the
pioneers of our noble profession, but I'm modest enough to admit that I
need help, and the best help, every time, comes from the patient
himself."
He drew up his chair beside the bed and sat down. Allison's eager eyes
did not swerve from his face.
"Mind you," he went on, "I don't promise anything--I can't,
conscientiously. In getting a carriage out of the mud, more depends upon
the horse than on the driver. Nature will have to do the work--I can't.
All I can do is to guide her gently. If she's pushed, she gets balky.
Maybe there's something ahead of her that I don't see, and there's no
use spurring her ahead when she's got to stop and get her breath before
she can go up hill.
"That hand can't heal itself without good blood to draw upon, and good
material to make bone and nerve of, so we'll begin to stoke up,
gradually, and meanwhile, I'll camp right here and see what's doing. And
if you can bring yourself to sort of--well, sing at your work, you know,
it's going to make the job a lot easier."
Allison drew a long breath of relief. "You give me hope," he said.
"Sure," returned the young man, with an infectious laugh. "A young
surgeon never has much else when he starts, nor for some time to come.
Want to sit up?"
"Why," Allison breathed, in astonishment, "I can't."
"Who said so?"
"Everybody. They all said I must lie perfectly still."
"Of course," mused the young man, aloud, "blood may move around all
right of itself, and then again, it may not. Wouldn't do any harm to
stir it up a bit and remind the red corpuscles not to loaf on the job."
The nurse came back, to say that the trunk would be up immediately.
"Good. Can I have a bunk in the next room?" Without waiting for her
answer, he requested raw eggs and milk, beaten up with a little cream
and sherry.
While Allison was drinking it, he moved a big easy chair up near the
window, opened every shutter wide, and let the hot sun stream into the
room. He expeditiously made a sling for the injured hand, slipped it
painlessly into place, put a strong arm under Allison's shoulders, and
lifted him to a sitting posture on the edge of the bed. "Now then,
forward, march! Just lean on me."
Muscles long unused trembled under the strain but finally he made the
harbour of the easy chair, gasping for breath. "Good," said the young
man. "At this rate, we'll soon have clothes on us and be outdoors."
"Really?" asked Allison, scarcely daring to believe his ears.
"Sure," replied the marvellous young man, confidently. "What's the use
of keeping a whole body in the house on account of one hand? I'm going
to tell you just one thing more, then we'll quit talking shop and
proceed to politics or anything else you like.
"I knew a man once who was a trapeze performer in a circus and he was
training his son in the same lofty profession. The boy insisted that he
couldn't do it, and finally the man said to him: 'Look here, kid, if
you'll put your heart over the bar, your body will follow all right,'
and sure enough it did. Now you get your heart over the bar, and trust
your hand to follow. Get the idea?"
The sound of the piano below chimed in with the answer. A rippling,
laughing melody danced up the stairs and into the room. The young man
listened a moment, then asked, "Who?"
"A friend of mine--my very dearest friend."
"More good business. I think I'll go down and talk to her. What's her
name?"
"Rose."
"What's the rest of it? I can't start in that way, you know. Bad form."
"Bernard--Rose Bernard."
As quickly and silently as he did everything else, the young man went
down-stairs, and the piano stopped, but only for a moment, as he
requested her, with an airy wave of the hand, not to mind him. When she
finished the old song she was playing, he called her by name, introduced
himself, and invited her out into the garden, because, as he said,
"walls not only have ears, but telephones."
"Say," he began, by way of graceful preliminary, "you look to me as
though you had sense."
"Thank you," she replied, demurely.
"Sense," he resumed, "is lamentably scarce, especially the variety
misnamed common--or even horse. I'm no mental healer, nor anything of
that sort, you know, but it's reasonable to suppose that if the mind can
control the body, after a fashion, when the body is well, it's entitled
to some show when the body isn't well, don't you think so?"
Rose assented, though she did not quite grasp what he said. His all
pervading breeziness affected her much as it had Allison.
"Now," he continued, "I'm not unprofessional enough to knock anybody,
but I gather that there's been a procession of undertakers down here
making that poor chap upstairs think there's no chance. I'm not saying
that there is, but there's no reason why we shouldn't trot along until
we have to stop. It isn't necessary to amputate just yet, and until it
is necessary, there's nothing to hinder us from working like the devil
to save him from it, is there?"
"Surely not."
"All right. Are you in on it?"
"I'm 'in,'" replied Rose, slowly, "on anything and everything that human
power can do, day or night, until we come to the last ditch."
"Good for you. I'll appoint you first lieutenant. I guess that nurse is
all right, though she doesn't seem to be unduly optimistic."
"She's had nothing to make her so. Everything has been discouraging so
far."
"Plenty of discouragement in the world," he observed, "handed out free
of charge, without paying people to bring it into the house when you're
peevish."
"Very true," she answered, then her eyes filled. "Oh," she breathed,
with white lips, "if you can--if you only can--"
"We'll have a try for it," he said, then continued, kindly: "no salt
water upstairs, you know."
"I know," she sighed, wiping her eyes.
"Then 'on with the dance--let joy be unconfined.'"