WITH THE OUTGOING TIDE
He simply took her into the room, and there was Karl--alive. That was all
she grasped at first; it filled her so completely she could take in
nothing else. He was lying there, seemingly half asleep, looking much as
he always did, save that of course it was plain he was very sick. She
stooped down and kissed him, and his face lighted up, and he smiled a
little. "Ernestine," he murmured, "did they frighten you?"
It was as she had known! His thought was of her. And oh how sorry Karl
would be when he was quite well and she told him all!
She nestled her head close to him, her arm thrown about him. The
tears were running down her cheeks. Of the blessedness of finding Karl
here--breathing, smiling upon her, sorry she had been frightened! She
took his hand and it responded to her clasp. That thrilled her through
and through. Those awful fears--those never-to-be-forgotten fears--that
Karl's hand might never close over hers again! She leaned over him that
she might feel his breath upon her face. In all her life there had never
been so blessed a joy as this feeling Karl's breath upon her cheek.
Nothing mattered now--work, eyes, nothing. She had him back; she asked
nothing more of life. What could anything else matter now that those
awful fears had drawn away? She was sobbing quietly to herself. Again his
hand closed over hers.
Then something made her look up, and at the foot of the bed she saw Dr.
Parkman. One look at his face and she grew cold from head to foot; her
throat grew painfully tight; strange things came before her eyes. She
could not move. She simply remained there upon her knees, looking at Dr.
Parkman's face, her own frozen with terror.
The doctor came to her, took her hands, and helped her to rise. Two
nurses and another doctor were bending over Karl--doing something. Dr.
Parkman led Ernestine into an adjoining room.
She did not take her eyes from his face; the appeal, terror, in them
seemed to strike him dumb. It was as though his own throat were closed,
for several times he tried vainly to speak.
"Ernestine," he said at last, "Karl is very sick."
"How--sick?" she managed to whisper.
"How--sick?" she repeated as he stood there looking at her helplessly.
And, finally, he said, as if it were killing him to do it--"So sick
that--"
"Don't say that!"--she fairly hissed it at him.
"Don't _dare_ say that! You _did_ it--you----" And then, sinking down
beside him, catching hold of his hand, she sobbed out, wildly,
heartbreakingly--"Oh, Dr. Parkman--oh, please--_please_ tell me you
_will_ save Karl!"
Her sobs were becoming uncontrollable. "Ernestine," he said, sharply--"be
quiet. Be quiet! You have got to help."
The sobs stopped; she rose to her feet. He pulled up a chair for her, but
she did not sit down. A few sobs still came, but her face was becoming
stern, set.
"Tell me," she said, holding her two hands tight against her breast, and
looking him straight in the face.
And then he jerked it out. Karl had been taken ill--pain, fever, he
feared appendicitis. He had two other doctors see him; they agreed
that he must be operated on immediately. They brought him here. They
found--conditions awful. They did all that surgery could do--every known
thing was being done now, but--they did not know. He had rallied a little
from the operation; now he seemed to be drooping. He was in bad shape
generally,--heart weakened by the shock of his blindness, intestines
broken down by lack of exercise, whole system affected by changed
conditions--all these things combined against him. He told the short
story with his own lips white, swaying a little, seeming fairly to age as
he stood there.
Her face had been changing as she listened. He had never seen a human
face look as hers did then; he had never heard a human voice sound as
hers sounded when she said: "Dr. Parkman, you are mistaken." She looked
him straight in the eye--a look which held the whole force of her being.
"I say you are mistaken. We will go back in here now to Karl. You and I
together are going to save him."
There was the light from higher worlds in her eye as she went back, in
her voice a force which men have never named or understood. And something
which emanated from her took hold of every one who came into that room.
There was more than the resources of medical science at work now.
On her knees beside the bed, her arm about him, passionately shielding
him from the dark forces around him, her face often touching his as if
reassuring him, Ernestine spoke to Karl, quietly, tenderly, forcefully,
love's own intuition telling her how much to say, when to speak. By her
warm body which loved him, by her great spirit which claimed him, she
would hold him from the outgoing tide. Her voice could rouse him where
other stimulants failed; the only effort he made was the tightening of
his hand over hers, and sometimes he smiled a little as he felt her close
to him.
Two hours went by; the lines in Dr. Parkman's face were deepening. They
worked on unfalteringly--hypodermics, heat, rubbing, oxygen, all those
things with which man seeks to deceive himself, and for which the foe,
with the tolerance of power, is willing to wait. But their faces were
changing. The call of the outgoing tide, that tide over which human
determination has not learned to prevail, was coming close. They worked
on, for they were trained to work on, even through the sense of their own
futility.
Looking about her Ernestine saw it all, and held him with a passionate
protectiveness. If all else failed, her arms--arms to which he had ever
come for help and consolation--could surely hold him! The cold fear crept
farther and farther into her heart, and as it crept on her arms about him
tightened. Not while she held him like this! Oh not while she held him
like this!
And then a frenzy possessed her. That she should sit here
powerless--weeping--despairing, surrendering, while Karl slipped
from her! She must do something--say something--something to hold him
firm--call him back--make him understand that he must fight!
Suddenly a light broke over her face. She looked at Dr. Parkman, who was
bending over Karl. "I will tell him," she whispered--"what I did--the
secret--about the work."
He hesitated; medically his judgment was against it; and then, white to
the lips with the horror of the admission he faced the fact that this had
passed beyond things medical. Let her try where he had failed. Through a
rush of uncontrollable tears he nodded yes.
And she did tell him,--in words which were not sentences, with
sharp flashes of thought--such flashes as alone could penetrate the
semi-consciousness into which she must reach; after a moment of pause in
which to gather herself together for the great battle of her life, with
concentration, illumination, with a piercing eloquence which brought hot
tears to every cheek, and deep, deep prayers to hearts which would have
said they did not know how to pray--a woman fighting for the man she
loved, human love at its whitest heat pitted against destiny--she told
him.
"Karl," at the last--"you _understand?_--That's the great
secret!--_That's_ the great picture! I've not painted one stroke this
winter! I've been working for _you_--working in your laboratory every
day--studying day and night--getting ready to be your eyes--going to give
you back your work--oh, Karl--_Karl_--won't you--" but the sobs could
hold back no longer.
She had reached him. He took it in, just a little at first, but
comprehension was growing, and upon his face a great wondering, a
softening.
"Old man,"--it was Dr. Parkman now--"you get that? See what you've got
ahead? God, man--but it was splendid! She came to me with the idea--_her_
idea--thought it all out herself. Karl was not happy--Karl must have his
work. Karl--Karl--it was nothing but Karl. She was closer to him than any
one in the world. She could make him see what others could not. Then
_she_ would be his eyes. Man--do you know that this woman has fairly made
over her soul for love of you? Do you know that she has given up becoming
one of the great painters of the world to become your assistant? Do you
get it, Karl? So help me God it was the pluckiest fight I've ever seen or
heard of. And she's won! I'm no fool--and I say she can do what she says
she can. She's ready. She's ready to begin to-morrow. What do you say,
old man? What do you think of Ernestine now? Isn't she worth taking a
good brace and living for?"
And then he got it all; he was taking it in, rising to it, understanding,
glowing. And a look that was very wonderful was growing upon Karl's face.
"Ernestine," he whispered, dwelling long upon the name, his voice a voice
of wonder, "you did that--for me?"
"I did it because I love you so!" she whispered, and it seemed that
surely death itself could not withstand the tenderness of it.
And then his whole face became transfigured. His blind eyes were opened
to the light of love. His illumined face reflected it as the supreme
moment of his life. In that moment he triumphed over all powers set
against him. He rose out of suffering on wings of glory. He transcended
sorrow and tragedy, blindness--yes, in that moment, death. He saw behind
the veil; he saw into the glory of a soul; he comprehended the wonder of
love. Compensation for suffering and loss--understanding, victory, peace;
it was the human face lighted with divine light. They did not dare to
move or breathe as they looked upon the wonder of his face.
"Ernestine--little one," he whispered, the light not going from his
face--"you loved me--like that?"
"You see, Karl,"--it was this must reach him--"what you have to live for
now?"
But he did not get that. He was filled with the wonder of that which he
was seeing.
"You see, old man," said Parkman, sharply, "what you've got ahead of
you?"
But he only murmured, happily, faintly, as one about to fall asleep: "She
loved me--like that."
It terrified her; it seemed, not as though the great idea were holding
him, but as though he were taking it away with him, even as though well
content to go, having this to take with him from life.
"Karl--Karl!" she sobbed--"don't you _see _how I love you?--don't you see
you _must _live now--for me?"
But he had far transcended all sense of suffering or loss, even her
suffering and loss. Her plea--she herself--could not reach him. He and
the great idea were going away together. And that light did not leave his
face.
It was so that he sank into a sleep. He did not hear Ernestine's sobs; he
knew nothing of her pleading cries. In a frenzy of grief she felt him
going out to where she could not reach him. She called to him, and he did
not answer. She pressed close to him, and he did not know that she was
there.
But the great idea was with him. It lighted his face to the last. It was
as if that were what he was taking with him from life. It was as if that,
and that alone, he could keep.
"Karl--Karl!" she cried, terrorised--"look at me! Speak to me! I am here!
Ernestine is here!"--And then, the strongest word of woman to man--"I'm
frightened! Oh take care of me--Karl--take care of me!"
Dr. Parkman tried to take her away, but she resisted fiercely, and they
let her stay. And during the few hours which followed she never ceased
her pleading--to him to come back to her, to them to help. Crazed with
the consciousness of his slipping from her, wild beyond all reason with
the thought that her kisses could not move him, her arms could not hold
him, her passion lashed to the uttermost in the thought that she must
claim him now or lose him forever, she pleaded with all the eloquence of
human voice and human tears. She could not believe it--that he was there
beside her and would not listen to her pleadings. Again and again she
told him that she was frightened and alone; that--surely that--he must
hear. It could not be that he was there beside her, breathing, moving a
little now and then, and did not hear her call for help.
And when at last she heard some one speak a low word, and saw some one
bend over him to close his eyes, she uttered one piercing, heartbreaking
cry which they would bear with them so long as they lived. And then,
throwing herself upon him, shielding him, keeping him, there came the
wild, futile call of life to death--"Karl!--Karl!--_Karl!_"
PART THREE