It was on a cold raw morning, that William West arrived in Denver, and,
as he made his way slowly from the sleeper to the waiting 'bus, he
shivered under his heavy overcoat. He was not glad to be back. Denver
and all its associations had faded into the pale background of past
memories--his face was set toward the future, a future that promised all
that joy of living, of loving and of being loved in return, which he so
eagerly desired.
It cut him bitterly to think of his treachery to Donald, a treachery in
no way lessened by the fact that love was its motive, yet he argued to
his conscience that the future happiness of both Edith and himself was
at stake and demanded of him even the sacrifice of his friendship.
He did not go to his accustomed rooms at the _Prairie_, for he intended
to make his stay in the city as short and uneventful as possible. There
was but one purpose in his mind--to dispose of his holdings in the mine,
resign his office as vice-president of the company and invest his
entire fortune in safe and desirable bonds, upon the interest of which
he would be able to carry out his future plans with no greater attention
to business affairs than that involved in clipping off his quarterly or
half-yearly coupons. Therefore he held aloof from his old friends, his
former associations. If he should let the men at the club know of his
presence in the city, they would not only take up a great deal of his
time, but would inevitably inquire into his plans in a way that might
easily prove embarrassing. He therefore betook himself to a quiet hotel,
not usually patronized by the traveling public, and, after a smoking-hot
breakfast, proceeded to the offices of the company.
West had anticipated that his associates in the Lone Star Mining Company
would be the most probable purchasers of his holdings and for this
reason had determined to offer them the first opportunity to buy. His
interview with Atkinson, the president, was entirely satisfactory. While
expressing deep regret at West's desire to withdraw from active
participation in the business, the astute Boston man grasped at once the
opportunity to acquire at, or near, par, a block of stock which would
be worth double its present value in the course of a few years. He at
once closed with West's offer, taking an option on his holdings for ten
days, during which time he expected to arrange for the necessary capital
to carry out the purchase. A meeting of the board was called to act upon
West's resignation, and, when the latter left the office for luncheon,
he had, as far as was possible, for the moment, completed the business
that had brought him to Denver.
The following ten days were a nightmare. There was nothing to do, but
write to Edith, it seemed, and to read her daily letters over and over,
drawing from them new inspiration for his plans with each rereading.
Slowly the ten days passed. Atkinson reported entire success in his
plans for the syndicate he was forming to take over West's holdings;
within a week the latter expected to be flying eastward, leaving the
matter of reinvesting his money until he should reach New York.
His anxiety to return as quickly as possible was accentuated by traces
of a change of heart which he fancied he detected in some of Edith's
later letters. She had spoken of her fears for the success of their
plans--her duty to her husband, her boy. "Poor little girl," thought
West, "she needs me with her, to keep up her courage in these most
trying hours of her life."
The night of the ninth day he went to bed early, with a dull, insistent
pain in his right side which he attributed to a cold, a result of the
raw, unseasonable weather. In the morning the pain had increased; he had
passed a restless, broken night, and arose feeling dizzy and half-sick.
He determined to consult a doctor, but not until he had completed his
business.
At ten o'clock he met Atkinson and his associates, and within an hour
the stock had been delivered, and the certified check for close to half
a million dollars deposited in the bank. A great sense of relief filled
his mind--he was free, to seek happiness wherever in the broad expanse
of the world he might find it. Yet beneath all his joy--his exultation,
there throbbed a double sense of pain, the dull gnawing of conscience at
his heart, and the sharp, insistent throbbing that, knife-like, shot
through his right side. Clearly this latter was not a matter to be
trifled with. He turned into the first doctor's office that met his
eye, and joined the other unfortunates waiting in the anteroom.
The doctor would see him presently, the low-voiced maid informed him. He
sat bolt upright in an uncomfortable chair and gripped his hands
together fiercely as the sharp pangs of pain tore at his vitals. Would
these people never be through? he wondered. From within the doctor's
office, shut off by glass doors, came the faint echoes of conversation;
some unfortunate, no doubt, hearing the dread sentence of life or death,
or perhaps only a nervous woman, being prescribed bread pills for a
fancied indisposition. There were two men and a woman waiting ahead of
him. They looked healthy enough; he wondered what they could have the
matter with them that made their faces so grave.
For nearly an hour he was forced to wait in an agony of mind and body,
until his turn came, and his thoughts were the thoughts of a man upon
whom the hand of death has already laid its icy touch. He knew it was
all nonsense--engendered of pain-racked nerves, yet his conscience smote
him, and would not be stilled. The pain in his side spelled disaster,
and he could not shake off the thought. He had never believed in the
direct intervention of Providence in the affairs of mankind, yet here
was he, at the moment when all his future, as he had planned it, lay
smiling before him, stricken with an illness which, laugh at it as he
would, he could not help fearing might mean an end to all his hopes.
He sat up and shook his head with a quick, nervous motion which had been
characteristic of him since childhood. This was all the height of folly,
he argued--the natural train of gloomy thoughts which resulted from his
surroundings. Even the faint odor of carbolic acid, compounded with that
of other unknown chemicals, was enough to make a man feel blue. He rose
as the maid beckoned to him--the other consultations had happily been
short.
Dr. Oliver was a man of few words. He had not time for more, for his
practice was one of the largest in the city. He glanced at West's
pain-drawn face, listened to his few words of explanation, felt his side
with practiced hands, and delivered his opinion in a few terse words.
"Appendicitis," he said quickly, "and an aggravated case. You must
undergo an operation at once."
Somehow or other West felt a sudden sense of relief at these words.
After all, an operation for appendicitis was not such a serious matter.
He knew any number of people who had been through it. "I am stopping at
a hotel," he observed. "I do not live in Denver. I suppose I shall be
obliged to go to a hospital at once."
"By all means." The doctor turned to his desk telephone and called a
number. "I will arrange for an operation at the City Hospital, if you
wish it."
"Thank you," replied West, "I do wish it."
The doctor held a short conversation over the telephone. "I presume you
can go to the hospital at once?" he inquired.
West nodded.
"I will send for a carriage," the doctor went on, as he drew a
thermometer from a leather case and placed it beneath West's tongue.
"Your case is an acute one, Mr. West, and we cannot afford to lose any
time." He again spoke sharply over the telephone, then, bidding West
bare his arm, gave him a quick hypodermic injection which diffused a
blessed sense of relief through every nerve of his pain-racked body. He
sank upon a couch, and awaited the coming of the carriage. His thoughts
were no longer gloomy. He seemed to be floating in a sea of warmth,
which caressed him pleasurably and filled him with a delicious feeling
of well-being. Even the dull-figured flowers on the walls of the
doctor's office seemed alive, and glowing with color. The coming of the
carriage seemed unimportant; nothing, in fact, seemed to matter, now
that the gnawing of that terrible pain had left him.
It was Wednesday afternoon when West arrived at the City Hospital, and
within two hours thereafter the operation was over, and he slowly
returned to a sense of the reality of life, with a feeling of deadly
nausea, and the pain once more throbbing in his right side. Over him
bent a clear-eyed nurse, sympathetic as to his comfort, offering him a
glass of water. Presently a physician joined her. West looked at them
without interest and from the jumbled impressions of the day once more
passed into a dreamless sleep.
It was in the early morning that he first began to think of Edith. Her
letters would be awaiting him at his hotel. He must send for them--he
must write to her and tell her of all that had happened. He felt that
she would be alarmed at not hearing from him, for, until the day
before, he had not failed to post a letter to her each night, telling
her of the events of the day.
In response to his repeated requests, the nurse sent a messenger boy for
his mail, and, when the latter returned, she read him Edith's letter at
his request. He could not read it himself--he lay flat on his back, in
semi-darkness, and even the slight effort of moving his hands seemed to
send innumerable sharp quivers of pain through every portion of his
body.
The nurse read the letter haltingly, as one reads an unfamiliar
handwriting; it was signed, like all the letters, with initials only,
and told him of Edith's anxiety to see him, of her hopes and fears, and
all the other foolish things that women write to men they love. To him
it seemed a message from heaven, for he loved her very deeply, and
her slightest word became a treasure to him, invested with a new
significance; lifted from its commonplace surroundings; something
to ponder over, and think about all through the long, weary day. He
sent a reply, treating lightly of his illness, so as not to alarm her
needlessly. The nurse carefully wrote it down for him at his dictation.
He hesitated when it came to telling the woman the address--he did not
wish to compromise Edith, to give her name to a stranger. There was no
other way, however, and, after all, he believed that, within a month at
the outside, they would be standing hand in hand at the taffrail of some
great ocean liner, watching the towering skyline of New York as it
disappeared in the hazy distance along with their troubles and cares.
The mere fact that their secret was known, now, to a hospital nurse,
could do no harm; in a few weeks all the world would know it, but they
would be in each other's arms, and the opinion of the world would not
matter very much.
The day seemed strangely long and he was glad when night came, and with
it some respite from his pain. He felt tired, terribly tired, and his
head throbbed with a burning fever. They gave him things to make him
sleep, and water for his cracking lips. As the evening wore on even the
thoughts of the morning's letter no longer interested him. He turned his
face to the wall, and tried not to think of anything at all. After a
while he slept, while the nurse and the doctor on his evening round
spoke together softly, and in grave tones, with many anxious glances in
his direction.
The next morning his fever was better, and the letter brought him from
his hotel made the day seem for a time full of joy and brightness, but
after a little while a great sense of weariness overcame him. Nothing
seemed to matter much; whether he lived or died. He was conscious only
of a desire to sleep--how long, even though forever, he did not care in
the very least.
About noon he was roused by the approach of someone toward his bed,
and opened his eyes to see Doctor Oliver standing beside him. The
doctor looked very grave as he took his patient's hand, his fingers
mechanically feeling the rapid, weak pulse. "Mr. West," said the
doctor, "I think you should let your family know of your illness."
West tried to raise his hand, then fell back with a sigh of weariness.
"Am I as sick as all that?" he inquired faintly, as he gazed into the
doctor's inscrutable eyes.
"You are a very sick man, Mr. West. I do not wish to needlessly alarm
you, but it would be best to communicate with your people, and put your
affairs in order, so that, whatever happens, you will be ready to meet
it."
The sick man looked at the doctor with a long, intent look. His lips
quivered, his hand tightened fearfully upon the one that held it. "You
mean that I am going to die?" he asked bravely. "Tell me the truth,
doctor. I would rather know." The doctor nodded his head slowly, but
made no other reply.
West was a long time in realizing the truth, yet it seemed as though he
had always known it. He had never quite believed that all the happiness
he looked forward to so gladly would ever really come true. It seemed
almost too much to ask of fate. And now it was all ended. He must die,
here alone, with not even Edith's presence to gladden his few remaining
hours. For a long time he looked at the doctor with burning eyes, yet no
words would come to say that which he felt. The doctor must have
understood, for he, too, stood silent, his eyes fixed tenderly upon the
dying man's face. At last he spoke.
"You should send for your people, Mr. West," he said.
"I have no people, doctor."
"Is there no one you would care to see?"
"No--no one that could come to me here." He thought of Edith--so far
away--even if she could come to him, he knew there would not be time. He
looked once more at the grave face which bent over his. "How long have I
to live, doctor?" he asked.
"I am afraid the time is not very long, Mr. West. If you have any
business affairs that you wish to attend to, I would advise you to do so
at once."
Business affairs! What business affairs could interest him now? His
fortune lay in the Central National Bank, and beyond some distant
relatives in New Hampshire whom he had never seen, and who scarcely knew
of his existence, there was no one on earth to whom he could leave it.
No one? The thought flashed through his mind--what about Edith? She was
nearer and dearer to him than all the relatives in the world--she must
have this money; at least it would bring her comfort and the ability to
make her life what she had always wished it to be. He raised his hand,
and began to speak. "You must send Austin Williams here, doctor. He is a
lawyer in the Pioneer Building. You can call him up on the telephone."
He sank back, exhausted from the effort of speaking. Williams had done
work for him in the past. It would be a small thing, to make his will.
The doctor and the nurse would act as witnesses. He asked the former to
hurry--there was no time to be lost--he felt his strength ebbing away
even as he spoke.
The long silence that followed until the lawyer arrived was unbroken
save by the labored breathing of the man in the bed. What thoughts
passed through his pain-tortured brain--what agony of regret, of
remorse, of self-accusation, he did not show by word or look. He lay
with his eyes closed, the seal of death upon his forehead. At last
the lawyer arrived, and in a few moments was apprised of the sad
circumstances which had called him. He gripped West's hand with a silent
pressure of sympathy, and listened to the broken words that told him of
last wishes. His entire property was to be left to Edith Pope Rogers,
wife of Donald Evan Rogers, of New York City. That was all. The lawyer
called for pen and paper, and rapidly drew up the short, concise will.
West's attorney in New York, Ogden Brennan by name, of the firm of
Gruber, McMillan, Brennan & Shaw, was named as executor.
Within fifteen minutes the will had been drawn, signed and duly
witnessed, and William West had completed his last earthly task. He bade
Williams a steady farewell, and then turned toward the wall. "I'm so
tired!" he moaned, then became quiet. They thought he was sleeping, and
did not disturb him. He was, but it was the sleep from which there is no
awakening.