THE WORKS OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART

 LOVE STORIES

THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANYPublishers NEW YORK

PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENTWITH GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. 

Copyright, 1919, By George H. Doran Company

Copyright, 1912, 1913, 1916, by the Curtis Publishing CompanyCopyright, 1912, by The McClure Publications, Inc. Copyright, 1917, by The Metropolitan Magazine Co. 

 CONTENTS

 I TWENTY-TWO

 II JANE

 III IN THE PAVILION

 IV GOD'S FOOL

 V THE MIRACLE

 VI "ARE WE DOWNHEARTED? NO!"

 VII THE GAME

LOVE STORIES

TWENTY-TWO

I

The Probationer's name was really Nella Jane Brown, but she wasentered in the training school as N. Jane Brown. However, she meantwhen she was accepted to be plain Jane Brown. Not, of course, thatshe could ever be really plain. 

People on the outside of hospitals have a curious theory aboutnurses, especially if they are under twenty. They believe that theyhave been disappointed in love. They never think that they mayintend to study medicine later on, or that they may think nursing isa good and honourable career, or that they may really like to carefor the sick. 

The man in this story had the theory very hard. 

When he opened his eyes after the wall of the warehouse dropped, N. Jane Brown was sitting beside him. She had been practising countingpulses on him, and her eyes were slightly upturned and very earnest. 

There was a strong odour of burnt rags in the air, and the mansniffed. Then he put a hand to his upper lip--the right hand. Shewas holding his left. 

"Did I lose anything besides this?" he inquired. His littlemoustache was almost entirely gone. A gust of fire had accompaniedthe wall. 

"Your eyebrows, " said Jane Brown. 

The man--he was as young for a man as Jane Brown was for anurse--the man lay quite still for a moment. Then:

"I'm sorry to undeceive you, " he said. "But my right leg is off. "

He said it lightly, because that is the way he took things. But hehad a strange singing in his ears. 

"I'm afraid it's broken. But you still have it. " She smiled. She hada very friendly smile. "Have you any pain anywhere?"

He was terribly afraid she would go away and leave him, so, althoughhe was quite comfortable, owing to a hypodermic he had had, hegroaned slightly. He was, at that time, not particularly interestedin Jane Brown, but he did not want to be alone. He closed his eyesand said feebly:

"Water!"

She gave him a teaspoonful, bending over him and being careful notto spill it down his neck. Her uniform crackled when she moved. Ithad rather too much starch in it. 

The man, whose name was Middleton, closed his eyes. Owing to themorphia, he had at least a hundred things he wished to discuss. Thetrouble was to fix on one out of the lot. 

"I feel like a bit of conversation, " he observed. "How about you?"

Then he saw that she was busy again. She held an old-fashionedhunting-case watch in her hand, and her eyes were fixed on hischest. At each rise and fall of the coverlet her lips moved. Mr. Middleton, who was feeling wonderful, experimented. He drew fourvery rapid breaths, and four very slow ones. He was rewarded byseeing her rush to a table and write something on a sheet of yellowpaper. 

"Resparation, very iregular, " was what she wrote. She was not aparticularly good speller. 

After that Mr. Middleton slept for what he felt was a day and anight. It was really ten minutes by the hunting-case watch. Justlong enough for the Senior Surgical Interne, known in the school asthe S. S. I. , to wander in, feel his pulse, approve of Jane Brown, andgo out. 

Jane Brown had risen nervously when he came in, and had profferedhim the order book and a clean towel, as she had been instructed. Hehad, however, required neither. He glanced over the record, changedthe spelling of "resparation, " arranged his tie at the mirror, tookanother look at Jane Brown, and went out. He had not spoken. 

It was when his white-linen clad figure went out that Middletonwakened and found it was the same day. He felt at once likeconversation, and he began immediately. But the morphia did acurious thing to him. He was never afterward able to explain it. Itmade him create. He lay there and invented for Jane Brown afictitious person, who was himself. This person, he said, was anewspaper reporter, who had been sent to report the warehouse fire. He had got too close, and a wall had come down on him. He inventedthe newspaper, too, but, as Jane Brown had come from somewhere else, she did not notice this. 

In fact, after a time he felt that she was not as really interestedas she might have been, so he introduced a love element. He was, ashas been said, of those who believe that nurses go into hospitalsbecause of being blighted. So he introduced a Mabel, suppressing herother name, and boasted, in a way he afterward remembered withhorror, that Mabel was in love with him. She was, he related, something or other on his paper. 

At the end of two hours of babbling, a businesslike person in acap--the Probationer wears no cap--relieved Jane Brown, and spilledsome beef tea down his neck. 

Now, Mr. Middleton knew no one in that city. He had been motoringthrough, and he had, on seeing the warehouse burning, abandoned hismachine for a closer view. He had left it with the engine running, and, as a matter of fact, it ran for four hours, when it died ofstarvation, and was subsequently interred in a city garage. However, he owned a number of cars, so he wasted no thought on that one. Hewas a great deal more worried about his eyebrows, and, naturally, about his leg. 

When he had been in the hospital ten hours it occurred to him tonotify his family. But he put it off for two reasons: first, itwould be a lot of trouble; second, he had no reason to think theyparticularly wanted to know. They all had such a lot of things todo, such as bridge and opening country houses and going to theSprings. They were really overwhelmed, without anything new, andthey had never been awfully interested in him anyhow. 

He was not at all bitter about it. 

That night Mr. Middleton--but he was now officially "Twenty-two, " bythat system of metonymy which designates a hospital private patientby the number of his room--that night "Twenty-two" had rather a badtime, between his leg and his conscience. Both carried ondisgracefully. His leg stabbed, and his conscience reminded him ofMabel, and that if one is going to lie, there should at least be areason. To lie out of the whole cloth----!

However, toward morning, with what he felt was the entirepharmacopoeia inside him, and his tongue feeling like a tar roof, hemade up his mind to stick to his story, at least as far as the younglady with the old-fashioned watch was concerned. He had a sort ofcreed, which shows how young he was, that one should never explainto a girl. 

There was another reason still. There had been a faint sparkle inthe eyes of the young lady with the watch while he was lying to her. He felt that she was seeing him in heroic guise, and the thoughtpleased him. It was novel. 

To tell the truth, he had been getting awfully bored with himselfsince he left college. Everything he tried to do, somebody elsecould do so much better. And he comforted himself with this, that hewould have been a journalist if he could, or at least have publisheda newspaper. He knew what was wrong with about a hundred newspapers. 

He decided to confess about Mabel, but to hold fast to journalism. Then he lay in bed and watched for the Probationer to come back. 

However, here things began to go wrong. He did not see Jane Brownagain. There were day nurses and night nurses and reliefs, and_internes_ and Staff and the Head Nurse and the First Assistantand--everything but Jane Brown. And at last he inquired for her. 

"The first day I was in here, " he said to Miss Willoughby, "therewas a little girl here without a cap. I don't know her name. But Ihaven't seen her since. "

Miss Willoughby, who, if she had been disappointed in love, hadcertainly had time to forget it, Miss Willoughby reflected. 

"Without a cap? Then it was only one of the probationers. "

"You don't remember which one?"

But she only observed that probationers were always coming andgoing, and it wasn't worth while learning their names until theywere accepted. And that, anyhow, probationers should never be sentto private patients, who are paying a lot and want the best. 

"Really, " she added, "I don't know what the school is coming to. Since this war in Europe every girl wants to wear a uniform and beready to go to the front if we have trouble. All sorts of sillychildren are applying. We have one now, on this very floor, not aday over nineteen. "

"Who is she?" asked Middleton. He felt that this was the one. Shewas so exactly the sort Miss Willoughby would object to. 

"Jane Brown, " snapped Miss Willoughby. "A little, namby-pamby, mush-and-milk creature, afraid of her own shadow. "

Now, Jane Brown, at that particular moment, was sitting in herlittle room in the dormitory, with the old watch ticking on thestand so she would not over-stay her off duty. She was aching withfatigue from her head, with its smooth and shiny hair, to her feet, which were in a bowl of witch hazel and hot water. And she wascrying over a letter she was writing. 

Jane Brown had just come from her first death. It had taken place inH ward, where she daily washed window-sills, and disinfected stands, and carried dishes in and out. And it had not been what she hadexpected. In the first place, the man had died for hours. She hadnever heard of this. She had thought of death as coming quickly--aglance of farewell, closing eyes, and--rest. But for hours and hoursthe struggle had gone on, a fight for breath that all the ward couldhear. And he had not closed his eyes at all. They were turned up, and staring. 

The Probationer had suffered horribly, and at last she had gonebehind the screen and folded her hands and closed her eyes, and saidvery low:

"Dear God--please take him quickly. "

He had stopped breathing almost immediately. But that may have beena coincidence. 

However, she was not writing that home. Between gasps she wastelling the humours of visiting day in the ward, and of how kindevery one was to her, which, if not entirely true, was not entirelyuntrue. They were kind enough when they had time to be, or when theyremembered her. Only they did not always remember her. 

She ended by saying that she was quite sure they meant to accept herwhen her three months was up. It was frightfully necessary that shebe accepted. 

She sent messages to all the little town, which had seen her offalmost _en masse_. And she added that the probationers received theregular first-year allowance of eight dollars a month, and she couldmake it do nicely--which was quite true, unless she kept on breakingthermometers when she shook them down. 

At the end she sent her love to everybody, including even worthlessJohnny Fraser, who cut the grass and scrubbed the porches; and, ofcourse, to Doctor Willie. He was called Doctor Willie because hisfather, who had taken him into partnership long ago, was DoctorWill. It never had seemed odd, although Doctor Willie was nowsixty-five, and a saintly soul. 

Curiously enough, her letter was dated April first. Under that verydate, and about that time of the day, a health officer in a near-byborough was making an entry regarding certain coloured gentlemenshipped north from Louisiana to work on a railroad. Opposite thename of one Augustus Baird he put a cross. This indicated thatAugustus Baird had not been vaccinated. 

By the sixth of April "Twenty-two" had progressed from splints to aplaster cast, and was being most awfully bored. Jane Brown had notreturned, and there was a sort of relentless maturity about thenurses who looked after him that annoyed him. 

Lying there, he had a good deal of time to study them, and somehowhis recollection of the girl with the hunting-case watch did notseem to fit her in with these kindly and efficient women. He couldnot, for instance, imagine her patronising the Senior SurgicalInterne in a deferential but unmistakable manner, or good-naturedlybullying the First Assistant, who was a nervous person in shoes toosmall for her, as to their days off duty. 

Twenty-two began to learn things about the hospital. For instance, the day nurse, while changing his pillow slips, would observe thatNineteen was going to be operated on that day, and close her lipsover further information. But when the afternoon relief, whilegiving him his toothbrush after lunch, said there was a mostinteresting gall-stone case in nineteen, and the night nurse, inreply to a direct question, told Nineteen's name, but nothing else, Twenty-two had a fair working knowledge of the day's events. 

He seemed to learn about everything but Jane Brown. He knew when anew baby came, and was even given a glimpse of one, showing, heconsidered, about the colour and general contour of a maraschinocherry. And he learned soon that the god of the hospital is theStaff, although worship did not blind the nurses to theirweaknesses. Thus the older men, who had been trained before the dayof asepsis and modern methods, were revered but carefully watched. They would get out of scrubbing their hands whenever they could, andthey hated their beards tied up with gauze. The nurses, keen, competent and kindly, but shrewd, too, looked after these elderlyrecalcitrants; loved a few, hated some, and presented to the worldunbroken ranks for their defence. 

Twenty-two learned also the story of the First Assistant, who was inlove with one of the Staff, who was married, and did not care forher anyhow. So she wore tight shoes, and was always beautifullywaved, and read Browning. 

She had a way of coming in and saying brightly, as if to reassureherself:

"Good morning, Twenty-two. Well, God is still in His heaven, andall's well with the world. "

Twenty-two got to feeling awfully uncomfortable about her. She usedto bring him flowers and sit down a moment to rest her feet, whichgenerally stung. And she would stop in the middle of a sentence andlook into space, but always with a determined smile. 

He felt awfully uncomfortable. She was so neat and so efficient--andso tragic. He tried to imagine being hopelessly in love, and tryingto live on husks of Browning. Not even Mrs. Browning. 

The mind is a curious thing. Suddenly, from thinking of Mrs. Browning, he thought of N. Jane Brown. Of course not by thatridiculous name. He had learned that she was stationed on thatfloor. And in the same flash he saw the Senior Surgical Interneswanking about in white ducks and just the object for a probationerto fall in love with. He lay there, and pulled the beginning of thenew moustache, and reflected. The First Assistant was pinning aspray of hyacinth in her cap. 

"Look here, " he said. "Why can't I be put in a wheeled chair and getabout? One that I can manipulate myself, " he added craftily. 

She demurred. Indeed, everybody demurred when he put it up to them. But he had gone through the world to the age of twenty-four, gettinghis own way about ninety-seven per cent. Of the time. He got it thistime, consisting of a new cast, which he named Elizabeth, and aroller-chair, and he spent a full day learning how to steer himselfaround. 

Then, on the afternoon of the third day, rolling back toward theelevator and the _terra incognita_ which lay beyond, he saw a sign. He stared at it blankly, because it interfered considerably with aplan he had in mind. The sign was of tin, and it said:

"No private patients allowed beyond here. "

Twenty-two sat in his chair and stared at it. The plaster caststretched out in front of him, and was covered by a grey blanket. With the exception of the trifling formality of trousers, he waswell dressed in a sack coat, a shirt, waistcoat, and a sort ofcollege-boy collar and tie, which one of the orderlies had purchasedfor him. His other things were in that extremely expensive Englishcar which the city was storing. 

The plain truth is that Twenty-two was looking for Jane Brown. Sinceshe had not come to him, he must go to her. He particularly wantedto set her right as to Mabel. And he felt, too, that that trickabout respirations had not been entirely fair. 

He was, of course, not in the slightest degree in love with her. Hehad only seen her once, and then he had had a broken leg and aquarter grain of morphia and a burned moustache and no eyebrows leftto speak of. 

But there was the sign. It was hung to a nail beside the elevatorshaft. And far beyond, down the corridor, was somebody in a bluedress and no cap. It might be anybody, but again----

Twenty-two looked around. The elevator had just gone down at itsusual rate of a mile every two hours. In the convalescent parlour, where private patients _en negligée_ complained about the hospitalfood, the nurse in charge was making a new cap. Over all thehospital brooded an after-luncheon peace. 

Twenty-two wheeled up under the sign and considered his average ofninety-seven per cent. Followed in sequence these events: (a)Twenty-two wheeled back to the parlour, where old Mr. Simond's caneleaned against a table, and, while engaging that gentleman inconversation, possessed himself of the cane. (b) Wheeled back to theelevator. (c) Drew cane from beneath blanket. (d) Unhooked sign withcane and concealed both under blanket. (e) Worked his way back alongthe forbidden territory, past I and J until he came to H ward. 

Jane Brown was in H ward. 

She was alone, and looking very professional. There is nothing quiteso professional as a new nurse. She had, indeed, reached a pointwhere, if she took a pulse three times, she got somewhat similarresults. There had been a time when they had run something likethis: 56--80--120----

Jane Brown was taking pulses. It was a visiting day, and all thebeds had fresh white spreads, tucked in neatly at the foot. In theexact middle of the centre table with its red cloth, was a vase ofyellow tulips. The sun came in and turned them to golden flame. 

Jane Brown was on duty alone and taking pulses with one eye whileshe watched the visitors with the other. She did the watching betterthan she did the pulses. For instance, she was distinctly aware thatStanislas Krzykolski's wife, in the bed next the end, had just slida half-dozen greasy cakes, sprinkled with sugar, under his pillow. She knew, however, that not only grease but love was in those cakes, and she did not intend to confiscate them until after Mrs. Krzykolski had gone. 

More visitors came. Shuffling and self-conscious mill-workers, walking on their toes; draggled women; a Chinese boy; a girl with arouged face and a too confident manner. A hum of conversation hungover the long room. The sunlight came in and turned to glory, notonly the tulips and the red tablecloth, but also the brass basins, the fireplace fender, and the Probationer's hair. 

Twenty-two sat unnoticed in the doorway. A young girl, very lame, with a mandolin, had just entered the ward. In the little stir ofher arrival, Twenty-two had time to see that Jane Brown was wortheven all the trouble he had taken, and more. Really, to see JaneBrown properly, she should have always been seen in the sun. She wasthat sort. 

The lame girl sat down in the centre of the ward, and the buzz diedaway. She was not pretty, and she was very nervous. Twenty-twofrowned a trifle. 

"Poor devils, " he said to himself. But Jane Brown put away herhunting-case watch, and the lame girl swept the ward with soft eyesthat had in them a pity that was almost a benediction. 

Then she sang. Her voice was like her eyes, very sweet and ratherfrightened, but tender. And suddenly something a little hard andselfish in Twenty-two began to be horribly ashamed of itself. And, for no earthly reason in the world, he began to feel like a cumbererof the earth. Before she had finished the first song, he wasthinking that perhaps when he was getting about again, he might runover to France for a few months in the ambulance service. A fellowreally ought to do his bit. 

At just about that point Jane Brown turned and saw him. And althoughhe had run all these risks to get to her, and even then had anextremely cold tin sign lying on his knee under the blanket, atfirst she did not know him. The shock of this was almost too muchfor him. In all sorts of places people were glad to see him, especially women. He was astonished, but it was good for him. 

She recognised him almost immediately, however, and flushed alittle, because she knew he had no business there. She was awfullybound up with rules. 

"I came back on purpose to see you, " said Twenty-two, when at lastthe lame girl had limped away. "Because, that day I came in and youlooked after me, you know, I--must have talked a lot of nonsense. "

"Morphia makes some people talk, " she said. It was said in an exactcopy of the ward nurse's voice, a frightfully professional andimpersonal tone. 

"But, " said Twenty-two, stirring uneasily, "I said a lot that wasn'ttrue. You may have forgotten, but I haven't. Now that about a girlnamed Mabel, for instance----"

He stirred again, because, after all, what did it matter what he hadsaid? She was gazing over the ward. She was not interested in him. She had almost forgotten him. And as he stirred Mr. Simond's canefell out. It was immediately followed by the tin sign, which onlygradually subsided, face up, on the bare floor, in a slowlydiminishing series of crashes. 

Jane Brown stooped and picked them both up and placed them on hislap. Then, very stern, she marched out of the ward into thecorridor, and there subsided into quiet hysterics of mirth. Twenty-two, who hated to be laughed at, followed her in the chair, looking extremely annoyed. 

"What else was I to do?" he demanded, after a time. "Of course, ifyou report it, I'm gone. "

"What do you intend to do with it now?" she asked. All herprofessional manner had gone, and she looked alarmingly young. 

"If I put it back, I'll only have to steal it again. Because I amabsolutely bored to death in that room of mine. I have played athousand games of solitaire. "

The Probationer looked around. There was no one in sight. 

"I should think, " she suggested, "that if you slipped it behind thatradiator, no one would ever know about it. "

Fortunately, the ambulance gong set up a clamour below the windowjust then, and no one heard one of the hospital's most cherishedrules going, as one may say, into the discard. 

The Probationer leaned her nose against the window and looked down. A coloured man was being carried in on a stretcher. Although she didnot know it--indeed, never did know it--the coloured gentleman inquestion was one Augustus Baird. 

Soon afterward Twenty-two squeaked--his chair neededoiling--squeaked back to his lonely room and took stock. He foundthat he was rid of Mabel, but was still a reporter, hurt in doinghis duty. He had let this go because he saw that duty was a sort offetish with the Probationer. And since just now she liked him forwhat she thought he was, why not wait to tell her until she likedhim for himself?

He hoped she was going to like him, because she was going to see hima lot. Also, he liked her even better than he had remembered that hedid. She had a sort of thoroughbred look that he liked. And he likedthe way her hair was soft and straight and shiny. And he liked theway she was all business and no nonsense. And the way she countedpulses, with her lips moving and a little frown between hereyebrows. And he liked her for being herself--which is, after all, the reason why most men like the women they like, and extremelyreasonable. 

The First Assistant loaned him Browning that afternoon, and he read"Pippa Passes. " He thought Pippa must have looked like theProbationer. 

The Head was a bit querulous that evening. The Heads of TrainingSchools get that way now and then, although they generally reveal itonly to the First Assistant. They have to do so many irreconcilablethings, such as keeping down expenses while keeping up requisitions, and remembering the different sorts of sutures the Staff likes, andreceiving the Ladies' Committee, and conducting prayers andlectures, and knowing by a swift survey of a ward that the standshave been carbolised and all the toe-nails cut. Because it isamazing the way toe-nails grow in bed. 

The Head would probably never have come out flatly, but she had awretched cold, and the First Assistant was giving her a mustardfootbath, which was very hot. The Head sat up with a blanket overher shoulders, and read lists while her feet took on the blush ofripe apples. And at last she said:

"How is that Probationer with the ridiculous name getting along?"

The First Assistant poured in more hot water. 

"N. Jane?" she asked. "Well, she's a nice little thing, and sheseems willing. But, of course----"

The Head groaned. 

"Nineteen!" she said. "And no character at all. I detest flutterypeople. She flutters the moment I go into the ward. "

The First Assistant sat back and felt of her cap, which was ofstarched tulle and was softening a bit from the steam. She felt athrill of pity for the Probationer. She, too, had once felt flutterywhen the Head came in. 

"She is very anxious to stay, " she observed. "She works hard, too. I----"

"She has no personality, no decision, " said the Head, and sneezedtwice. She was really very wretched, and so she was unfair. "She ispretty and sweet. But I cannot run my training school on prettinessand sweetness. Has Doctor Harvard come in yet?"

"I--I think not, " said the First Assistant. She looked up quickly, but the Head was squeezing a lemon in a cup of hot water beside her. 

Now, while the Head was having a footbath, and Twenty-two was havinga stock-taking, and Augustus Baird was having his symptoms recorded, Jane Brown was having a shock. 

She heard an unmistakable shuffling of feet in the corridor. 

Sounds take on much significance in a hospital, and probationersstudy them, especially footsteps. It gives them a moment sometimesto think what to do next. 

_Internes_, for instance, frequently wear rubber soles on theirwhite shoes and have a way of slipping up on one. And the engineergoes on a half run, generally accompanied by the clanking of a toolor two. And the elevator man runs, too, because generally the bellis ringing. And ward patients shuffle about in carpet slippers, andthe pharmacy clerk has a brisk young step, inclined to be jaunty. 

But it is the Staff which is always unmistakable. It comes along thecorridor deliberately, inexorably. It plants its feet firmly andwith authority. It moves with the inevitability of fate, with thepride of royalty, with the ease of the best made-to-order boots. Thering of a Staff member's heel on a hospital corridor is the mostauthoritative sound on earth. He may be the gentlest soul in theworld, but he will tread like royalty. 

But this was not Staff. Jane Brown knew this sound, and it filledher with terror. It was the scuffling of four pairs of feet, carefully instructed not to keep step. It meant, in other words, astretcher. But perhaps it was not coming to her. Ah, but it was!

Panic seized Jane Brown. She knew there were certain things to do, but they went out of her mind like a cat out of a cellar window. However, the ward was watching. It had itself, generally speaking, come in feet first. It knew the procedure. So, instructed by lowvoices from the beds around, Jane Brown feverishly tore the spreadoff the emergency bed and drew it somewhat apart from its fellows. Then she stood back and waited. 

Came in four officers from the police patrol. Came in the SeniorSurgical Interne. Came two convalescents from the next ward to starein at the door. Came the stretcher, containing a quiet figure undera grey blanket. 

Twenty-two, at that exact moment, was putting a queen on a ten spotand pretending there is nothing wrong about cheating oneself. 

In a very short time the quiet figure was on the bed, and the SeniorSurgical Interne was writing in the order book: "Prepare foroperation. "

Jane Brown read it over his shoulder, which is not etiquette. 

"But--I can't, " she quavered. "I don't know how. I won't touch him. He's--he's bloody!"

Then she took another look at the bed and she saw--Johnny Fraser. 

Now Johnny had, in his small way, played a part in the Probationer'slife, such as occasionally scrubbing porches or borrowing a halfdollar or being suspected of stealing the eggs from the henhouse. But _that_ Johnny Fraser had been a wicked, smiling imp, much givento sitting in the sun. 

Here lay another Johnny Fraser, a quiet one, who might never againfeel the warm earth through his worthless clothes on his worthlessyoung body. A Johnny of closed eyes and slow, noisy breathing. 

"Why, Johnny!" said the Probationer, in a strangled voice. 

The Senior Surgical Interne was interested. 

"Know him?" he said. 

"He is a boy from home. " She was still staring at this quiet, un-impudent figure. 

The Senior Surgical Interne eyed her with an eye that was onlypartially professional. Then he went to the medicine closet andpoured a bit of aromatic ammonia into a glass. 

"Sit down and drink this, " he said, in a very masculine voice. Heliked to feel that he could do something for her. Indeed, there wassomething almost proprietary in the way he took her pulse. 

Some time after the early hospital supper that evening Twenty-two, having oiled his chair with some olive oil from his tray, made aclandestine trip through the twilight of the corridor back of theelevator shaft. To avoid scandal he pretended interest in otherwards, but he gravitated, as a needle to the pole, to H. And therehe found the Probationer, looking rather strained, and mothering aquiet figure on a bed. 

He was a trifle puzzled at her distress, for she made no secret ofJohnny's status in the community. What he did not grasp was thatJohnny Fraser was a link between this new and rather terrible worldof the hospital and home. It was not Johnny alone, it was Johnnyscrubbing a home porch and doing it badly, it was Johnny in herfather's old clothes, it was Johnny fishing for catfish in thecreek, or lending his pole to one of the little brothers whosepictures were on her table in the dormitory. 

Twenty-two felt a certain depression. He reflected rather grimlythat he had been ten days missing and that no one had apparentlygiven a hang whether he turned up or not. 

"Is he going to live?" he inquired. He could see that the ward nursehad an eye on him, and was preparing for retreat. 

"O yes, " said Jane Brown. "I think so now. The _interne_ says theyhave had a message from Doctor Willie. He is coming. " There was abeautiful confidence in her tone. 

Things moved very fast with the Probationer for the next twenty-fourhours. Doctor Willie came, looking weary but smiling benevolently. Jane Brown met him in a corridor and kissed him, as, indeed, she hadbeen in the habit of doing since her babyhood. 

"Where is the young rascal?" said Doctor Willie. "Up to his oldtricks, Nellie, and struck by a train. " He put a hand under herchin, which is never done to the members of the training school in ahospital, and searched her face with his kind old eyes. "Well, howdoes it go, Nellie?"

Jane Brown swallowed hard. 

"All right, " she managed. "They want to operate, Doctor Willie. "

"Tut!" he said. "Always in a hurry, these hospitals. We'll wait awhile, I think. "

"Is everybody well at home?"

It had come to her, you see, what comes to every nurse once in hertraining--the thinness of the veil, the terror of calamity, the fearof death. 

"All well. And----" he glanced around. Only the Senior SurgicalInterne was in sight, and he was out of hearing. "Look here, Nellie, " he said, "I've got a dozen fresh eggs for you in mysatchel. Your mother sent them. "

She nearly lost her professional manner again then. But she onlyasked him to warn the boys about automobiles and riding on the backsof wagons. 

Had any one said Twenty-two to her, she would not have known whatwas meant. Not just then, anyhow. 

In the doctors' room that night the Senior Surgical Interne lighteda cigarette and telephoned to the operating room. 

"That trephining's off, " he said, briefly. 

Then he fell to conversation with the Senior Medical, who was ratherworried about a case listed on the books as Augustus Baird, coloured. 

Twenty-two did not sleep very well that night. He needed exercise, he felt. But there was something else. Miss Brown had been just ashade too ready to accept his explanation about Mabel, he felt, soready that he feared she had been more polite than sincere. Probablyshe still believed there was a Mabel. Not that it mattered, exceptthat he hated to make a fool of himself. He roused once in the nightand was quite sure he heard her voice down the corridor. He knewthis must be wrong, because they would not make her work all day andall night, too. 

But, as it happened, it _was_ Jane Brown. The hospital providedplenty of sleeping time, but now and then there was a slip-up andsomebody paid. There had been a night operation, following on a busyday, and the operating-room nurses needed help. Out of a sound sleepthe night Assistant had summoned Jane Brown to clean instruments. 

At five o'clock that morning she was still sitting on a stool besidea glass table, polishing instruments which made her shiver. Allaround were things that were spattered with blood. But she lookedanything but fluttery. She was a very grim and determined youngperson just then, and professional beyond belief. The other things, like washing window-sills and cutting toe-nails, had had nosignificance. But here she was at last on the edge of mercy. Someone who might have died had lived that night because of this room, and these instruments, and willing hands. 

She hoped she would always have willing hands. 

She looked very pale at breakfast the next morning, and ratherolder. Also she had a new note of authority in her voice when shetelephoned the kitchen and demanded H ward's soft-boiled eggs. Shewashed window-sills that morning again, but no longer was thererebellion in her soul. She was seeing suddenly how the hospitalrequired all these menial services, which were not menial at all butonly preparation; that there were little tasks and big ones, and onegraduated from the one to the other. 

She took some flowers from the ward bouquet and put them besideJohnny's bed--Johnny, who was still lying quiet, with closed eyes. 

The Senior Surgical Interne did a dressing in the ward that morning. He had been in to see Augustus Baird, and he felt uneasy. He ventedit on Tony, the Italian, with a stiletto thrust in his neck, byjerking at the adhesive. Tony wailed, and Jane Brown, who was the"dirty" nurse--which does not mean what it appears to mean, but isthe person who receives the soiled dressings--Jane Brown gritted herteeth. 

"Keep quiet, " said the S. S. I. , who was a good fellow, but had neverbeen stabbed in the neck for running away with somebody else's wife. 

"Eet hurt, " said Tony. "Ow. "

Jane Brown turned very pink. 

"Why don't you let me cut it off properly?" she said, in a strangledtone. 

The total result of this was that Jane Brown was reprimanded by theFirst Assistant, and learned some things about ethics. 

"But, " she protested, "it was both stupid and cruel. And if I know Iam right----"

"How are you to know you are right?" demanded the First Assistant, crossly. Her feet were stinging. "'A little knowledge is a dangerousthing. '" This was a favorite quotation of hers, although notBrowning. "Nurses in hospitals are there to carry out the doctor'sorders. Not to think or to say what they think unless they areasked. To be intelligent, but----"

"But not too intelligent!" said the Probationer. "I see. "

This was duly reported to the Head, who observed that it was merelywhat she had expected and extremely pert. Her cold was hardly anybetter. 

It was taking the Probationer quite a time to realise her own totallack of significance in all this. She had been accustomed to men whorose when a woman entered a room and remained standing as long asshe stood. And now she was in a new world, where she had to rise andremain standing while a cocky youth in ducks, just out of medicalcollege, sauntered in with his hands in his pockets and took a_boutonnière_ from the ward bouquet. 

It was probably extremely good for her. 

She was frightfully tired that day, and toward evening the littleglow of service began to fade. There seemed to be nothing to do forJohnny but to wait. Doctor Willie had seemed to think that naturewould clear matters up there, and had requested no operation. Shesmoothed beds and carried cups of water and broke anotherthermometer. And she put the eggs from home in the ward pantry andmade egg-nogs of them for Stanislas Krzykolski, who wasunaccountably upset as to stomach. 

She had entirely forgotten Twenty-two. He had stayed away all thatday, in a sort of faint hope that she would miss him. But she hadnot. She was feeling rather worried, to tell the truth. For a Staffsurgeon going through the ward, had stopped by Johnny's bed andexamined the pupils of his eyes, and had then exchanged a glancewith the Senior Surgical Interne that had perplexed her. 

In the chapel at prayers that evening all around her the nurses satand rested, their tired hands folded in their laps. They talked alittle among themselves, but it was only a buzzing that reached theProbationer faintly. Some one near was talking about something thatwas missing. 

"Gone?" she said. "Of course it is gone. The bath-room man reportedit to me and I went and looked. "

"But who in the world would take it?"

"My dear, " said the first speaker, "who _does_ take things in ahospital, anyhow? Only--a tin sign!"

It was then that the Head came in. She swept in; her grey gown, hergrey hair gave her a majesty that filled the Probationer with awe. Behind her came the First Assistant with the prayer-book and hymnal. The Head believed in form. 

Jane Brown offered up a little prayer that night for Johnny Fraser, and another little one without words, that Doctor Willie was right. She sat and rested her weary young body, and remembered how DoctorWillie was loved and respected, and the years he had cared for thewhole countryside. And the peace of the quiet room, with the Easterlilies on the tiny altar, brought rest to her. 

It was when prayers were over that the Head made her announcement. She rose and looked over the shadowy room, where among the rows ofwhite caps only the Probationer's head was uncovered, and she said:

"I have an announcement to make to the training school. One which Iregret, and which will mean a certain amount of hardship anddeprivation. 

"A case of contagion has been discovered in one of the wards, and ithas been considered necessary to quarantine the hospital. The doorswere closed at seven-thirty this evening. "

II

Considering that he could not get out anyhow, Twenty-two took thenews of the quarantine calmly. He reflected that, if he was shut in, Jane Brown was shut in also. He had a wicked hope, at the beginning, that the Senior Surgical Interne had been shut out, but at nineo'clock that evening that young gentleman showed up at the door ofhis room, said "Cheer-o, " came in, helped himself to a cigarette, gave a professional glance at Twenty-two's toes, which were all thatwas un-plastered of the leg, and departing threw back over hisshoulder his sole conversational effort:

"Hell of a mess, isn't it?"

Twenty-two took up again gloomily the book he was reading, which wason Diseases of the Horse, from the hospital library. He was in themidst of Glanders. 

He had, during most of that day, been making up his mind to let hisfamily know where he was. He did not think they cared, particularly. He had no illusions about that. But there was something about JaneBrown which made him feel like doing the decent thing. It annoyedhim frightfully, but there it was. She was so eminently the sort ofperson who believed in doing the decent thing. 

So, about seven o'clock, he had sent the orderly out for stamps andpaper. He imagined that Jane Brown would not think writing home onhospital stationery a good way to break bad news. But the orderlyhad stopped for a chat at the engine house, and had ended by playinga game of dominoes. When, at ten o'clock, he had returned to thehospital entrance, the richer by a quarter and a glass of beer, hehad found a strange policeman on the hospital steps, and the doorslocked. 

The quarantine was on. 

Now there are different sorts of quarantines. There is the sortwhere a trained nurse and the patient are shut up in a room andbath, and the family only opens the door and peers in. And there isthe sort where the front door has a placard on it, and the familygoes in and out the back way, and takes a street-car to the office, the same as usual. And there is the hospital quarantine, which isthe real thing, because hospitals are expected to do thingsthoroughly. 

So our hospital was closed up as tight as a jar of preserves. Therewere policemen at all the doors, quite suddenly. They locked thedoors and put the keys in their pockets, and from that time on theyopened them only to pass things in, such as newspapers or milk orgroceries or the braver members of the Staff. But not to letanything out--except the Staff. Supposedly Staffs do not carrygerms. 

And, indeed, even the Staff was not keen about entering. It thoughtof a lot of things it ought to do about visiting time, andprescribed considerably over the telephone. 

At first there was a great deal of confusion, because quite a numberof people had been out on various errands when it happened. And theycame back, and protested to the office that they had only theiruniforms on under their coats, and three dollars; or their slippersand no hats. Or that they would sue the city. One or two of them gotquite desperate and tried to crawl up the fire-escape, but failed. 

This is of interest chiefly because it profoundly affected JaneBrown. Miss McAdoo, her ward nurse, had debated whether to wash herhair that evening, or to take a walk. She had decided on the walk, and was therefore shut out, along with the Junior Medical, thekitchen cat, the Superintendent's mother-in-law and six othernurses. 

The next morning the First Assistant gave Jane Brown charge of Hward. 

"It's very irregular, " she said. "I don't exactly know--you haveonly one bad case, haven't you?"

"Only Johnny. "

The First Assistant absent-mindedly ran a finger over the top of atable, and examined it for dust. 

"Of course, " she said, "it's a great chance for you. Show that youcan handle this ward, and you are practically safe. "

Jane Brown drew a long breath and stood up very straight. Then sheran her eye over the ward. There was something vaguely reminiscentof Miss McAdoo in her glance. 

Twenty-two made three brief excursions back along the corridorthat first day of the quarantine. But Jane Brown was extremelyprofessional and very busy. There was an air of discipline over theward. Let a man but so much as turn over in bed and show an inch ofblanket, and she pounced on the bed and reduced it to the mosthorrible neatness. All the beds looked as if they had been made upwith a carpenter's square. 

On the third trip, however, Jane Brown was writing at the table. Twenty-two wheeled himself into the doorway and eyed her withdisapproval. 

"What do you mean by sitting down?" he demanded sarcastically. "Don't you know that now you are in charge you ought to keepmoving?"

To which she replied, absently:

"Three buttered toasts, two dry toasts, six soft boiled eggs, andtwelve soups. " She was working on the diet slips. 

Then she smiled at him. They were quite old friends already. It iscurious about love and friendship and all those kindred emotions. They do not grow nearly so fast when people are together as whenthey are apart. It is an actual fact that the growth of many anintimacy is checked by meetings. Because when people are apart it iswhat they _are_ that counts, and when they are together it is whatthey do and say and look like. Many a beautiful affair has beenruined because, just as it was going along well, the principals metagain. 

However, all this merely means that Twenty-two and Jane Brown wereinfinitely closer friends than four or five meetings reallyindicates. 

The ward was very quiet on this late afternoon call of his save forJohnny's heavy breathing. There is a quiet hour in a hospital, between afternoon temperatures and the ringing of the bell whichmeans that the suppers for the wards are on their way--a quiet hourwhen over the long rows of beds broods the peace of the ending day. 

It is a melancholy hour, too, because from the streets comes faintlythe echo of feet hurrying home, the eager trot of a horse boundstableward. To those in the eddy that is the ward comes at this timea certain heaviness of spirit. Poor thing though home may have been, they long for it. 

In H ward that late afternoon there was a wave of homesickness inthe air, and on the part of those men who were up and about, whoshuffled up and down the ward in flapping carpet slippers, aninclination to mutiny. 

"How did they take it?" Twenty-two inquired. She puckered hereyebrows. 

"They don't like it, " she confessed. "Some of them were about readyto go home and it--_Tony!_" she called sharply. 

For Tony, who had been cunningly standing by the window leading to afire-escape, had flung the window up and was giving unmistakablesigns of climbing out and returning to the other man's wife. 

"Tony!" she called, and ran. Tony scrambled up on the sill. A sortof titter ran over the ward and Tony, now on the platform outside, waved a derisive hand through the window. 

"Good-bye, mees!" he said, and--disappeared. 

It was not a very dramatic thing, after all. It is chieflysignificant for its effect on Twenty-two, who was obliged to sitfrozen with horror and cursing his broken leg, while Jane Brownraced a brown little Italian down the fire-escape and caught him atthe foot of it. Tony took a look around. The courtyard gates wereclosed and a policeman sat outside on a camp-stool reading thenewspaper. Tony smiled sheepishly and surrendered. 

Some seconds later Tony and Jane Brown appeared on the platformoutside. Jane Brown had Tony by the ear, and she stopped long enoughoutside to exchange the ear for his shoulder, by which she shookhim, vigorously. 

Twenty-two turned his chair around and wheeled himself back to hisroom. He was filled with a cold rage--because she might have fallenon the fire-escape and been killed; because he had not been able tohelp her; because she was there, looking after the derelicts oflife, when the world was beautiful outside, and she was young;because to her he was just Twenty-two and nothing more. 

He had seen her exactly six times. 

Jane Brown gave the ward a little talk that night before the nightnurse reported. She stood in the centre of the long room, beside thetulips, and said that she was going to be alone there, and that shewould have to put the situation up to their sense of honour. If theytried to escape, they would hurt her. Also they would surely becaught and brought back. And, because she believed in a combinationof faith and deeds, she took three nails and the linen-roomflatiron, and nailed shut the window onto the fire-escape. 

After that, she brushed crumbs out of the beds with a whiskbroom andrubbed a few backs with alcohol, and smoothed the counterpanes, andhung over Johnny's unconscious figure for a little while, givingmotherly pats to his flat pillow and worrying considerably becausethere was so little about him to remind her of the Johnny she knewat home. 

After that she sat down and made up her records for the night nurse. The ward understood, and was perfectly good, trying hard not to mussits pillows or wrinkle the covers. And struggling, too, with a newidea. They were prisoners. No more release cards would brighten thedays. For an indefinite period the old Frenchman would moan atnight, and Bader the German would snore, and the Chinaman wouldcough. Indefinitely they would eat soft-boiled eggs and rice andbeef-tea and cornstarch. 

The ward felt extremely low in its mind. 

 * * * * *

That night the Senior Surgical Interne went in to play cribbage withTwenty-two, and received a lecture on leaving a young girl alone inH with a lot of desperate men. They both grew rather heated over thediscussion and forgot to play cribbage at all. Twenty-two lay awakehalf the night, because he had seen clearly that the Senior SurgicalInterne was interested in Jane Brown also, and would probably loafaround H most of the time since there would be no new cases now. Itwas a crowning humiliation to have the night nurse apply to theSenior Surgical Interne for a sleeping powder for him!

Toward morning he remembered that he had promised to write out frommemory one of the Sonnets from the Portuguese for the FirstAssistant, and he turned on the light and jotted down two lines ofit. He wrote:

 "_For we two look two ways, and cannot shine With the same sunlight on our brow and hair. _"--

And then sat up in bed for half an hour looking at it because he wasso awfully afraid it was true of Jane Brown and himself. Not, ofcourse, that he wanted to shine at all. It was the looking two waysthat hurt. 

The next evening the nurses took their airing on the roof, which wasa sooty place with a parapet, and in the courtyard, which was anequally sooty place with a wispy fountain. And because the wholesituation was new, they formed in little groups on the woodenbenches and sang, hands folded on white aprons, heads lifted, eyesupturned to where, above the dimly lighted windows, the stars peeredpalely through the smoke. 

The S. S. I. Sauntered out. He had thought he saw the Probationer fromhis window, and in the new relaxation of discipline he saw a chanceto join her. But the figure he had thought he recognised proved tobe some one else, and he fell to wandering alone up and down thecourtyard. 

He was trying to work out this problem: would the advantage ofmarrying early and thus being considered eligible for certaincases, offset the disadvantage of the extra expense?

He decided to marry early and hang the expense. 

The days went by, three, then four, and a little line of tensiondeepened around Jane Brown's mouth. Perhaps it has not beenmentioned that she had a fighting nose, short and straight, and awistful mouth. For Johnny Fraser was still lying in a stupor. 

Jane Brown felt that something was wrong. Doctor Willie came in onceor twice, making the long trip without complaint and without hope ofpayment. All his busy life he had worked for the sake of work, andnot for reward. He called her "Nellie, " to the delight of the ward, which began to love him, and he spent a long hour each time byJohnny's bed. But the Probationer was quick to realise that theSenior Surgical Interne disapproved of him. 

That young man had developed a tendency to wander into H at oddhours, and sit on the edge of a table, leaving Jane Brown dividedbetween proper respect for an _interne_ and fury over the wrinklingof her table covers. It was during one of these visits that shespoke of Doctor Willie. 

"Because he is a country practitioner, " she said, "you--youpatronise him. "

"Not at all, " said the Senior Surgical Interne. "Personally I likehim immensely. "

"Personally!"

The Senior Surgical Interne waved a hand toward Johnny's bed. 

"Look there, " he said. "You don't think that chap's getting anybetter, do you?"

"If, " said Jane Brown, with suspicious quiet, "if you think you knowmore than a man who has practised for forty years, and saved morepeople than you ever saw, why don't you tell him so?"

There is really no defence for this conversation. Discourse betweena probationer and an _interne_ is supposed to be limited to yea, yea, and nay, nay. But the circumstances were unusual. 

"Tell him!" exclaimed the Senior Surgical Interne, "and be calledbefore the Executive Committee and fired! Dear girl, I aminexpressibly flattered, but the voice of an _interne_ in a hospitalis the voice of one crying in the wilderness. "

Twenty-two, who was out on crutches that day for the first time, andwas looking very big and extremely awkward, Twenty-two looked backfrom the elevator shaft and scowled. He seemed always to see a flashof white duck near the door of H ward. 

To add to his chagrin, the Senior Surgical Interne clapped him onthe back in congratulation a moment later, and nearly upset him. Hehad intended to go back to the ward and discuss a plan he had, buthe was very morose those days and really not a companionable person. He stumped back to his room and resolutely went to bed. 

There he lay for a long time looking at the ceiling, and saying, outof his misery, things not necessary to repeat. 

So Twenty-two went to bed and sulked, refusing supper, and havingthe word "Vicious" marked on his record by the nurse, who hoped hewould see it some time. And Jane Brown went and sat beside astrangely silent Johnny, and worried. And the Senior SurgicalInterne went down to the pharmacy and thereby altered a number ofthings. 

The pharmacy clerk had been shaving--his own bedroom was dark--andhe saw the Senior Surgical Interne in the little mirror hung on thewindow frame. 

"Hello, " he said, over the soap. "Shut the door. "

The Senior Surgical Interne shut the door, and then sniffed. "Smellslike a bar-room, " he commented. 

The pharmacy clerk shaved the left angle of his jaw, and then turnedaround. 

"Little experiment of mine, " he explained. "Simple syrup, grainalcohol, a dash of cochineal for colouring, and some flavouringextract. It's an imitation cordial. Try it. "

The Senior Surgical Interne was not a drinker, but he was willingto try anything once. So he secured a two-ounce medicine glass, andfilled it. 

"Looks nice, " he commented, and tasted it. "It's not bad. "

"Not bad!" said the pharmacy clerk. "You'd pay four dollars a bottlefor that stuff in a hotel. Actual cost here, about forty cents. "

The Senior Surgical Interne sat down and stretched out his legs. Hehad the glass in his hand. 

"It's rather sweet, " he said. "But it looks pretty. " He took anothersip. 

After he had finished it, he got to thinking things over. He feltabout seven feet tall and very important, and not at all like avoice crying in the wilderness. He had a strong inclination to gointo the Superintendent's office and tell him where he went wrong inrunning the institution--which he restrained. And another to go upto H and tell Jane Brown the truth about Johnny Fraser--which heyielded to. 

On the way up he gave the elevator man a cigar. 

He was very explicit with Jane Brown. 

"Your man's wrong, that's all there is about it, " he said. "I can'tsay anything and you can't. But he's wrong. That's an operativecase. The Staff knows it. "

"Then, why doesn't the Staff do it?"

The Senior Surgical Interne was still feeling very tall. He lookeddown at her from a great distance. 

"Because, dear child, " he said, "it's your man's case. You ought toknow enough about professional ethics for that. "

He went away, then, and had a violent headache, which he blamed onconfinement and lack of exercise. But he had sowed something in theProbationer's mind. 

For she knew, suddenly, that he had been right. The Staff had meantthat, then, when they looked at Johnny and shook their heads. TheStaff knew, the hospital knew. Every one knew but Doctor Willie. ButDoctor Willie had the case. Back in her little town Johnny's motherwas looking to Doctor Willie, believing in him, hoping through him. 

That night Twenty-two slept, and Jane Brown lay awake. And down in Hward Johnny Fraser had a bad spell at that hour toward dawn when thevitality is low, and men die. He did not die, however. But the nightnurse recorded, "Pulse very thin and iregular, " at four o'clock. 

She, too, was not a famous speller. 

During the next morning, while the ward rolled bandages, havingcarefully scrubbed its hands first, Jane Brown wrote records--shedid it rather well now--and then arranged the pins in the wardpincushion. She made concentric circles of safety-pins outside andcommon pins inside, with a large H in the centre. But her mind wasnot on this artistic bit of creation. It was on Johnny Fraser. 

She made up her mind to speak to Doctor Willie. 

Twenty-two had got over his sulking or his jealousy, or whatever itwas, and during the early hours, those hours when Johnny was hardlybreathing, he had planned something. He thought that he did it tointerest the patients and make them contented, but somewhere in theback of his mind he knew it was to see more of Jane Brown. Heplanned a concert in the chapel. 

So that morning he took Elizabeth, the plaster cast, back to H ward, where Jane Brown was fixing the pincushion, and had a good minute offeasting his eyes on her while she was sucking a jabbed finger. Sheknew she should have dipped the finger in a solution, but habit isstrong in most of us. 

Twenty-two had a wild desire to offer to kiss the finger and make itwell. This, however, was not habit. It was insanity. He recognisedthis himself, and felt more than a trifle worried about it, becausehe had been in love quite a number of times before, but he had neverhad this sort of feeling. 

He put the concert up to her with a certain amount of anxiety. Ifshe could sing, or play, or recite--although he hoped she would notrecite--all would be well. But if she refused to take any part, hedid not intend to have a concert. That was flat. 

"I can play, " she said, making a neat period after the H on thepincushion. 

He was awfully relieved. 

"Good, " he said. "You know, I like the way you say that. It'sso--well, it's so competent. " He got out a notebook and wrote "MissBrown, piano selections. "

It was while he was writing that Jane Brown had a sort of mentalpicture--the shabby piano at home, kicked below by many childishfeet, but mellow and sweet, like an old violin, and herself sittingpractising, over and over, that part of Paderewski's Minuet where, as every one knows, the fingering is rather difficult, and outsidethe open window, leaning on his broom, worthless Johnny Fraser, staring in with friendly eyes and an extremely dirty face. ToTwenty-two's unbounded amazement she flung down the cushion and madefor the little ward linen room. 

He found her there a moment later, her arms outstretched on thetable and her face buried in them. Some one had been boiling arubber tube and had let the pan go dry. Ever afterward Twenty-twowas to associate the smell of burning rubber with Jane Brown, andwith his first real knowledge that he was in love with her. 

He stumped in after her and closed the door, and might have ruinedeverything then and there by taking her in his arms, crutch andall. But the smell of burning rubber is a singularly permeating one, and he was kept from one indiscretion by being discovered inanother. 

It was somewhat later that Jane Brown was reprimanded for beingfound in the linen room with a private patient. She made no excuse, but something a little defiant began to grow in her eyes. It was notthat she loved her work less. She was learning, day by day, theendless sacrifices of this profession she had chosen, itsunselfishness, its grinding hard work, the payment that may lie in asmile of gratitude, the agony of pain that cannot be relieved. Shewent through her days with hands held out for service, and at night, in the chapel, she whispered soundless little prayers to beaccepted, and to be always gentle and kind. She did not want tobecome a machine. She knew, although she had no words for it, thedifference between duty and service. 

But--a little spirit of rebellion was growing in her breast. She didnot understand about Johnny Fraser, for one thing. And the matter ofthe linen room hurt. There seemed to be too many rules. 

Then, too, she began to learn that hospitals had limitations. JaneBrown's hospital had no social worker. Much as she loved the work, the part that the hospital could not do began to hurt her. Beforethe quarantine women with new babies had gone out, without an ideaof where to spend the night. Ailing children had gone home to suchplaces as she could see from the dormitory windows, where the workthe hospital had begun could not be finished. 

From the roof of the building at night she looked out over a citythat terrified her. The call of a playing child in the street beganto sound to her like the shriek of accident. The very grinding ofthe trolley cars, the smoke of the mills, began to mean theoperating room. She thought a great deal, those days, about thelittle town she had come from, with its peace and quiet streets. Thecity seemed cruel. But now and then she learned that if cities arecruel, men are kind. 

Thus, on the very day of the concert, the quarantine was broken fora few minutes. It was broken forcibly, and by an officer of the law. A little newsie, standing by a fire at the next corner, for thespring day was cold, had caught fire. The big corner man had seen itall. He stripped off his overcoat, rolled the boy in it, and ran tothe hospital. Here he was confronted by a brother officer, who wasforbidden to admit him. The corner man did the thing that seemedquickest. He laid the newsie on the ground, knocked out thequarantine officer in two blows, broke the glass of the door with athird, slipped a bolt, and then, his burden in his arms, stalked in. 

It did not lessen the majesty of that entrance that he was cryingall the time. 

The Probationer pondered that story when she heard it. After all, laws were right and good, but there were higher things than laws. She went and stood by Johnny's bed for a long time, thinking. 

In the meantime, unexpected talent for the concert had developed. The piano in the chapel proving out of order, the elevator manproved to have been a piano tuner. He tuned it with a bone forceps. Strange places, hospitals, into which drift men from every walk oflife, to find a haven and peace within their quiet walls. Old Tonyhad sung, in his youth, in the opera at Milan. A pretty young nursewent around the corridors muttering bits of "Orphant Annie" toherself. The Senior Surgical Interne was to sing the "Rosary, " andwent about practising to himself. He came into H ward and sang itthrough for Jane Brown, with his heart in his clear young eyes. Hesang about the hours he had spent with her being strings of pearls, and all that, but he was really asking her if she would be willingto begin life with him in a little house, where she would have toanswer the door-bell and watch telephone calls while he was out. 

Jane Brown felt something of this, too. For she said: "You sing itbeautifully, " although he had flatted at least three times. 

He wrote his name on a medicine label and glued it to her hand. Itlooked alarmingly possessive. 

Twenty-two presided at the concert that night. He was extravagantlyfunny, and the sort of creaking solemnity with which things beganturned to uproarious laughter very soon. 

Everything went off wonderfully. Tony started his selection toohigh, and was obliged to stop and begin over again. And the twoSilversteins, from the children's ward, who were to dance a Highlandfling together, had a violent quarrel at the last moment and had tobe scratched. But everything else went well. The ambulance drivergave a bass solo, and kept a bar or two ahead of the accompaniment, dodging chords as he did wagons on the street, and fetching up witha sort of garrison finish much as he brought in the ambulance. 

But the real musical event of the evening was Jane Brown's playing. She played Schubert without any notes, because she had been taughtto play Schubert that way. 

And when they called her back, she played little folk songs of thefar places of Europe. Standing around the walls, in wheeled chairs, on crutches, pale with the hospital pallor, these aliens in theireddy listened and thrilled. Some of them wept, but they smiled also. 

At the end she played the Minuet, with a sort of flaming look inher eyes that puzzled Twenty-two. He could not know that she wasplaying it to Johnny Fraser, lying with closed eyes in the wardupstairs. He did not realise that there was a passion of sacrificethrobbing behind the dignity of the music. 

Doctor Willie had stayed over for the concert. He sat, beamingbenevolently, in the front row, and toward the end he got up andtold some stories. After all, it was Doctor Willie who was the realhit of the evening. The convalescents rocked with joy in theirroller chairs. Crutches came down in loud applause. When he sat downhe slipped a big hand over Jane Brown's and gave hers a heartysqueeze. 

"How d'you like me as a parlour entertainer, Nellie?" he whispered. 

She put her other hand over his. Somehow she could not speak. 

The First Assistant called to the Probationer that night as she wentpast her door. Lights were out, so the First Assistant had a candle, and she was rubbing her feet with witch hazel. 

"Come in, " she called. "I have been looking for you. I have somenews for you. "

The exaltation of the concert had died away. Jane Brown, in thecandle light, looked small and tired and very, very young. 

"We have watched you carefully, " said the First Assistant, who hadher night garments on but had forgotten to take off her cap. "Although you are young, you have shown ability, and--you are to beaccepted. "

"Thank you, very much, " replied Jane Brown, in a strangled tone. 

"At first, " said the First Assistant, "we were not sure. You werevery young, and you had such odd ideas. You know that yourself now. "

She leaned down and pressed a sore little toe with her forefinger. Then she sighed. The mention of Jane Brown's youth had hurt her, because she was no longer very young. And there were times when shewas tired, when it seemed to her that only youth counted. She feltthat way to-night. 

When Jane Brown had gone on, she blew out her candle and went tobed, still in her cap. 

Hospitals do not really sleep at night. The elevator man dozes inhis cage, and the night watchman may nap in the engineer's room inthe basement. But the night nurses are always making their sleeplessrounds, and in the wards, dark and quiet, restless figures turn andsigh. 

Before she went to bed that night, Jane Brown, by devious ways, slipped back to her ward. It looked strange to her, this cavernousplace, filled with the unlovely noises of sleeping men. By the onelow light near the doorway she went back to Johnny's bed, and satdown beside him. She felt that this was the place to think thingsout. In her room other things pressed in on her; the necessity ofmaking good for the sake of those at home, her love of the work, andcowardice. But here she saw things right. 

The night nurse found her there some time later, asleep, herhunting-case watch open on Johnny's bed and her fingers still on hisquiet wrist. She made no report of it. 

Twenty-two had another sleepless night written in on his record thatnight. He sat up and worried. He worried about the way the SeniorSurgical Interne had sung to Jane Brown that night. And he worriedabout things he had done and shouldn't have, and things he shouldhave done and hadn't. Mostly the first. At five in the morning hewrote a letter to his family telling them where he was, and that hehad been vaccinated and that the letter would be fumigated. He alsowrote a check for an artificial leg for the boy in the children'sward, and then went to bed and put himself to sleep by reciting the"Rosary" over and over. His last conscious thought was that thehours he had spent with a certain person would not make much of astring of pearls. 

The Probationer went to Doctor Willie the next day. Some of theexuberance of the concert still bubbled in him, although he shookhis head over Johnny's record. 

"A little slow, Nellie, " he said. "A little slow. "

Jane Brown took a long breath. 

"Doctor Willie, " she said, "won't you have him operated on?"

He looked up at her over his spectacles. 

"Operated on? What for?"

"Well, he's not getting any better, " she managed desperately. "I'm--sometimes I think he'll die while we're waiting for him to getbetter. "

He was surprised, but he was not angry. 

"There's no fracture, child, " he said gently. "If there is a clotthere, nature is probably better at removing it than we are. Thetrouble with you, " he said indulgently, "is that you have come here, where they operate first and regret afterward. Nature is the bestsurgeon, child. "

She cast about her despairingly for some way to tell him the truth. But even when she spoke she knew she was foredoomed to failure. 

"But--suppose the Staff thinks that he should be?"

Doctor Willie's kindly mouth set itself into grim lines. 

"The Staff!" he said, and looked at her searchingly. Then his jawsset at an obstinate angle. 

"Well, Nellie, " he said, "I guess one opinion's as good as anotherin these cases. And I don't suppose they'll do any cutting andhacking without my consent. " He looked at Johnny's unconsciousfigure. "He never amounted to much, " he added, "but it's surprisingthe way money's been coming in to pay his board here. Your mothersent five dollars. A good lot of people are interested in him. Ican't see myself going home and telling them he died on theoperating table. "

He patted her on the arm as he went out. 

"Don't get an old head on those young shoulders yet, Nellie, " hesaid as he was going. "Leave the worrying to me. I'm used to it. "

She saw then that to him she was still a little girl. She probablywould always be just a little girl to him. He did not take herseriously, and no one else would speak to him. She was quitedespairing. 

The ward loved Doctor Willie since the night before. It watched himout with affectionate eyes. Jane Brown watched him, too, his fineold head, the sturdy step that had brought healing and peace to awhole county. She had hurt him, she knew that. She ached at thethought of it. And she had done no good. 

That afternoon Jane Brown broke another rule. She went to Twenty-twoon her off duty, and caused a mild furore there. He had been drawinga sketch of her from memory, an extremely poor sketch, with one eyelarger than the other. He hid it immediately, although she could notpossibly have recognised it, and talked very fast to cover hisexcitement. 

"Well, well!" he said. "I knew I was going to have some luck to-day. My right hand has been itching--or is that a sign of money?" Then hesaw her face, and reduced his speech to normality, if not his heart. 

"Come and sit down, " he said. "And tell me about it. "

But she would not sit down. She went to the window and looked outfor a moment. It was from there she said:

"I have been accepted. "

"Good. " But he did not, apparently, think it such good news. He drewa long breath. "Well, I suppose your friends should be glad foryou. "

"I didn't come to talk about being accepted, " she announced. 

"I don't suppose, by any chance, you came to see how I am gettingalong?" he inquired humbly. 

"I can see that. "

"You can't see how lonely I am. " When she offered nothing to thisspeech, he enlarged on it. "When it gets unbearable, " he said, "Isit in front of the mirror and keep myself company. If that doesn'tmake your heart ache, nothing will. "

"I'm afraid I have a heart-ache, but it is not that. " For aterrible moment he thought of that theory of his which referred to adisappointment in love. Was she going to have the unbelievablecruelty to tell him about it?

"I have to talk to somebody, " she said simply. "And I came to you, because you've worked on a newspaper, and you have had a lot ofexperience. It's--a matter of ethics. But really it's a matter oflife and death. "

He felt most horribly humble before her, and he hated the lie, except that it had brought her to him. There was something so directand childlike about her. The very way she drew a chair in front ofhim, and proceeded, talking rather fast, to lay the matter beforehim, touched him profoundly. He felt, somehow, incredibly old andexperienced. 

And then, after all that, to fail her!

"You see how it is, " she finished. "I can't go to the Staff, andthey wouldn't do anything if I did--except possibly put me out. Because a nurse really only follows orders. And--I've got to stay, if I can. And Doctor Willie doesn't believe in an operation andwon't see that he's dying. And everybody at home thinks he is right, because--well, " she added hastily, "he's been right a good manytimes. "

He listened attentively. His record, you remember, was his own waysome ninety-seven per cent of the time, and at first he would notbelieve that this was going to be the three per cent, or a part ofit. 

"Well, " he said at last, "we'll just make the Staff turn in and doit. That's easy. "

"But they won't. They can't. "

"We can't let Johnny die, either, can we?"

But when at last she was gone, and the room was incredibly emptywithout her, --when, to confess a fact that he was exceedinglyshame-faced about, he had wheeled over to the chair she had sat inand put his cheek against the arm where her hand had rested, when hewas somewhat his own man again and had got over the feeling that hisarms were empty of something they had never held--then it was thatTwenty-two found himself up against the three per cent. 

The hospital's attitude was firm. It could not interfere. It was anoutside patient and an outside doctor. Its responsibility ended withproviding for the care of the patient, under his physician's orders. It was regretful--but, of course, unless the case was turned over tothe Staff----

He went back to the ward to tell her, after it had all beenexplained to him. But she was not surprised. He saw that, after all, she had really known he was going to fail her. 

"It's hopeless, " was all she said. "Everybody is right, andeverybody is wrong. "

It was the next day that, going to the courtyard for a breath ofair, she saw a woman outside the iron gate waving to her. It wasJohnny's mother, a forlorn old soul in what Jane Brown recognised asan old suit of her mother's. 

"Doctor Willie bought my ticket, Miss Nellie, " she said nervously. "It seems like I had to come, even if I couldn't get in. I've beenwaiting around most all afternoon. How is he?"

"He is resting quietly, " said Jane Brown, holding herself verytense, because she wanted to scream. "He isn't suffering at all. "

"Could you tell me which window he's near, Miss Nellie?"

She pointed out the window, and Johnny Fraser's mother stood, holding to the bars, peering up at it. Her lips moved, and JaneBrown knew that she was praying. At last she turned her eyes away. 

"Folks have said a lot about him, " she said, "but he was always agood son to me. If only he'd had a chance--I'd be right worried, Miss Nellie, if he didn't have Doctor Willie looking after him. "

Jane Brown went into the building. There was just one thing clear inher mind. Johnny Fraser must have his chance, somehow. 

In the meantime things were not doing any too well in the hospital. A second case, although mild, had extended the quarantine. Discontent grew, and threatened to develop into mutiny. Six menfrom one of the wards marched _en masse_ to the lower hall, and werepreparing to rush the guards when they were discovered. The SeniorSurgical Interne took two prisoners himself, and became an emergencycase for two stitches and arnica compresses. 

Jane Brown helped to fix him up, and he took advantage of herholding a dressing basin near his cut lip to kiss her hand, veryrespectfully. She would have resented it under other circumstances, but the Senior Surgical Interne was, even if temporarily, a patient, and must be humoured. She forgot about the kiss immediately, anyhow, although he did not. 

Her three months of probation were drawing to a close now, and hercap was already made and put away in a box, ready for the day sheshould don it. But she did not look at it very often. 

And all the time, fighting his battle with youth and vigour, butwith closed eyes, and losing it day by day, was Johnny Fraser. 

Then, one night on the roof, Jane Brown had to refuse the SeniorSurgical Interne. He took it very hard. 

"We'd have been such pals, " he said, rather wistfully, after he sawit was no use. 

"We can be, anyhow. "

"I suppose, " he said with some bitterness, "that I'd have stood abetter chance if I'd done as you wanted me to about that fellow inyour ward, gone to the staff and raised hell. "

"I wouldn't have married you, " said Jane Brown, "but I'd havethought you were pretty much of a man. "

The more he thought about that the less he liked it. It almost kepthim awake that night. 

It was the next day that Twenty-two had his idea. He ran true toform, and carried it back to Jane Brown for her approval. But shewas not enthusiastic. 

"It would help to amuse them, of course, but how can you publish anewspaper without any news?" she asked, rather listlessly, for her. 

"News! This building is full of news. I have some bits already. Listen!" He took a notebook out of his pocket. "The stork breaksquarantine. New baby in O ward. The chief engineer has developed aboil on his neck. Elevator Man arrested for breaking speed limit. Wanted, four square inches of cuticle for skin grafting in W. How'sthat? And I'm only beginning. "

Jane Brown listened. Somehow, behind Twenty-two's lightness of tone, she felt something more earnest. She did not put it into words, evento herself, but she divined something new, a desire to do his bit, there in the hospital. It was, if she had only known it, amilestone in a hitherto unmarked career. Twenty-two, who had alwaysbeen a man, was by way of becoming a person. 

He explained about publishing it. He used to run a typewriter incollege, and the convalescents could mimeograph it and sell it. There was a mimeographing machine in the office. 

The Senior Surgical Interne came in just then. Refusing to marry himhad had much the effect of smacking a puppy. He came back, a trifletimid, but friendly. So he came in just then, and elected himself tothe advertising and circulation department, and gave the Probationerthe society end, although it was not his paper or his idea, and satdown at once at the table and started a limerick, commencing:

 "_We're here in the city, marooned_"

However, he never got any further with it, because there are, apparently, no rhymes for "marooned. " He refused "tuned" whichseveral people offered him, with extreme scorn. 

Up to this point Jane Brown had been rather too worried to thinkabout Twenty-two. She had grown accustomed to seeing him comingslowly back toward her ward, his eyes travelling much faster than hedid. Not, of course, that she knew that. And to his being, in a way, underfoot a part of every day, after the Head had made rounds andwas safely out of the road for a good two hours. 

But two things happened that day to turn her mind in onto her heart. One was when she heard about the artificial leg. The other was whenshe passed the door of his room, where a large card now announced"Office of the _Quarantine Sentinel_. " She passed the door, and shedistinctly heard most un-hospital-like chatter within. Judging fromthe shadows on the glass door, too, the room was full. It soundedjoyous and carefree. 

Something in Jane Brown--her mind, probably--turned right around andlooked into her heart, and made an odd discovery. This was that JaneBrown's heart had sunk about two inches, and was feeling very queer. 

She went straight on, however, and put on a fresh collar in herlittle bedroom, and listed her washing and changed her shoes, because her feet still ached a lot of the time. But she was a braveperson and liked to look things in the face. So before she went backto the ward, she stood in front of her mirror and said:

"You're a nice nurse, Nell Brown. To--to talk about duty and bragabout service, and then to act like a fool. "

She went back to the ward and sat beside Johnny. But that night shewent up on the roof again, and sat on the parapet. She could see, across the courtyard, the dim rectangles of her ward, and around acorner in plain view, "room Twenty-two. " Its occupant was sitting atthe typewriter, and working hard. Or he seemed to be. It was too faraway to be sure. Jane Brown slid down onto the roof, which was notvery clean, and putting her elbows on the parapet, watched him for along time. When he got up, at last, and came to the open window, shehardly breathed. However, he only stood there, looking toward herbut not seeing her. 

Jane Brown put her head on the parapet that night and cried. Shethought she was crying about Johnny Fraser. She might have feltsomewhat comforted had she known that Twenty-two, being tired withhis day's work, had at last given way to most horrible jealousy ofthe Senior Surgical Interne, and that his misery was to hers as fiveis to one. 

The first number of the _Quarantine Sentinel_ was a great success. It served in the wards much the same purpose as the magazinespublished in the trenches. It relieved the monotony, brought thedifferent wards together, furnished laughter and gossip. Twenty-twowrote the editorials, published the paper, with the aid of a coupleof convalescents, and in his leisure drew cartoons. He drew verywell, but all his girls looked like Jane Brown. It caused a rippleof talk. 

The children from the children's ward distributed them, and wentback from the private rooms bearing tribute of flowers and fruit. Twenty-two himself developed a most reprehensible habit ofconcealing candy in the _Sentinel_ office and smuggling it to hiscarriers. Altogether a new and neighbourly feeling seemed tofollow in the wake of the little paper. People who had sulkedin side-by-side rooms began, in the relaxed discipline ofconvalescence, to pay little calls about. Crotchety dowagers knittedsocks for new babies. A wave of friendliness swept over every one, and engulfed particularly Twenty-two. 

In the glow of it he changed perceptibly. This was the firstpopularity he had ever earned, and the first he had ever cared afi-penny bit about. And, because he valued it, he felt more and moreunworthy of it. 

But it kept him from seeing Jane Brown. He was too busy for manyexcursions to the ward, and when he went he was immediately thecentre of an animated group. He hardly ever saw her alone, and whenhe did he began to suspect that she pretended duties that might havewaited. 

One day he happened to go back while Doctor Willie was there, andafter that he understood her problem better. 

Through it all Johnny lived. His thin, young body was now hardly anoutline under the smooth, white covering of his bed. He swallowed, faintly, such bits of liquid as were placed between his lips, butthere were times when Jane Brown's fingers, more expert now, couldfind no pulse at all. And still she had found no way to give him hischance. 

She made a last appeal to Doctor Willie that day, but he only shookhis head gravely. 

"Even if there was an operation now, Nellie, " said Doctor Williethat day, "he could not stand it. "

It was the first time that Twenty-two had known her name was Nellie. 

That was the last day of Jane Brown's probation. On the next day shewas to don her cap. The _Sentinel_ came out with a congratulatoryeditorial, and at nine o'clock that night the First Assistantbrought an announcement, in the Head's own writing, for the paper. 

"The Head of the Training School announces with much pleasure theacceptance of Miss N. Jane Brown as a pupil nurse. "

Twenty-two sat and stared at it for quite a long time. 

That night Jane Brown fought her battle and won. She went to herroom immediately after chapel, and took the family pictures off herlittle stand and got out ink and paper. She put the photographs outof sight, because she knew that they were counting on her, and shecould not bear her mother's eyes. And then she counted her money, because she had broken another thermometer, and the ticket home wasrather expensive. She had enough, but very little more. 

After that she went to work. 

It took her rather a long time, because she had a great deal toexplain. She had to put her case, in fact. And she was not strong oneither ethics or logic. She said so, indeed, at the beginning. Shesaid also that she had talked to a lot of people, but that no oneunderstood how she felt--that there ought to be no professionalethics, or etiquette, or anything else, where it was life or death. That she felt hospitals were to save lives and not to save feelings. It seemed necessary, after that, to defend Doctor Willie--withoutnaming him, of course. How much good he had done, and how he came torely on himself and his own opinion because in the country there wasno one to consult with. 

However, she was not so gentle with the Staff. She said that it wasstanding by and letting a patient die, because it was too polite tointerfere, although they had all agreed among themselves that anoperation was necessary. And that if they felt that way, would theyrefuse to pull a child from in front of a locomotive because it wasits mother's business, and she didn't know how to do it?

_Then she signed it. _

She turned it in at the _Sentinel_ office the next morning whilethe editor was shaving. She had to pass it through a crack in thedoor. Even that, however, was enough for the editor in question tosee that she wore no cap. 

"But--see here, " he said, in a rather lathery voice, "you'reaccepted, you know. Where's the--the visible sign?"

Jane Brown was not quite sure she could speak. However, she managed. 

"After you read that, " she said, "you'll understand. "

He read it immediately, of course, growing more and more grave, andthe soap drying on his chin. Its sheer courage made him gasp. 

"Good girl, " he said to himself. "Brave little girl. But it finishesher here, and she knows it. "

He was pretty well cut up about it, too, because while he wasgetting it ready he felt as if he was sharpening a knife to stab herwith. Her own knife, too. But he had to be as brave as she was. 

The paper came out at two o'clock. At three the First Assistant, looking extremely white, relieved Jane Brown of the care of H wardand sent her to her room. 

Jane Brown eyed her wistfully. 

"I'm not to come back, I suppose?"

The First Assistant avoided her eyes. 

"I'm afraid not, " she said. 

Jane Brown went up the ward and looked down at Johnny Fraser. Thenshe gathered up her bandage scissors and her little dressing forcepsand went out. 

The First Assistant took a step after her, but stopped. There weretears in her eyes. 

Things moved very rapidly in the hospital that day, while the guardssat outside on their camp-stools and ate apples or read thenewspapers, and while Jane Brown sat alone in her room. 

First of all the Staff met and summoned Twenty-two. He went down inthe elevator--he had lost Elizabeth a few days before, and was usinga cane--ready for trouble. He had always met a fight more thanhalfway. It was the same instinct that had taken him to the fire. 

But no one wanted to fight. The Staff was waiting, grave andperplexed, but rather anxious to put its case than otherwise. Itfelt misunderstood, aggrieved, and horribly afraid it was going toget in the newspapers. But it was not angry. On the contrary, it wastrying its extremely intelligent best to see things from a newangle. 

The Senior Surgical Interne was waiting outside. He had smokedeighteen cigarettes since he received his copy of the _Sentinel_, and was as unhappy as an _interne_ can be. 

"What the devil made you publish it?" he demanded. 

Twenty-two smiled. 

"Because, " he said, "I have always had a sneaking desire to publishan honest paper, one where public questions can be discussed. Ifthis isn't a public question, I don't know one when I see it. "

But he was not smiling when he went in. 

An hour later Doctor Willie came in. He had brought some flowers forthe children's ward, and his arms were bulging. To his surprise, accustomed as he was to the somewhat cavalier treatment of thecountry practitioner in a big city hospital, he was invited to theStaff room. 

To the eternal credit of the Staff Jane Brown's part in that painfulhalf hour was never known. The Staff was careful, too, of DoctorWillie. They knew they were being irregular, and were mostwretchedly uncomfortable. Also, there being six of them against one, it looked rather like force, particularly since, after the first twominutes, every one of them liked Doctor Willie. 

He took it so awfully well. He sat there, with his elbows on a tablebeside a withering mass of spring flowers, and faced thewhite-coated Staff, and said that he hoped he was man enough toacknowledge a mistake, and six opinions against one left him nothingelse to do. The Senior Surgical Interne, who had been hating himfor weeks, offered him a cigar. 

He had only one request to make. There was a little girl in thetraining school who believed in him, and he would like to go to theward and write the order for the operation himself. 

Which he did. But Jane Brown was not there. 

Late that evening the First Assistant, passing along the corridor inthe dormitory, was accosted by a quiet figure in a blue uniform, without a cap. 

"How is he?"

The First Assistant was feeling more cheerful than usual. Theoperating surgeon had congratulated her on the way things had movedthat day, and she was feeling, as she often did, that, after all, work was a solace for many troubles. 

"Of course, it is very soon, but he stood it well. " She looked up atJane Brown, who was taller than she was, but who always, somehow, looked rather little. There are girls like that. "Look here, " shesaid, "you must not sit in that room and worry. Run up to theoperating-room and help to clear away. "

She was very wise, the First Assistant. For Jane Brown went, andwashed away some of the ache with the stains of Johnny's operation. Here, all about her, were the tangible evidences of her triumph, which was also a defeat. A little glow of service revived in her. If Johnny lived, it was a small price to pay for a life. If he died, she had given him his chance. The operating-room nurses were verykind. They liked her courage, but they were frightened, too. She, like the others, had been right, but also she was wrong. 

They paid her tribute of little kindnesses, but they knew she mustgo. 

It was the night nurse who told Twenty-two that Jane Brown was inthe operating-room. He was still up and dressed at midnight, but thesheets of to-morrow's editorial lay blank on his table. 

The night nurse glanced at her watch to see if it was time for thetwelve o'clock medicines. 

"There's a rumour going about, " she said, "that the quarantine's tobe lifted to-morrow. I'll be rather sorry. It has been a change. "

"To-morrow, " said Twenty-two, in a startled voice. 

"I suppose you'll be going out at once?"

There was a wistful note in her voice. She liked him. He had been anoasis of cheer in the dreary rounds of the night. A very littlemore, and she might have forgotten her rule, which was never to besentimentally interested in a patient. 

"I wonder, " said Twenty-two, in a curious tone, "if you will give memy cane?"

He was clad, at that time, in a hideous bathrobe, purchased by theorderly, over his night clothing, and he had the expression of aperson who intends to take no chances. 

"Thanks, " said Twenty-two. "And--will you send the night watchmanhere?"

The night nurse went out. She had a distinct feeling that somethingwas about to happen. At least she claimed it later. But she foundthe night watchman making coffee in a back pantry, and gave him hermessage. 

Some time later Jane Brown stood in the doorway of theoperating-room and gave it a farewell look. Its white floor andwalls were spotless. Shining rows of instruments on clean towelswere ready to put away in the cabinets. The sterilisers glowed inwarm rectangles of gleaming copper. Over all brooded the peace oforder, the quiet of the night. 

Outside the operating-room door she drew a long breath, and facedthe night watchman. She had left something in Twenty-two. Would shego and get it?

"It's very late, " said Jane Brown. "And it isn't allowed, I'm sure. "

However, what was one more rule to her who had defied them all? Aspirit of recklessness seized her. After all, why not? She wouldnever see him again. Like the operating-room, she would stand in thedoorway and say a mute little farewell. 

Twenty-two's door was wide open, and he was standing in the centreof the room, looking out. He had heard her long before she came insight, for he, too, had learned the hospital habit of classifyingfootsteps. 

He was horribly excited. He had never been so nervous before. He hadmade up a small speech, a sort of beginning, but he forgot it themoment he heard her, and she surprised him in the midst of trying, agonisingly, to remember it. 

There was a sort of dreadful calm, however, about Jane Brown. 

"The watchman says I have left something here. "

It was clear to him at once that he meant nothing to her. It was inher voice. 

"You did, " he said. And tried to smile. 

"Then--if I may have it----"

"I wish to heaven you could have it, " he said, very rapidly. "Idon't want it. It's darned miserable. "

"It's--what?"

"It's an ache, " he went on, still rather incoherent. "A pain. Amisery. " Then, seeing her beginning to put on a professional look:"No, not that. It's a feeling. Look here, " he said, rather moreslowly, "do you mind coming in and closing the door? There's a manacross who's always listening. "

She went in, but she did not close the door. She went slowly, looking rather pale. 

"What I sent for you for is this, " said Twenty-two, "are you goingaway? Because I've got to know. "

"I'm being sent away as soon as the quarantine is over. It's--it'sperfectly right. I expected it. Things would soon go to pieces ifthe nurses took to--took to doing what I did. "

Suddenly Twenty-two limped across the room and slammed the doorshut, a proceeding immediately followed by an irritated ringing ofbells at the night nurse's desk. Then he turned, his back againstthe door. 

"Because I'm going when you do, " he said, in a terrible voice. "I'mgoing when you go, and wherever you go. I've stood all the waitingaround for a glimpse of you that I'm going to stand. " He glared ather. "For weeks, " he said, "I've sat here in this room and listenedfor you, and hated to go to sleep for fear you would pass and Iwouldn't be looking through that damned door. And now I've reachedthe limit. "

A sort of band which had seemed to be fastened around Jane Brown'shead for days suddenly removed itself to her heart, which becameextremely irregular. 

"And I want to say this, " went on Twenty-two, still in a savagetone. He was horribly frightened, so he blustered. "I don't carewhether you want me or not, you've got to have me. I'm so much inlove with you that it hurts. "

Suddenly Jane Brown's heart settled down into a soft rhythmicbeating that was like a song. After all, life was made up of loveand work, and love came first. 

She faced Twenty-two with brave eyes. 

"I love you, too--so much that it hurts. "

The gentleman across the hall, sitting up in bed, with an angrythumb on the bell, was electrified to see, on the glass door across, the silhouette of a young lady without a cap go into the arms of avery large, masculine silhouette in a dressing-gown. He heard, too, the thump of a falling cane. 

Late that night Jane Brown, by devious ways, made her way back to Hward. Johnny was there, a strange Johnny with a bandaged head, butwith open eyes. 

At dawn, the dawn of the day when Jane Brown was to leave the littleworld of the hospital for a little world of two, consisting of a manand a woman, the night nurse found her there, asleep, her fingersstill on Johnny's thin wrist. 

She did not report it. 

JANE

I

Having retired to a hospital to sulk, Jane remained there. Thefamily came and sat by her bed uncomfortably and smoked, and finallyretreated with defeat written large all over it, leaving Jane to thecontinued possession of Room 33, a pink kimono with slippers tomatch, a hand-embroidered face pillow with a rose-coloured bow onthe corner, and a young nurse with a gift of giving Jane daily theappearance of a strawberry and vanilla ice rising from a meringue ofbed linen. 

Jane's complaint was temper. The family knew this, and so didJane, although she had an annoying way of looking hurt, a gentleheart-brokenness of speech that made the family, under thepretence of getting a match, go out into the hall and swear softlyunder its breath. But it was temper, and the family was notdeceived. Also, knowing Jane, the family was quite ready tobelieve that while it was swearing in the hall, Jane was bitingholes in the hand-embroidered face pillow in Room 33. 

It had finally come to be a test of endurance. Jane vowed to stayat the hospital until the family on bended knee begged her to emergeand to brighten the world again with her presence. The family, beingher father, said it would be damned if it would, and that if Janecared to live on anæmic chicken broth, oatmeal wafers and massagetwice a day for the rest of her life, why, let her. 

The dispute, having begun about whether Jane should or should notmarry a certain person, Jane representing the affirmative and herfather the negative, had taken on new aspects, had grown andaltered, and had, to be brief, become a contest between themasculine Johnson and the feminine Johnson as to which would takethe count. Not that this appeared on the surface. The masculineJohnson, having closed the summer home on Jane's defection and goneback to the city, sent daily telegrams, novels and hothouse grapes, all three of which Jane devoured indiscriminately. Once, indeed, Father Johnson had motored the forty miles from town, to be toldthat Jane was too ill and unhappy to see him, and to have a glimpse, as he drove furiously away, of Jane sitting pensive at her window inthe pink kimono, gazing over his head at the distant hills andclearly entirely indifferent to him and his wrath. 

So we find Jane, on a frosty morning in late October, in triumphantpossession of the field--aunts and cousins routed, her fathersulking in town, and the victor herself--or is victor feminine?--andif it isn't, shouldn't it be?--sitting up in bed staring blankly ather watch. 

Jane had just wakened--an hour later than usual; she had rung thebell three times and no one had responded. Jane's famous temperbegan to stretch and yawn. At this hour Jane was accustomedto be washed with tepid water, scented daintily with violet, alcohol-rubbed, talcum-powdered, and finally fresh-linened, coifedand manicured, to be supported with a heap of fresh pillows and fedcreamed sweet-bread and golden-brown coffee and toast. 

Jane rang again, with a line between her eyebrows. The bell was notbroken. She could hear it distinctly. This was an outrage! She wouldreport it to the superintendent. She had been ringing for tenminutes. That little minx of a nurse was flirting somewhere with oneof the internes. 

Jane angrily flung the covers back and got out on her small barefeet. Then she stretched her slim young arms above her head, herspoiled red mouth forming a scarlet O as she yawned. In hersleeveless and neckless nightgown, with her hair over her shoulders, minus the more elaborate coiffure which later in the day helpedher to poise and firmness, she looked a pretty young girl, almost--although Jane herself never suspected this--almost anamiable young person. 

Jane saw herself in the glass and assumed immediately the two linesbetween her eyebrows which were the outward and visible token ofwhat she had suffered. Then she found her slippers, a pair ofstockings to match and two round bits of pink silk elastic ofprivate and feminine use, and sat down on the floor to put them on. 

The floor was cold. To Jane's wrath was added indignation. Shehitched herself along the boards to the radiator and put her hand onit. It was even colder than Jane. 

The family temper was fully awake by this time and ready forbusiness. Jane, sitting on the icy floor, jerked on her stockings, snapped the pink bands into place, thrust her feet into her slippersand rose, shivering. She went to the bed, and by dint of carefulmanoeuvring so placed the bell between the head of the bed and thewall that during the remainder of her toilet it rang steadily. 

The remainder of Jane's toilet was rather casual. She flung on thesilk kimono, twisted her hair on top of her head and stuck a pin ortwo in it, thus achieving a sort of effect a thousand times morebewildering than she had ever managed with a curling iron andtwenty seven hair pins, and flinging her door wide stalked into thehall. At least she meant to stalk, but one does not really stampabout much in number-two, heelless, pink-satin mules. 

At the first stalk--or stamp--she stopped. Standing uncertainly justoutside her door was a strange man, strangely attired. Jane clutchedher kimono about her and stared. 

"Did--did you--are you ringing?" asked the apparition. It wore apair of white-duck trousers, much soiled, a coat that bore the words"furnace room" down the front in red letters on a white tape, and aclean and spotless white apron. There was coal dust on its face andstreaks of it in its hair, which appeared normally to be red. 

"There's something the matter with your bell, " said the young man. "It keeps on ringing. "

"I intend it to, " said Jane coldly. 

"You can't make a racket like that round here, you know, " heasserted, looking past her into the room. 

"I intend to make all the racket I can until I get some attention. "

"What have you done--put a book on it?"

"Look here"--Jane added another line to the two between hereyebrows. In the family this was generally a signal for a retreat, but of course the young man could not know this, and, besides, hewas red-headed. "Look here, " said Jane, "I don't know who you areand I don't care either, but that bell is going to ring until I getmy bath and some breakfast. And it's going to ring then unless Istop it. "

The young man in the coal dust and the white apron looked at Janeand smiled. Then he walked past her into the room, jerked the bedfrom the wall and released the bell. 

"Now!" he said as the din outside ceased. "I'm too busy to talk justat present, but if you do that again I'll take the bell out of theroom altogether. There are other people in the hospital besidesyourself. "

At that he started out and along the hall, leaving Jane speechless. After he'd gone about a dozen feet he stopped and turned, looking atJane reflectively. 

"Do you know anything about cooking?" he asked. 

"I know more about cooking than you do about politeness, " sheretorted, white with fury, and went into her room and slammed thedoor. She went directly to the bell and put it behind the bed andset it to ringing again. Then she sat down in a chair and picked upa book. Had the red-haired person opened the door she was perfectlyprepared to fling the book at him. She would have thrown a hatchethad she had one. 

As a matter of fact, however, he did not come back. The bell rangwith a soul-satisfying jangle for about two minutes and then diedaway, and no amount of poking with a hairpin did any good. It wasclear that the bell had been cut off outside!

For fifty-five minutes Jane sat in that chair breakfastless, verycasually washed and with the aforesaid Billie Burkeness of hair. Then, hunger gaining over temper, she opened the door and peeredout. From somewhere near at hand there came a pungent odor ofburning toast. Jane sniffed; then, driven by hunger, she made ashort sally down the hall to the parlour where the nurses on dutymade their headquarters. It was empty. The dismantled bell registerwas on the wall, with the bell unscrewed and lying on the mantelbeside it, and the odour of burning toast was stronger than ever. 

Jane padded softly to the odour, following her small nose. It ledher to the pantry, where under ordinary circumstances the patients'trays were prepared by a pantrymaid, the food being shipped therefrom the kitchen on a lift. Clearly the circumstances were notordinary. The pantrymaid was not in sight. 

Instead, the red-haired person was standing by the window scrapingbusily at a blackened piece of toast. There was a rank odour ofboiling tea in the air. 

"Damnation!" said the red-haired person, and flung the toast into acorner where there already lay a small heap of charred breakfasthopes. Then he saw Jane. 

"I fixed the bell, didn't I?" he remarked. "I say, since you claimto know so much about cooking, I wish you'd make some toast. "

"I didn't say I knew much, " snapped Jane, holding her kimono roundher. "I said I knew more than you knew about politeness. "

The red-haired person smiled again, and then, making a deep bow, with a knife in one hand and a toaster in the other, he said:"Madam, I prithee forgive me for my untoward conduct of an hoursince. Say but the word and I replace the bell. "

"I won't make any toast, " said Jane, looking at the bread withfamished eyes. 

"Oh, very well, " said the red-haired person with a sigh. "On yourhead be it!"

"But I'll tell you how to do it, " conceded Jane, "if you'll explainwho you are and what you are doing in that costume and where thenurses are. "

The red-haired person sat down on the edge of the table and lookedat her. 

"I'll make a bargain with you, " he said. "There's a convalescenttyphoid in a room near yours who swears he'll go down to the villagefor something to eat in his--er--hospital attire unless he's fedsoon. He's dangerous, empty. He's reached the cannibalistic stage. If he should see you in that ravishing pink thing, I--I wouldn'tanswer for the consequences. I'll tell you everything if you'll makehim six large slices of toast and boil him four or five eggs, enoughto hold him for a while. The tea's probably ready; it's been boilingfor an hour. "

Hunger was making Jane human. She gathered up the tail of herkimono, and stepping daintily into the pantry proceeded to spreadherself a slice of bread and butter. 

"Where is everybody?" she asked, licking some butter off her thumbwith a small pink tongue. 

 _Oh, I am the cook and the captain bold, And the mate of the Nancy brig, And the bosun tight and the midshipmite, And the crew of the captain's gig. _

recited the red-haired person. 

"You!" said Jane with the bread halfway to her mouth. 

"Even I, " said the red-haired person. "I'm the superintendent, thestaff, the training school, the cooks, the furnace man and theambulance driver. "

Jane was pouring herself a cup of tea, and she put in milk and sugarand took a sip or two before she would give him the satisfaction ofasking him what he meant. Anyhow, probably she had already guessed. Jane was no fool. 

"I hope you're getting the salary list, " she said, sitting on thepantry girl's chair and, what with the tea inside and somebody toquarrel with, feeling more like herself. "My father's one of thedirectors, and somebody gets it. "

The red-haired person sat on the radiator and eyed Jane. He lookedslightly stunned, as if the presence of beauty in a Billie Burkechignon and little else except a kimono was almost too much for him. From somewhere near by came a terrific thumping, as of some onepounding a hairbrush on a table. The red-haired person shifted alongthe radiator a little nearer Jane, and continued to gloat. 

"Don't let that noise bother you, " he said; "that's only theconvalescent typhoid banging for his breakfast. He's been shoutingfor food ever since I came at six last night. "

"Is it safe to feed him so much?"

"I don't know. He hasn't had anything yet. Perhaps if you're readyyou'd better fix him something. "

Jane had finished her bread and tea by this time and remembered herkimono. 

"I'll go back and dress, " she said primly. But he wouldn't hear ofit. 

"He's starving, " he objected as a fresh volley of thumps came alongthe hall. "I've been trying at intervals since daylight to make hima piece of toast. The minute I put it on the fire I think ofsomething I've forgotten, and when I come back it's in flames. "

So Jane cut some bread and put on eggs to boil, and the red-hairedperson told his story. 

"You see, " he explained, "although I appear to be a furnace man fromthe waist up and an interne from the waist down, I am really the newsuperintendent. "

"I hope you'll do better than the last one, " she said severely. "Hewas always flirting with the nurses. "

"I shall never flirt with the nurses, " he promised, looking at her. "Anyhow I shan't have any immediate chance. The other fellow leftlast night and took with him everything portable except theambulance--nurses, staff, cooks. I wish to Heaven he'd taken thepatients! And he did more than that. He cut the telephone wires!"

"Well!" said Jane. "Are you going to stand for it?"

The red-haired man threw up his hands. "The village is with him, " hedeclared. "It's a factional fight--the village against thefashionable summer colony on the hill. I cannot telephone from thevillage--the telegraph operator is deaf when I speak to him; thevillage milkman and grocer sent boys up this morning--look here. "He fished a scrap of paper from his pocket and read:

 I will not supply the Valley Hospital with any fresh meats, canned oysters and sausages, or do any plumbing for the hospital until the reinstatement of Dr. Sheets. T. CASHDOLLAR, Butcher. 

Jane took the paper and read it again. "Humph!" she commented. "Old Sheets wrote it himself. Mr. Cashdollar couldn't think'reinstatement, ' let alone spell it. "

"The question is not who wrote it, but what we are to do, " said thered-haired person. "Shall I let old Sheets come back?"

"If you do, " said Jane fiercely, "I shall hate you the rest of mylife. "

And as it was clear by this time that the red-haired person couldimagine nothing more horrible, it was settled then and there that heshould stay. 

"There are only two wards, " he said. "In the men's a man namedHiggins is able to be up and is keeping things straight. And in thewoman's ward Mary O'Shaughnessy is looking after them. The furnacesare the worst. I'd have forgiven almost anything else. I've sat upall night nursing the fires, but they breathed their last at sixthis morning and I guess there's nothing left but to call thecoroner. "

Jane had achieved a tolerable plate of toast by that time and foureggs. Also she had a fine flush, a combination of heat from the gasstove and temper. 

"They ought to be ashamed, " she cried angrily, "leaving a lot ofsick people!"

"Oh, as to that, " said the red-headed person, "there aren't anyvery sick ones. Two or three neurasthenics like yourself and aconvalescent typhoid and a D. T. In a private room. If it wasn'tthat Mary O'Shaughnessy----"

But at the word "neurasthenics" Jane had put down the toaster, andby the time the unconscious young man had reached the O'Shaughnessyshe was going out the door with her chin up. He called after her, and finding she did not turn he followed her, shouting apologies ather back until she went into her room. And as hospital doors don'tlock from the inside she pushed the washstand against the knob andwent to bed to keep warm. 

He stood outside and apologised again, and later he brought a trayof bread and butter and a pot of the tea, which had been boiling fortwo hours by that time, and put it outside the door on the floor. But Jane refused to get it, and finished her breakfast from a jar ofcandied ginger that some one had sent her, and read "Lorna Doone. "

Now and then a sound of terrific hammering would follow thesteampipes and Jane would smile wickedly. By noon she had finishedthe ginger and was wondering what the person about whom she and thefamily had disagreed would think when he heard the way she was beingtreated. And by one o'clock she had cried her eyes entirely shut andhad pushed the washstand back from the door. 

II

Now a hospital full of nurses and doctors with a bell to summon foodand attention is one thing. A hospital without nurses and doctors, and with only one person to do everything, and that person mostly inthe cellar, is quite another. Jane was very sad and lonely, and toadd to her troubles the delirium-tremens case down the hall began tosing "Oh Promise Me" in a falsetto voice and kept it up for hours. 

At three Jane got up and bathed her eyes. She also did her hair, and thus fortified she started out to find the red-haired person. She intended to say that she was paying sixty-five dollars a weekand belonged to a leading family, and that she didn't mean toendure for a moment the treatment she was getting, and beingcalled a neurasthenic and made to cook for the other patients. 

She went slowly along the hall. The convalescent typhoid heard herand called. 

"Hey, doc!" he cried. "Hey, doc! Great Scott, man, when do I getsome dinner?"

Jane quickened her steps and made for the pantry. From somewherebeyond, the delirium-tremens case was singing happily:

 _I--love you o--own--ly, I love--but--you. _

Jane shivered a little. The person in whom she had been interestedand who had caused her precipitate retirement, if not to a nunnery, to what answered the same purpose, had been very fond of that song. He used to sing it, leaning over the piano and looking into hereyes. 

Jane's nose led her again to the pantry. There was a sort of soupyodour in the air, and sure enough the red-haired person was there, very immaculate in fresh ducks, pouring boiling water into threetea-cups out of a kettle and then dropping a beef capsule into eachcup. 

Now Jane had intended, as I have said, to say that she was beingoutrageously treated, and belonged to one of the best families, andso on. What she really said was piteously:

"How good it smells!"

"Doesn't it!" said the red-haired person, sniffing. "Beef capsules. I've made thirty cups of it so far since one o'clock--the more theyhave the more they want. I say, be a good girl and run up to thekitchen for some more crackers while I carry food to theconvalescent typhoid. He's murderous!"

"Where are the crackers?" asked Jane stiffly, but not exactly caringto raise an issue until she was sure of getting something to eat. 

"Store closet in the kitchen, third drawer on the left, " said thered-haired man, shaking some cayenne pepper into one of the cups. "You might stop that howling lunatic on your way if you will. "

"How?" asked Jane, pausing. 

"Ram a towel down his throat, or--but don't bother. I'll dose himwith this beef tea and red pepper, and he'll be too busy putting outthe fire to want to sing. "

"You wouldn't be so cruel!" said Jane, rather drawing back. Thered-haired person smiled and to Jane it showed that he was actuallyferocious. She ran all the way up for the crackers and down again, carrying the tin box. There is no doubt that Jane's family wouldhave promptly swooned had it seen her. 

When she came down there was a sort of after-dinner peace reigning. The convalescent typhoid, having filled up on milk and beef soup, had floated off to sleep. "The Chocolate Soldier" had given way todeep-muttered imprecations from the singer's room. Jane made herselfa cup of bouillon and drank it scalding. She was making the secondwhen the red-haired person came back with an empty cup. 

"I forgot to explain, " he said, "that beef tea and red pepper's thetreatment for our young friend in there. After a man has beenburning his stomach daily with a quart or so of raw booze----"

"I beg your pardon, " said Jane coolly. Booze was not considered goodform on the hill--the word, of course. There was plenty of thesubstance. 

"Raw booze, " repeated the red-haired person. "Nothing short of redpepper or dynamite is going to act as a substitute. Why, I'll betthe inside of that chap's stomach is of the general sensitivenessand consistency of my shoe. "

"Indeed!" said Jane, coldly polite. In Jane's circle people did notdiscuss the interiors of other people's stomachs. The red-hairedperson sat on the table with a cup of bouillon in one hand and acracker in the other. 

"You know, " he said genially, "it's awfully bully of you to come outand keep me company like this. I never put in such a day. I've givenup fussing with the furnace and got out extra blankets instead. AndI think by night our troubles will be over. " He held up the cup andglanced at Jane, who was looking entrancingly pretty. "To ourtroubles being over!" he said, draining the cup, and then foundthat he had used the red pepper again by mistake. It took fiveminutes and four cups of cold water to enable him to explain what hemeant. 

"By our troubles being over, " he said finally when he could speak, "I mean this: There's a train from town at eight to-night, and ifall goes well it will deposit in the village half a dozen nurses, acook or two, a furnace man--good Heavens, I wonder if I forgot afurnace man!"

It seemed, as Jane discovered, that the telephone wires being cut, he had sent Higgins from the men's ward to the village to send sometelegrams for him. 

"I couldn't leave, you see, " he explained, "and having some smallreason to believe that I am _persona non grata_ in this vicinity Isent Higgins. "

Jane had always hated the name Higgins. She said afterward that shefelt uneasy from that moment. The red-haired person, who was notbad-looking, being tall and straight and having a very decent nose, looked at Jane, and Jane, having been shut away for weeks--Janepreened a little and was glad she had done her hair. 

"You looked better the other way, " said the red-haired person, reading her mind in a most uncanny manner. "Why should a girl withas pretty hair as yours cover it up with a net, anyhow?"

"You are very disagreeable and--and impertinent, " said Jane, sliding off the table. 

"It isn't disagreeable to tell a girl she has pretty hair, " thered-haired person protested--"or impertinent either. "

Jane was gathering up the remnants of her temper, scattered by theevents of the day. 

"You said I was a neurasthenic, " she accused him. "It--it isn'tbeing a neurasthenic to be nervous and upset and hating the verysight of people, is it?"

"Bless my soul!" said the red-haired man. "Then what is it?" Janeflushed, but he went on tactlessly: "I give you my word, I think youare the most perfectly"--he gave every appearance of being about tosay "beautiful, " but he evidently changed his mind--"the mostperfectly healthy person I have ever looked at, " he finished. 

It is difficult to say just what Jane would have done under othercircumstances, but just as she was getting her temper really in handand preparing to launch something, shuffling footsteps were heard inthe hall and Higgins stood in the doorway. 

He was in a sad state. One of his eyes was entirely closed, and thecorresponding ear stood out large and bulbous from his head. Also hewas coated with mud, and he was carefully nursing one hand with theother. 

He said he had been met at the near end of the railroad bridge bythe ex-furnace man and one of the ex-orderlies and sent back firmly, having in fact been kicked back part of the way. He'd been told toreport at the hospital that the tradespeople had instituted aboycott, and that either the former superintendent went back or theentire place could starve to death. 

It was then that Jane discovered that her much-vaunted temper wasnot one-two-three to that of the red-haired person. He turned a sortof blue-white, shoved Jane out of his way as if she had been achair, and she heard him clatter down the stairs and slam out of thefront door. 

Jane went back to her room and looked down the drive. He was runningtoward the bridge, and the sunlight on his red hair and his flyinglegs made him look like a revengeful meteor. Jane was weak in theknees. She knelt on the cold radiator and watched him out of sight, and then got trembly all over and fell to snivelling. This was ofcourse because, if anything happened to him, she would be leftentirely alone. And anyhow the D. T. Case was singing again and hadrather got on her nerves. 

In ten minutes the red-haired person appeared. He had awretched-looking creature by the back of the neck and he alternatelypushed and kicked him up the drive. He--the red-haired person--waswhistling and clearly immensely pleased with himself. 

Jane put a little powder on her nose and waited for him to come andtell her all about it. But he did not come near. This was quite thecleverest thing he could have done, had he known it. Jane was notaccustomed to waiting in vain. He must have gone directly to thecellar, half pushing and half kicking the luckless furnace man, forabout four o'clock the radiator began to get warm. 

At five he came and knocked at Jane's door, and on being invited inhe sat down on the bed and looked at her. 

"Well, we've got the furnace going, " he said. 

"Then that was the----"

"Furnace man? Yes. "

"Aren't you afraid to leave him?" queried Jane. "Won't he run off?"

"Got him locked in a padded cell, " he said. "I can take him out tocoal up. The rest of the time he can sit and think of his sins. Thequestion is--what are we to do next?"

"I should think, " ventured Jane, "that we'd better be thinking aboutsupper. "

"The beef capsules are gone. "

"But surely there must be something else about--potatoes or thingslike that?"

He brightened perceptibly. "Oh, yes, carloads of potatoes, andthere's canned stuff. Higgins can pare potatoes, and there's MaryO'Shaughnessy. We could have potatoes and canned tomatoes and eggs. "

"Fine!" said Jane with her eyes gleaming, although the day beforeshe would have said they were her three abominations. 

And with that he called Higgins and Mary O'Shaughnessy and the fourof them went to the kitchen. 

Jane positively shone. She had never realised before how much sheknew about cooking. They built a fire and got kettles boiling andeverybody pared potatoes, and although in excess of zeal the eggswere ready long before everything else and the tomatoes scorchedslightly, still they made up in enthusiasm what they lacked inability, and when Higgins had carried the trays to the lift andstarted them on their way, Jane and the red-haired person shookhands on it and then ate a boiled potato from the same plate, sitting side by side on a table. 

They were ravenous. They boiled one egg each and ate it, and thenboiled another and another, and when they finished they found thatJane had eaten four potatoes, four eggs and unlimited bread andbutter, while the red-haired person had eaten six saucers of stewedtomatoes and was starting on the seventh. 

"You know, " he said over the seventh, "we've got to figure thisthing out. The entire town is solid against us--no use trying to getto a telephone. And anyhow they've got us surrounded. We're in astate of siege. "

Jane was beating up an egg in milk for the D. T. Patient, thecapsules being exhausted, and the red-haired person was watching herclosely. She had the two vertical lines between her eyes, but theylooked really like lines of endeavour and not temper. 

She stopped beating and looked up. 

"Couldn't I go to the village?" she asked. 

"They would stop you. "

"Then--I think I know what we can do, " she said, giving the eggnog afinal whisk. "My people have a summer place on the hill. If youcould get there you could telephone to the city. "

"Could I get in?"

"I have a key. "

Jane did not explain that the said key had been left by her father, with the terse hope that if she came to her senses she could getinto the house and get her clothes. 

"Good girl, " said the red-headed person and patted her on theshoulder. "We'll euchre the old skate yet. " Curiously, Jane did notresent either the speech or the pat. 

He took the glass and tied on a white apron. "If our friend doesn'tdrink this, I will, " he continued. "If he'd seen it in the making, as I have, he'd be crazy about it. "

He opened the door and stood listening. From below floated up therefrain:

 _I--love you o--own--ly, I love--but--you. _

"Listen to that!" he said. "Stomach's gone, but still has a heart!"

Higgins came up the stairs heavily and stopped close by thered-haired person, whispering something to him. There was a second'spause. Then the red-haired person gave the eggnog to Higgins andboth disappeared. 

Jane was puzzled. She rather thought the furnace man had got out andlistened for a scuffle, but none came. She did, however, hear thesinging cease below, and then commence with renewed vigour, and sheheard Higgins slowly remounting the stairs. He came in, with theempty glass and a sheepish expression. Part of the eggnog wasdistributed over his person. 

"He wants his nurse, ma'am, " said Higgins. "Wouldn't let me nearhim. Flung a pillow at me. "

"Where is the doctor?" demanded Jane. 

"Busy, " replied Higgins. "One of the women is sick. "

Jane was provoked. She had put some labour into the eggnog. But itshows the curious evolution going on in her that she got out theeggs and milk and made another one without protest. Then with herhead up she carried it to the door. 

"You might clear things away, Higgins, " she said, and went down thestairs. Her heart was going rather fast. Most of the men Jane knewdrank more or less, but this was different. She would have turnedback halfway there had it not been for Higgins and for owningherself conquered. That was Jane's real weakness--she never ownedherself beaten. 

The singing had subsided to a low muttering. Jane stopped outsidethe door and took a fresh grip on her courage. Then she pushed thedoor open and went in. 

The light was shaded, and at first the tossing figure on the bed wasonly a misty outline of greys and whites. She walked over, expectinga pillow at any moment and shielding the glass from attack with herhand. 

"I have brought you another eggnog, " she began severely, "and if youspill it----"

Then she looked down and saw the face on the pillow. 

To her everlasting credit, Jane did not faint. But in that moment, while she stood staring down at the flushed young face with itstumbled dark hair and deep-cut lines of dissipation, the man who hadsung to her over the piano, looking love into her eyes, died to her, and Jane, cold and steady, sat down on the side of the bed and fedthe eggnog, spoonful by spoonful, to his corpse!

When the blank-eyed young man on the bed had swallowed it allpassively, looking at her with dull, incurious eyes, she went backto her room and closing the door put the washstand against it. Shedid nothing theatrical. She went over to the window and stoodlooking out where the trees along the drive were fading in the duskfrom green to grey, from grey to black. And over the transom cameagain and again monotonously the refrain:

 _I--love you o--own--ly, I love--but--you. _

Jane fell on her knees beside the bed and buried her wilful head inthe hand-embroidered pillow, and said a little prayer because shehad found out in time. 

III

The full realisation of their predicament came with the dusk. Theelectric lights were shut off! Jane, crawling into bed tearfully athalf after eight, turned the reading light switch over her head, butno flood of rosy radiance poured down on the hand-embroidered pillowwith the pink bow. 

Jane sat up and stared round her. Already the outline of her dresserwas faint and shadowy. In half an hour black night would settle downand she had not even a candle or a box of matches. She crawled out, panicky, and began in the darkness to don her kimono and slippers. As she opened the door and stepped into the hall the convalescenttyphoid heard her and set up his usual cry. 

"Hey, " he called, "whoever that is come in and fix the lights. They're broken. And I want some bread and milk. I can't sleep on anempty stomach!"

Jane padded on past the room where love lay cold and dead, down thecorridor with its alarming echoes. The house seemed very quiet. At acorner unexpectedly she collided with some one going hastily. Theresult was a crash and a deluge of hot water. Jane got a drop on herbare ankle, and as soon as she could breathe she screamed. 

"Why don't you look where you're going?" demanded the red-hairedperson angrily. "I've been an hour boiling that water, and now ithas to be done over again!"

"It would do a lot of good to look!" retorted Jane. "But if youwish I'll carry a bell!"

"The thing for you to do, " said the red-haired person severely, "isto go back to bed like a good girl and stay there until morning. Thelight is cut off. "

"Really!" said Jane. "I thought it had just gone out for a walk. Idaresay I may have a box of matches at least?"

He fumbled in his pockets without success. 

"Not a match, of course!" he said disgustedly. "Was any one ever insuch an infernal mess? Can't you get back to your room withoutmatches?"

"I shan't go back at all unless I have some sort of light, "maintained Jane. "I'm--horribly frightened!"

The break in her voice caught his attention and he put his hand outgently and took her arm. 

"Now listen, " he said. "You've been brave and fine all day, anddon't stop it now. I--I've got all I can manage. Mary O'Shaughnessyis----" He stopped. "I'm going to be very busy, " he said with half agroan. "I surely do wish you were forty for the next few hours. Butyou'll go back and stay in your room, won't you?"

He patted her arm, which Jane particularly hated generally. But Janehad altered considerably since morning. 

"Then you cannot go to the telephone?"

"Not to-night. "

"And Higgins?"

"Higgins has gone, " he said. "He slipped off an hour ago. We'll haveto manage to-night somehow. Now will you be a good child?"

"I'll go back, " she promised meekly. "I'm sorry I'm not forty. "

He turned her round and started her in the right direction with alittle push. But she had gone only a step or two when she heard himcoming after her quickly. 

"Where are you?"

"Here, " quavered Jane, not quite sure of him or of herself perhaps. 

But when he stopped beside her he didn't try to touch her arm again. He only said:

"I wouldn't have you forty for anything in the world. I want you tobe just as you are, very beautiful and young. "

Then, as if he was afraid he would say too much, he turned on hisheel, and a moment after he kicked against the fallen pitcher in thedarkness and awoke a thousand echoes. As for Jane, she put herfingers to her ears and ran to her room, where she slammed the doorand crawled into bed with burning cheeks. 

Jane was never sure whether it was five minutes later or fiveseconds when somebody in the room spoke--from a chair by the window. 

"Do you think, " said a mild voice--"do you think you could find mesome bread and butter? Or a glass of milk?"

Jane sat up in bed suddenly. She knew at once that she had made amistake, but she was quite dignified about it. She looked over atthe chair, and the convalescent typhoid was sitting in it, wrappedin a blanket and looking wan and ghostly in the dusk. 

"I'm afraid I'm in the wrong room, " Jane said very stiffly, tryingto get out of the bed with dignity, which is difficult. "The hall isdark and all the doors look so alike----"

She made for the door at that and got out into the hall with herheart going a thousand a minute again. 

"You've forgotten your slippers, " called the convalescent typhoidafter her. But nothing would have taken Jane back. 

The convalescent typhoid took the slippers home later and lockedthem away in an inner drawer, where he kept one or two things likefaded roses, and old gloves, and a silk necktie that a girl had madehim at college--things that are all the secrets a man keeps from hiswife and that belong in that small corner of his heart which alsohe keeps from his wife. But that has nothing to do with Jane. 

Jane went back to her own bed thoroughly demoralised. And sleepbeing pretty well banished by that time, she sat up in bed andthought things over. Before this she had not thought much, onlyraged and sulked alternately. But now she thought. She thought aboutthe man in the room down the hall with the lines of dissipation onhis face. And she thought a great deal about what a silly she hadbeen, and that it was not too late yet, she being not forty and"beautiful. " It must be confessed that she thought a great dealabout that. Also she reflected that what she deserved was to marrysome person with even a worse temper than hers, who would bully herat times and generally keep her straight. And from that, of course, it was only a step to the fact that red-haired people areproverbially bad-tempered!

She thought, too, about Mary O'Shaughnessy without another womannear, and not even a light, except perhaps a candle. Things werealways so much worse in the darkness. And perhaps she might be goingto be very ill and ought to have another doctor!

Jane seemed to have been reflecting for a long time, when the churchclock far down in the village struck nine. And with the chiming ofthe clock was born, full grown, an idea which before it was sixtyseconds of age was a determination. 

In pursuance of the idea Jane once more crawled out of bed and beganto dress; she put on heavy shoes and a short skirt, a coat, and amotor veil over her hair. The indignation at the defection of thehospital staff, held in subjection during the day by the necessityfor doing something, now rose and lent speed and fury to hermovements. In an incredibly short time Jane was feeling her wayalong the hall and down the staircase, now a well of unfathomableblackness and incredible rustlings and creakings. 

The front doors were unlocked. Outside there was faint starlight, the chirp of a sleepy bird, and far off across the valley thegasping and wheezing of a freight climbing the heavy grade to thevillage. 

Jane paused at the drive and took a breath. Then at her bestgymnasium pace, arms close to sides, head up, feet well planted, shestarted to run. At the sundial she left the drive and took to thelawn gleaming with the frost of late October. She stopped runningthen and began to pick her way more cautiously. Even at that shecollided heavily with a wire fence marking the boundary, and sat onthe ground for some time after, whimpering over the outrage andfeeling her nose. It was distinctly scratched and swollen. No onewould think her beautiful with a nose like that!

She had not expected the wire fence. It was impossible to climb andmore difficult to get under. However, she found one place where theground dipped, and wormed her way under the fence in mostundignified fashion. It is perfectly certain that had Jane's familyseen her then and been told that she was doing this remarkable thingfor a woman she had never seen before that day, named MaryO'Shaughnessy, and also for a certain red-haired person of whom ithad never heard, it would have considered Jane quite irrational. Butit is entirely probable that Jane became really rational that nightfor the first time in her spoiled young life. 

Jane never told the details of that excursion. Those that came outin the paper were only guess-work, of course, but it is quite truethat a reporter found scraps of her motor veil on three wire fences, and there seems to be no reason to doubt, also, that two false curlswere discovered a week later in a cow pasture on her own estate. Butas Jane never wore curls afterward anyhow----

Well, Jane got to her own house about eleven and crept in like athief to the telephone. There were more rustlings and creakings andrumblings in the empty house than she had ever imagined, and shewent backward through the hall for fear of something coming afterher. But, which is to the point, she got to the telephone and calledup her father in the city. 

The first message that astonished gentleman got was that ared-haired person at the hospital was very ill, having run into awire fence and bruised a nose, and that he was to bring out at oncefrom town two doctors, six nurses, a cook and a furnace man!

After a time, however, as Jane grew calmer, he got it straightenedout, and said a number of things over the telephone anent thedeserting staff that are quite forbidden by the rules both of theclub and of the telephone company. He gave Jane full instructionsabout sending to the village and having somebody come up and staywith her, and about taking a hot footbath and going to bed betweenblankets, and when Jane replied meekly to everything "Yes, father, "and "All right, father, " he was so stunned by her mildness that hewas certain she must be really ill. 

Not that Jane had any idea of doing all these things. She hung upthe telephone and gathered all the candles from all the candlestickson the lower floor, and started back for the hospital. The moon hadcome up and she had no more trouble with fencing, but she wasdesperately tired. She climbed the drive slowly, coming to frequentpauses. The hospital, long and low and sleeping, lay before her, and in one upper window there was a small yellow light. 

Jane climbed the steps and sat down on the top one. She felt verytired and sad and dejected, and she sat down on the upper step tothink of how useless she was, and how much a man must know to be adoctor, and that perhaps she would take up nursing in earnest andamount to something, and----

It was about three o'clock in the morning when the red-hairedperson, coming down belatedly to close the front doors, saw ashapeless heap on the porch surrounded by a radius of white-waxcandles, and going up shoved at it with his foot. Whereat the heapmoved slightly and muttered "Lemme shleep. "

The red-haired person said "Good Heavens!" and bending down held alighted match to the sleeper's face and stared, petrified. Janeopened her eyes, sat up and put her hand over her mutilated nosewith one gesture. 

"You!" said the red-haired person. And then mercifully the matchwent out. 

"Don't light another, " said Jane. "I'm an alarming sight. Would--would you mind feeling if my nose is broken?"

He didn't move to examine it. He just kept on kneeling and staring. 

"Where have you been?" he demanded. 

"Over to telephone, " said Jane, and yawned. "They're bringingeverybody in automobiles--doctors, nurses, furnace man--oh, dear me, I hope I mentioned a cook!"

"Do you mean to say, " said the red-haired person wonderingly, "thatyou went by yourself across the fields and telephoned to get me outof this mess?"

"Not at all, " Jane corrected him coolly. "I'm in the mess myself. "

"You'll be ill again. "

"I never was ill, " said Jane. "I was here for a mean disposition. "

Jane sat in the moonlight with her hands in her lap and looked athim calmly. The red-haired person reached over and took both herhands. 

"You're a heroine, " he said, and bending down he kissed first oneand then the other. "Isn't it bad enough that you are beautifulwithout your also being brave?"

Jane eyed him, but he was in deadly earnest. In the moonlight hishair was really not red at all, and he looked pale and very, verytired. Something inside of Jane gave a curious thrill that was halfpain. Perhaps it was the dying of her temper, perhaps----

"Am I still beautiful with this nose?" she asked. 

"You are everything that a woman should be, " he said, and droppingher hands he got up. He stood there in the moonlight, straight andyoung and crowned with despair, and Jane looked up from under herlong lashes. 

"Then why don't you stay where you were?" she asked. 

At that he reached down and took her hands again and pulled her toher feet. He was very strong. 

"Because if I do I'll never leave you again, " he said. "And I mustgo. "

He dropped her hands, or tried to, but Jane wasn't ready to bedropped. 

"You know, " she said, "I've told you I'm a sulky, bad-tempered----"

But at that he laughed suddenly, triumphantly, and put both his armsround her and held her close. 

"I love you, " he said, "and if you are bad-tempered, so am I, only Ithink I'm worse. It's a shame to spoil two houses with us, isn'tit?"

To her eternal shame be it told, Jane never struggled. She simplyheld up her mouth to be kissed. 

That is really all the story. Jane's father came with threeautomobiles that morning at dawn, bringing with him all that goes tomake up a hospital, from a pharmacy clerk to absorbent cotton, andhaving left the new supplies in the office he stamped upstairs toJane's room and flung open the door. 

He expected to find Jane in hysterics and the pink silk kimono. 

What he really saw was this: A coal fire was lighted in Jane'sgrate, and in a low chair before it, with her nose swollen levelwith her forehead, sat Jane, holding on her lap Mary O'Shaughnessy'sbaby, very new and magenta-coloured and yelling like a trooper. Kneeling beside the chair was a tall, red-headed person holding abottle of olive oil. 

"Now, sweetest, " the red-haired person was saying, "turn him on histummy and we'll rub his back. Gee, isn't that a fat back!"

And as Jane's father stared and Jane anxiously turned the baby, thered-haired person leaned over and kissed the back of Jane's neck. 

"Jane!" he whispered. 

"Jane!!" said her father. 

IN THE PAVILION

I

Now, had Billy Grant really died there would be no story. The storyis to relate how he nearly died; and how, approaching that bourne towhich no traveller may take with him anything but his sins--and thiswith Billy Grant meant considerable luggage--he cast about for someway to prevent the Lindley Grants from getting possession of hisworldly goods. 

Probably it would never have happened at all had not young Grant, having hit on a scheme, clung to it with a tenacity that mightbetter have been devoted to saving his soul, and had he not said tothe Nurse, who was at that moment shaking a thermometer: "Comeon--be a sport! It's only a matter of hours. " Not that he said italoud--he whispered it, and fought for the breath to do even that. The Nurse, having shaken down the thermometer, walked to the tableand recorded a temperature of one hundred and six degrees through amost unprofessional mist of tears. Then in the symptom column shewrote: "Delirious. "

But Billy Grant was not delirious. A fever of a hundred and four orthereabout may fuse one's mind in a sort of fiery crucible, but whenit gets to a hundred and six all the foreign thoughts, like seeinggreen monkeys on the footboard and wondering why the doctor iswalking on his hands--all these things melt away, and one sees one'spast, as when drowning, and remembers to hate one's relations, andis curious about what is coming when one goes over. 

So Billy Grant lay on his bed in the contagious pavilion of thehospital, and remembered to hate the Lindley Grants and to try todevise a way to keep them out of his property. And, having studiedlaw, he knew no will that he might make now would hold against theLindley Grants for a minute, unless he survived its making somethirty days. The Staff Doctor had given him about thirty hours orless. 

Perhaps he would have given up in despair and been forced to restcontent with a threat to haunt the Lindley Grants and otherwise marthe enjoyment of their good fortune, had not the Nurse at thatmoment put the thermometer under his arm. 

Now, as every one knows, an axillary temperature takes five minutes, during which it is customary for a nurse to kneel beside the bed, oreven to sit very lightly on the edge, holding the patient's armclose to his side and counting his respirations while pretending tobe thinking of something else. It was during these five minutes thatthe idea came into Billy Grant's mind and, having come, remained. The Nurse got up, rustling starchily, and Billy caught her eye. 

"Every engine, " he said with difficulty, "labours--in a low--gear. No wonder I'm--heated up!"

The Nurse, who was young, put her hand on his forehead. 

"Try to sleep, " she said. 

"Time for--that--later, " said Billy Grant. "I'll--I'll be a--longtime--dead. I--I wonder whether you'd--do me a--favour. "

"I'll do anything in the world you want. "

She tried to smile down at him, but only succeeded in making herchin quiver, which would never do--being unprofessional and likelyto get to the head nurse; so, being obliged to do something, shetook his pulse by the throbbing in his neck. 

"One, two, three, four, five, six----"

"Then--marry me, " gasped Billy Grant. "Only for an--hour or--two, you know. You--promised. Come on--be a sport!"

It was then that the Nurse walked to the table and recorded"Delirious" in the symptom column. And, though she was a SmithCollege girl and had taken a something or other in mathematics, shespelled it just then with two r's. 

Billy Grant was not in love with the Nurse. She was a part of hisillness, like the narrow brass bed and the yellow painted walls, and the thermometer under his arm, and the medicines. There wereeven times--when his fever subsided for a degree or two, after acold sponge, and the muddled condition of mind returned--when sheseemed to have more heads than even a nurse requires. So sentimentdid not enter into the matter at all; it was revenge. 

"You--promised, " he said again; but the Nurse only smiledindulgently and rearranged the bottles on the stand in neat rows. 

Jenks, the orderly, carried her supper to the isolation pavilion atsix o'clock--cold ham, potato salad, egg custard and tea. Also, hebrought her an evening paper. But the Nurse was not hungry. She wentinto the bathroom, washed her eyes with cold water, put on a cleancollar, against the impending visit of the Staff Doctor, and thenstood at the window, looking across at the hospital and feeling verylonely and responsible. It was not a great hospital, but it loomedlarge and terrible that night. The ambulance came out into thecourtyard, and an interne, in white ducks, came out to it, carryinga surgical bag. He looked over at her and waved his hand. "Bigrailroad wreck!" he called cheerfully. "Got 'em coming in bunches. "He crawled into the ambulance, where the driver, trained to manyinternes, gave him time to light a cigarette; then out into thedusk, with the gong beating madly. Billy Grant, who had lapsed intoa doze, opened his eyes. 

"What--about it?" he asked. "You're not--married already--are you?"

"Please try to rest. Perhaps if I get your beef juice----"

"Oh, damn--the beef juice!" whispered Billy Grant, and shut his eyesagain--but not to sleep. He was planning how to get his way, andfinally, out of a curious and fantastic medley of thoughts, heevolved something. The doctor, of course! These women had to do whatthe doctor ordered. He would see the doctor!--upon which, with aprecision quite amazing, all the green monkeys on the footboard ofthe bed put their thumbs to their noses at him. 

The situation was unusual; for here was young Grant, far enough fromany one who knew he was one of the Van Kleek Grants--and, as such, entitled to all the nurses and doctors that money couldprocure--shut away in the isolation pavilion of a hospital, and noteven putting up a good fight! Even the Nurse felt this, and when theStaff Man came across the courtyard that night she met him on thedoorstep and told him. 

"He doesn't care whether he gets well or not, " she saiddispiritedly. "All he seems to think about is to die and to leaveeverything he owns so his relatives won't get it. It's horrible!"

The Staff Man, who had finished up a hard day with a hospital supperof steak and fried potatoes, sat down on the doorstep and fished outa digestive tablet from his surgical bag. 

"It's pretty sad, little girl, " he said, over the pill. He had knownthe Nurse for some time, having, in fact, brought her--according toreport at the time--in a predecessor of the very bag at his feet, and he had the fatherly manner that belongs by right to the man whohas first thumped one between the shoulder-blades to make onebreathe, and who had remarked on this occasion to some one beyondthe door: "A girl, and fat as butter!"

The Nurse tiptoed in and found Billy Grant apparently asleep. Actually he had only closed his eyes, hoping to lure one of themonkeys within clutching distance. So the Nurse came out again, withthe symptom record. 

"Delirious, with two r's, " said the Staff Doctor, glancing over hisspectacles. "He must have been pretty bad. "

"Not wild; he--he wanted me to marry him!"

She smiled, showing a most alluring dimple in one cheek. 

"I see! Well, that's not necessarily delirium. H'm--pulse, respiration--look at that temperature! Yes, it's pretty sad--awayfrom home, too, poor lad!"

"You---- Isn't there any hope, doctor?"

"None at all--at least, I've never had 'em get well. "

Now the Nurse should, by all the ethics of hospital practice, havewalked behind the Staff Doctor, listening reverentially to what hesaid, not speaking until she was spoken to, and carrying in one handan order blank on which said august personage would presentlyinscribe certain cabalistic characters, to be deciphered later bythe pharmacy clerk with a strong light and much blasphemy, and inthe other hand a clean towel. The clean towel does not enter intothe story, but for the curious be it said that were said personageto desire to listen to the patient's heart, the towel would beunfolded and spread, without creases, over the patient'schest--which reminds me of the Irishman and the weary practitioner;but every one knows that story. 

Now that is what the Nurse should have done; instead of which, inthe darkened passageway, being very tired and exhausted and under ahideous strain, she suddenly slipped her arm through the StaffDoctor's and, putting her head on his shoulder, began to cry softly. 

"What's this?" demanded the Staff Doctor sternly and, putting hisarm round her: "Don't you know that Junior Nurses are not supposedto weep over the Staff?" And, getting no answer but a choke: "Wecan't have you used up like this; I'll make them relieve you. Whendid you sleep?"

"I don't want to be relieved, " said the Nurse, very muffled. "No-nobody else would know wh-what he wanted. I just--I just can'tbear to see him--to see him----"

The Staff Doctor picked up the clean towel, which belonged on theNurse's left arm, and dried her eyes for her; then he sighed. 

"None of us likes to see it, girl, " he said. "I'm an old man, andI've never got used to it. What do they send you to eat?"

"The food's all right, " she said rather drearily. "I'm nothungry--that's all. How long do you think----"

The Staff Doctor, who was putting an antiseptic gauze cap over hiswhite hair, ran a safety pin into his scalp at that moment and didnot reply at once. Then, "Perhaps--until morning, " he said. 

He held out his arms for the long, white, sterilised coat, and amoment later, with his face clean-washed of emotion, and lookinglike a benevolent Turk, he entered the sick room. The Nurse was justbehind him, with an order book in one hand and a clean towel overher arm. 

Billy Grant, from his bed, gave the turban a high sign of greeting. 

"Allah--is--great!" he gasped cheerfully. "Well, doctor--I guessit's all--over but--the shouting. "

II

Some time after midnight Billy Grant roused out of a stupor. He wasquite rational; in fact, he thought he would get out of bed. But hisfeet would not move. This was absurd! One's feet must move if onewills them to! However, he could not stir either of them. Otherwisehe was beautifully comfortable. 

Faint as was the stir he made the Nurse heard him. She was sittingin the dark by the window. 

"Water?" she asked softly, coming to him. 

"Please. " His voice was stronger than it had been. 

Some of the water went down his neck, but it did not matter. Nothingmattered except the Lindley Grants. The Nurse took his temperatureand went out into the hall to read the thermometer, so he might notwatch her face. Then, having recorded it under the nightlight, shecame back into the room. 

"Why don't you put on something comfortable?" demanded Billy Grantquerulously. He was so comfortable himself and she was so stifflystarched, so relentless of collar and cap. 

"I am comfortable. "

"Where's that wrapper thing you've been wearing at night?" The Nurserather flushed at this. "Why don't you lie down on the cot and takea nap? I don't need anything. "

"Not--not to-night. "

He understood, of course, but he refused to be depressed. He was toocomfortable. He was breathing easily, and his voice, though weak, was clear. 

"Would you mind sitting beside me? Or are you tired? But of courseyou are. Perhaps in a night or so you'll be over there again, sleeping in a nice white gown in a nice fresh bed, with no querulousdevil----"

"Please!"

"You'll have to be sterilised or formaldehyded?"

"Yes. " This very low. 

"Will you put your hand over mine? Thanks. It's--company, you know. "He was apologetic; under her hand his own burned fire. "I--I spoketo the Staff about that while you were out of the room. "

"About what?"

"About your marrying me. "

"What did he say?" She humoured him. 

"He said he was willing if you were. You're not going to move--areyou?"

"No. But you must not talk. "

"It's like this. I've got a little property--not much; a little. " Hewas nervously eager about this. If she knew it amounted to anythingshe would refuse, and the Lindley Grants---- "And when I--youknow---- I want to leave it where it will do some good. That littlebrother of yours--it would send him through college, or help to. "

Once, weeks ago, before he became so ill, she had told him of thebrother. This in itself was wrong and against the ethics of theprofession. One does not speak of oneself or one's family. 

"If you won't try to sleep, shall I read to you?"

"Read what?"

"I thought--the Bible, if you wouldn't mind. "

"Certainly, " he agreed. "I suppose that's the conventional thing;and if it makes you feel any better---- Will you think over whatI've been saying?"

"I'll think about it, " she said, soothing him like a fretful child, and brought her Bible. 

The clock on the near-by town hall struck two as she drew up herchair beside him and commenced to read by the shaded light. Acrossthe courtyard the windows were dim yellowish rectangles, with hereand there one brighter than the others that told its own story ofsleepless hours. A taxicab rolled along the street outside, carryinga boisterous night party. 

The Nurse had taken off her cap and put it on a stand. The autumnnight was warm, and the light touch of the tulle had pressed herhair in damp, fine curves over her forehead. There were purplehollows of anxiety and sleeplessness under her eyes. 

"The perfect nurse, " the head of the training school was fond ofsaying, "is more or less of a machine. Too much sympathy is ahandicap to her work and an embarrassment to her patient. A perfect, silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine!"

Poor Junior Nurse!

Now Billy Grant, lying there listening to something out of Isaiah, should have been repenting his hard-living, hard-drinking younglife; should have been forgiving the Lindley Grants--which storydoes not belong here; should have been asking for the consolation ofthe church, and trying to summon from the depths of hisconsciousness faint memories of early teachings as to the lifebeyond, and what he might or might not expect there. 

What he actually did while the Nurse read was to try to move hislegs, and, failing this, to plan a way to achieve the final revengeof a not particularly forgiving life. 

At a little before three o'clock the Nurse telephoned across for aninterne, who came over in a bathrobe over his pajamas and shot ahypodermic into Billy Grant's left arm. Billy Grant hardly noticed. He was seeing Mrs. Lindley Grant when his surprise was sprung onher. The interne summoned the Nurse into the hall with a jerk of hishead. 

"About all in!" he said. "Heart's gone--too much booze probably. I'dstay, but there's nothing to do. "

"Would oxygen----"

"Oh, you can try it if you like. It's like blowing up a leakingtire; but if you'll feel better, do it. " He yawned and tied the cordof his bathrobe round him more securely. "I guess you'll be glad toget back, " he observed, looking round the dingy hall. "This placealways gives me a chill. Well, let me know if you want me. Goodnight. "

The Nurse stood in the hallway until the echo of his slippers on theasphalt had died away. Then she turned to Billy Grant. 

"Well?" demanded Billy Grant. "How long have I? Until morning?"

"If you would only not talk and excite yourself----"

"Hell!" said Billy Grant, we regret to record. "I've got to do allthe talking I'm going to do right now. I beg your pardon--I didn'tintend to swear. "

"Oh, that's all right!" said the Nurse vaguely. This was like nodeathbed she had ever seen, and it was disconcerting. 

"Shall I read again?"

"No, thank you. "

The Nurse looked at her watch, which had been graduation presentfrom her mother and which said, inside the case: "To my littlegirl!" There is no question but that, when the Nurse's mother gavethat inscription to the jeweller, she was thinking of the day whenthe Staff Doctor had brought the Nurse in his leather bag, and hadslapped her between the shoulders to make her breathe. "To my littlegirl!" said the watch; and across from that--"Three o'clock. "

At half-past three Billy Grant, having matured his plans, remarkedthat if it would ease the Nurse any he'd see a preacher. His voicewas weaker again and broken. 

"Not"--he said, struggling--"not that I think--he'll pass me. But--if you say so--I'll--take a chance. "

All of which was diabolical cunning; for when, as the result of atelephone conversation, the minister came, an unworldly man whocounted the world, an automobile, a vested choir and a silvercommunion service well lost for the sake of a dozen derelicts in aslum mission house, Billy Grant sent the Nurse out to prepare abroth he could no longer swallow, and proceeded to cajole the man ofGod. This he did by urging the need of the Nurse's small brother foran education and by forgetting to mention either the Lindley Grantsor the extent of his property. 

From four o'clock until five Billy Grant coaxed the Nurse with whatvoice he had. The idea had become an obsession; and minute byminute, panting breath by panting breath, her resolution wore away. He was not delirious; he was as sane as she was and terribly set. And this thing he wanted was so easy to grant; meant so little toher and, for some strange reason, so much to him. Perhaps, if shedid it, he would think a little of what the preacher was saying. 

At five o'clock, utterly worn out with the struggle and finding hispulse a negligible quantity, in response to his pleading eyes theNurse, kneeling and holding a thermometer under her patient's armwith one hand, reached the other one over the bed and was married ina dozen words and a soiled white apron. 

Dawn was creeping in at the windows--a grey city dawn, filled withsoot and the rumbling of early wagons. A smell of damp asphalt fromthe courtyard floated in and a dirty sparrow chirped on the sillwhere the Nurse had been in the habit of leaving crumbs. BillyGrant, very sleepy and contented now that he had got his way, dictated a line or two on a blank symptom record, and signed hiswill in a sprawling hand. 

"If only, " he muttered, "I could see Lin's face when that's--sprungon him!"

The minister picked up the Bible from the tumbled bed and opened it. 

"Perhaps, " he suggested very softly, "if I read from the Word ofGod----"

Satisfied now that he had fooled the Lindley Grants out of theirvery shoebuttons, Billy Grant was asleep--asleep with thethermometer under his arm and with his chest rising and fallingpeacefully. 

The minister looked across at the Nurse, who was still holding thethermometer in place. She had buried her face in the whitecounterpane. 

"You are a good woman, sister, " he said softly. "The boy is happier, and you are none the worse. Shall I keep the paper for you?"

But the Nurse, worn out with the long night, slept where she knelt. The minister, who had come across the street in a raggedsmoking-coat and no collar, creaked round the bed and threw the edgeof the blanket over her shoulders. 

Then, turning his coat collar up over his unshaved neck, he departedfor the mission across the street, where one of his derelicts, inhis shirtsleeves, was sweeping the pavement. There, mindful of thefact that he had come from the contagious pavilion, the ministerbrushed his shabby smoking-coat with a whiskbroom to remove thegerms!

III

Billy Grant, of course, did not die. This was perhaps because onlythe good die young. And Billy Grant's creed had been the honour of agentleman rather than the Mosaic Law. There was, therefore, noparticular violence done to his code when his last thoughts--or whatappeared to be his last thoughts--were revenge instead of salvation. 

The fact was, Billy Grant had a real reason for hating the LindleyGrants. When a fellow like that has all the Van Kleek money and ahereditary thirst, he is bound to drink. The Lindley Grants did notunderstand this and made themselves obnoxious by calling him "PoorBilly!" and not having wine when he came to dinner. That, however, was not his reason for hating them. 

Billy Grant fell in love. To give the devil his due, he promptly setabout reforming himself. He took about half as many whisky-and-sodasas he had been in the habit of doing, and cut out champagnealtogether. He took up golf to fill in the time, too, but gave it upwhen he found it made him thirstier than ever. And then, withthings so shaping up that he could rise in the morning withouthaving a drink to get up on, the Lindley Grants thought it best towarn the girl's family before it was too late. 

"He is a nice boy in some ways, " Mrs. Lindley Grant had said on theoccasion of the warning; "but, like all drinking men, he is a brokenreed, eccentric and irresponsible. No daughter of mine could marryhim. I'd rather bury her. And if you want facts Lindley will givethem to you. "

So the girl had sent back her ring and a cold little letter, andBilly Grant had got roaring full at a club that night and presentedthe ring to a cabman--all of which is exceedingly sordid, but ratherhuman after all. 

The Nurse, having had no sleep for forty-eight hours, slept forquite thirty minutes. She wakened at the end of that time andstarted up with a horrible fear that the thing she was waiting forhad come. But Billy Grant was still alive, sleeping naturally, andthe thermometer, having been in place forty minutes, registered ahundred and three. 

At eight o'clock the interne, hurrying over in fresh ducks, with alaudable desire to make the rounds before the Staff began to dropin, found Billy Grant very still and with his eyes closed, and theNurse standing beside the bed, pale and tremulous. 

"Why didn't you let me know?" he demanded, aggrieved. "I ought tohave been called. I told you----"

"He isn't dead, " said the Nurse breathlessly. "He--I think he isbetter. "

Whereon she stumbled out of the room into her own little room acrossthe hall, locking the door behind her, and leaving the interne tohunt the symptom record for himself--a thing not to be lightlyoverlooked; though of course internes are not the Staff. 

The interne looked over the record and whistled. 

"Wouldn't that paralyse you!" he said under his breath. "'Pulse veryweak. ' 'Pulse almost obliterated. ' 'Very talkative. ' 'Breathing hardat four A. M. Cannot swallow. ' And then: 'Sleeping calmly from fiveo'clock. ' 'Pulse stronger. ' Temperature one hundred and three. ' Bygad, that last prescription of mine was a hit!"

So now began a curious drama of convalescence in the littleisolation pavilion across the courtyard. Not for a minute did thetwo people most concerned forget their strange relationship; not forworlds would either have allowed the other to know that he or sheremembered. Now and then the Nurse caught Billy Grant's eyes fixedon her as she moved about the room, with a curious wistfulexpression in them. And sometimes, waking from a doze, he would findher in her chair by the window, with her book dropped into her lapand a frightened look in her eyes, staring at him. 

He gained strength rapidly and the day came when, with the orderly'sassistance, he was lifted to a chair. There was one brief moment inwhich he stood tottering on his feet. In that instant he hadrealised what a little thing she was, after all, and what a crueladvantage he had used for his own purpose. 

When he was settled in the chair and the orderly had gone shebrought an extra pillow to put behind him, and he dared the firstpersonality of their new relationship. 

"What a little girl you are, after all!" he said. "Lying there inthe bed shaking at your frown, you were so formidable. "

"I am not small, " she said, straightening herself. She had alwayshoped that her cap gave her height. "It is you who are so tall. You--you are a giant!"

"A wicked giant, seeking whom I may devour and carrying off lovelygirls for dinner under pretence of marriage----" He stopped hisnonsense abruptly, having got so far, and both of them coloured. Thrashing about desperately for something to break the wretchedsilence, he seized on the one thing that in those days of hisconvalescence was always pertinent--food. "Speaking of dinner, " hesaid hastily, "isn't it time for some buttermilk?"

She was quite calm when she came back--cool, even smiling; butBilly Grant had not had the safety valve of action. As she placedthe glass on the table at his elbow he reached out and took herhand. 

"Can you ever forgive me?" he asked. Not an original speech; theusual question of the marauding male, a query after the fact and toolate for anything but forgiveness. 

"Forgive you? For not dying?"

She was pale; but no more subterfuge now, no more turning aside fromdangerous subjects. The matter was up before the house. 

"For marrying you!" said Billy Grant, and upset the buttermilk. Ittook a little time to wipe up the floor and to put a clean cover onthe stand, and after that to bring a fresh glass and place it on thetable. But these were merely parliamentary preliminaries while eachside got its forces in line. 

"Do you hate me very much?" opened Billy Grant. This was, to changethe figure, a blow below the belt. 

"Why should I hate you?" countered the other side. 

"I should think you would. I forced the thing on you. "

"I need not have done it. "

"But being you, and always thinking about making some one else happyand comfortable----"

"Oh, if only they don't find it out over there!" she burst out. "Ifthey do and I have to leave, with Jim----"

Here, realising that she was going to cry and not caring to screw upher face before any one, she put her arms on the stand and buriedher face in them. Her stiff tulle cap almost touched Billy Grant'sarm. 

Billy Grant had a shocked second. 

"Jim?"

"My little brother, " from the table. 

Billy Grant drew a long breath of relief. For a moment he hadthought----

"I wonder--whether I dare to say something to you. " Silence from thetable and presumably consent. "Isn't he--don't you think that--Imight be allowed to--to help Jim? It would help me to like myselfagain. Just now I'm not standing very high with myself. "

"Won't you tell me why you did it?" she said, suddenly sitting up, her arms still out before her on the table. "Why did you coax so?You said it was because of a little property you had, but--thatwasn't it--was it?"

"No. "

"Or because you cared a snap for me. " This was affirmation, notquestion. 

"No, not that, though I----"

She gave a hopeless little gesture of despair. 

"Then--why? Why?"

"For one of the meanest reasons I know--to be even with some peoplewho had treated me badly. "

The thing was easier now. His flat denial of any sentimental reasonhad helped to make it so. 

"A girl that you cared about?"

"Partly that. The girl was a poor thing. She didn't care enough tobe hurt by anything I did. But the people who made the trouble----"

Now a curious thing happened. Billy Grant found at this moment thathe no longer hated the Lindley Grants. The discovery left himspeechless--that he who had taken his hate into the very valley ofdeath with him should now find himself thinking of both Lindley andhis wife with nothing more bitter than contempt shocked him. A stateof affairs existed for which his hatred of the Lindley Grants wasalone responsible; now the hate was gone and the state of affairspersisted. 

"I should like, " said Billy Grant presently, "to tell you alittle--if it will not bore you--about myself and the things I havedone that I shouldn't, and about the girl. And of course, you know, I'm--I'm not going to hold you to--to the thing I forced you into. There are ways to fix that. "

Before she would listen, however, she must take his temperature andgive him his medicine, and see that he drank his buttermilk--thebuttermilk last, so as not to chill his mouth for the thermometer. The tired lines had gone from under her eyes and she was very lovelythat day. She had always been lovely, even when the Staff Doctorhad slapped her between the shoulders long ago--you know aboutthat--only Billy Grant had never noticed it; but to-day, sittingthere with the thermometer in his mouth while she counted hisrespirations, pretending to be looking out the window while she didit, Billy Grant saw how sweet and lovely and in every way adorableshe was, in spite of the sad droop of her lips--and found it hard tosay the thing he felt he must. 

"After all, " he remarked round the thermometer, "the thing is notirrevocable. I can fix it up so that----"

"Keep your lips closed about the thermometer!" she said sternly, andsnapped her watch shut. 

The pulse and so on having been recorded, and "Very hungry" put downunder Symptoms, she came back to her chair by the window, facinghim. She sat down primly and smoothed her white apron in her lap. 

"Now!" she said. 

"I am to go on?"

"Yes, please. "

"If you are going to change the pillows or the screen, or give meany other diabolical truck to swallow, " he said somewhat peevishly, "will you get it over now, so we can have five unprofessionalminutes?"

"Certainly, " she said; and bringing an extra blanket she spread it, to his disgust, over his knees. 

This time, when she sat down, one of her hands lay on the table nearhim and he reached over and covered it with his. 

"Please!" he begged. "For company! And it will help me to tell yousome of the things I have to tell. "

She left it there, after an uneasy stirring. So, sitting there, looking out into the dusty courtyard with its bandaged figures inwheeled chairs, its cripples sunning on a bench--their crutchesbeside them--its waterless fountain and its dingy birds, he told herabout the girl and the Lindley Grants, and even about the cabman andthe ring. And feeling, perhaps in some current from the small handunder his, that she was knowing and understanding and not turningaway, he told her a great deal he had not meant to tell--uglythings, many of them--for that was his creed. 

And, because in a hospital one lives many lives vicariously withmany people, what the girl back home would never have understoodthis girl did and faced unabashed. Life, as she knew it, was not allgood and not all bad; passion and tenderness, violence and peace, joy and wretchedness, birth and death--these she had looked on, allof them, with clear eyes and hands ready to help. 

So Billy Grant laid the good and the bad of his life before her, knowing that he was burying it with her. When he finished, her handon the table had turned and was clasping his. He bent over andkissed her fingers softly. 

After that she read to him, and their talk, if any, was impersonal. When the orderly had put him back to bed he lay watching her movingabout, rejoicing in her quiet strength, her repose. How well she wastaking it all! If only--but there was no hope of that. She could goto Reno, and in a few months she would be free again and the thingwould be as if it had never been. 

At nine o'clock that night the isolation pavilion was ready for thenight. The lights in the sickroom were out. In the hall a nightlightburned low, Billy Grant was not asleep. He tried counting thelighted windows of the hospital and grew only more wakeful. 

The Nurse was sleeping now in her own room across, with the doorsopen between. The slightest movement and she was up, tiptoeing in, with her hair in a long braid down her back and her wrapper sleevesfalling away loosely from her white, young arms. So, aching withinaction, Billy Grant lay still until the silence across indicatedthat she was sleeping. 

Then he got up. This is a matter of difficulty when one is stillvery weak, and is achieved by rising first into a sitting posture bypulling oneself up by the bars of the bed, and then by slippingfirst one leg, then the other, over the side. Properly done, eventhe weakest thus find themselves in a position that by the aid of achairback may become, however shaky, a standing one. 

He got to his feet better than he expected, but not well enough torelinquish the chair. He had made no sound. That was good. He wouldtell her in the morning and rally her on her powers as a sleeper. Hetook a step--if only his knees----

He had advanced into line with the doorway and stood looking throughthe open door of the room across. 

The Nurse was on her knees beside the bed, in her nightgown, crying. Her whole young body was shaken with silent sobs; her arms, in theirshort white sleeves, stretched across the bed, her fingers clutchingthe counterpane. 

Billy Grant stumbled back to his bed and fell in with a sort ofgroan. Almost instantly she was at the door, her flannel wrapperheld about her, peering into the darkness. 

"I thought I heard--are you worse?" she asked anxiously. 

"I'm all right, " he said, hating himself; "just not sleepy. Howabout you?"

"Not asleep yet, but--resting, " she replied. 

She stood in the doorway, dimly outlined, with her long braid overher shoulder and her voice still a little strained from crying. Inthe darkness Billy Grant half stretched out his arms, then droppedthem, ashamed. 

"Would you like another blanket?"

"If there is one near. "

She came in a moment later with the blanket and spread it over thebed. He lay very still while she patted and smoothed it into place. He was mustering up his courage to ask for something--a curiousstate of mind for Billy Grant, who had always taken what he wantedwithout asking. 

"I wish you would kiss me--just once!" he said wistfully. And then, seeing her draw back, he took an unfair advantage: "I think that'sthe reason I'm not sleeping. "

"Don't be absurd!"

"Is it so absurd--under the circumstances?"

"You can sleep quite well if you only try. "

She went out into the hall again, her chin well up. Then shehesitated, turned and came swiftly back into the room. 

"If I do, " she said rather breathlessly, "will you go to sleep? Andwill you promise to hold your arms up over your head?"

"But my arms----"

"Over your head!"

He obeyed at that, and the next moment she had bent over him in thedarkness; and quickly, lightly, deliciously, she kissed--the tip ofhis nose!

IV

She was quite cheerful the next day and entirely composed. Neitherof them referred to the episode of the night before, but Billy Grantthought of little else. Early in the morning he asked her to bringhim a hand mirror and, surveying his face, tortured and disfiguredby the orderly's shaving, suffered an acute wound in his vanity. Hewas glad it had been dark or she probably would not have---- Heborrowed a razor from the interne and proceeded to enjoy himself. 

Propped up in his chair, he rioted in lather, sliced a piece out ofhis right ear, and shaved the back of his neck by touch, in lieu ofbetter treatment. This done, and the ragged and unkempt hair overhis ears having been trimmed in scallops, due to the work being donewith curved surgical scissors, he was his own man again. 

That afternoon, however, he was nervous and restless. The Nurse wastroubled. He avoided the subject that had so obsessed him the daybefore, was absent and irritable, could not eat, and sat in hischair by the window, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands. 

The Nurse was puzzled, but the Staff Doctor, making rounds that day, enlightened her. 

"He has pulled through--God and you alone know how, " he said. "Butas soon as he begins to get his strength he's going to yell forliquor again. When a man has been soaking up alcohol for years----Drat this hospital cooking anyhow! Have you got any essence ofpepsin?"

The Nurse brought the pepsin and a medicine glass and the StaffDoctor swallowed and grimaced. 

"You were saying, " said the Nurse timidly--for, the stress beingover, he was Staff again and she was a Junior and not even entitledto a Senior's privileges, such as returning occasional badinage. 

"Every atom of him is going to crave it. He's wanting it now. He hasbeen used to it for years. " The Nurse was white to the lips, butsteady. "He is not to have it?"

"Not a drop while he is here. When he gets out it is his own affairagain, but while he's here--by-the-way, you'll have to watch theorderly. He'll bribe him. "

"I don't think so, doctor. He is a gentleman. "

"Pooh! Of course he is. I dare say he's a gentleman when he's drunktoo; but he's a drinker--a habitual drinker. "

The Nurse went back into the room and found Billy Grant sitting in achair, with the book he had been reading on the floor and his faceburied in his hands. 

"I'm awfuly sorry!" he said, not looking up. "I heard what he said. He's right, you know. "

"I'm sorry. And I'm afraid this is a place where I cannot help. "

She put her hand on his head, and he brought it down and held itbetween his. 

"Two or three times, " he said, "when things were very bad with me, you let me hold your hand, and we got past somehow--didn't we?"

She closed her eyes, remembering the dawn when, to soothe a dyingman, in the presence of the mission preacher, she had put her handin his. Billy Grant thought of it too. 

"Now you know what you've married, " he said bitterly. The bitternesswas at himself of course. "If--if you'll sit tight I have a fightingchance to make a man of myself; and after it's over we'll fix thisthing for you so you will forget it ever happened. And I---- Don'ttake your hand away. Please!"

"I was feeling for my handkerchief, " she explained. 

"Have I made you cry again?"

"Again?'

"I saw you last night in your room. I didn't intend to; but I wastrying to stand, and----"

She was very dignified at this, with her eyes still wet, and triedunsuccessfully to take her hand away. 

"If you are going to get up when it is forbidden I shall ask to berelieved. "

"You wouldn't do that!"

"Let go of my hand. "

"You wouldn't do that!!"

"Please! The head nurse is coming. "

He freed her hand then and she wiped her eyes, remembering the"perfect, silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine. "

The head of the training school came to the door of the pavilion, but did not enter. The reason for this was twofold: first, she hadconfidence in the Nurse; second, she was afraid of contagion--thislatter, of course, quite _sub rosa_, in view of the above quotation. 

The Head Nurse was a tall woman in white, and was so starchy thatshe rattled like a newspaper when she walked. 

"Good morning, " she said briskly. "Have you sent over the soiledclothes?" Head nurses are always bothering about soiled clothes;and what becomes of all the nailbrushes, and how can they use somany bandages. 

"Yes, Miss Smith. "

"Meals come over promptly?"

"Yes, Miss Smith. "

"Getting any sleep?"

"Oh, yes, plenty--now. "

Miss Smith peered into the hallway, which seemed tidy, looked at theNurse with approval, and then from the doorstep into the patient'sroom, where Billy Grant sat. At the sight of him her eyebrows rose. 

"Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "I thought he was older than that!"

"Twenty-nine, " said the Nurse; "twenty-nine last Fourth of July. "

"H'm!" commented the Head Nurse. "You evidently know! I had no ideayou were taking care of a boy. It won't do. I'll send over MissHart. "

The Nurse tried to visualise Billy Grant in his times of stressclutching at Miss Hart's hand, and failed. 

"Jenks is here, of course, " she said, Jenks being the orderly. 

The idea of Jenks as a chaperon, however, did not appeal to the headnurse. She took another glance through the window at Billy Grant, looking uncommonly handsome and quite ten years younger since theshave, and she set her lips. 

"I am astonished beyond measure, " she said. "Miss Hart will relieveyou at two o'clock. Take your antiseptic bath and you may have theafternoon to yourself. Report in L Ward in the morning. "

Miss Smith rattled back across the courtyard and the Nurse stoodwatching her; then turned slowly and went into the house to tellBilly Grant. 

Now the stories about what followed differ. They agree on one point:that Billy Grant had a heart-to-heart talk with the substitute attwo o'clock that afternoon and told her politely but firmly that hewould none of her. Here the divergence begins. Some say he got thesuperintendent over the house telephone and said he had intended tomake a large gift to the hospital, but if his comfort was so littleconsidered as to change nurses just when he had got used to one, hewould have to alter his plans. Another and more likely story, because it sounds more like Billy Grant, is that at five o'clock aflorist's boy delivered to Miss Smith a box of orchids such as neverhad been seen before in the house, and a card inside which said:"Please, dear Miss Smith, take back the Hart that thou gavest. "

Whatever really happened--and only Billy Grant and the lady inquestion ever really knew--that night at eight o'clock, with BillyGrant sitting glumly in his room and Miss Hart studying typhoidfever in the hall, the Nurse came back again to the pavilion withher soft hair flying from its afternoon washing and her eyesshining. And things went on as before--not quite as before; for withthe nurse question settled the craving got in its work again, andthe next week was a bad one. There were good days, when he taughther double-dummy auction bridge, followed by terrible nights, whenhe walked the floor for hours and she sat by, unable to help. Thenat dawn he would send her to bed remorsefully and take up the fightalone. And there were quiet nights when both slept and when he wouldwaken to the craving again and fight all day. 

"I'm afraid I'm about killing her, " he said to the Staff Doctor oneday; "but it's my chance to make a man of myself--now or never. "

The Staff Doctor was no fool and he had heard about the orchids. 

"Fight it out, boy!" he said. "Pretty soon you'll quit peeling andcease being a menace to the public health, and you'd better get itover before you are free again. "

So, after a time, it grew a little easier. Grant was pretty muchhimself again--had put on a little flesh and could feel his bicepsrise under his fingers. He took to cold plunges when he felt thecraving coming on, and there were days when the little pavilion wasfull of the sound of running water. He shaved himself daily, too, and sent out for some collars. 

Between the two of them, since her return, there had been much ofgood fellowship, nothing of sentiment. He wanted her near, but hedid not put a hand on her. In the strain of those few days thestrange, grey dawn seemed to have faded into its own mists. Onlyonce, when she had brought his breakfast tray and was arranging thedishes for him--against his protest, for he disliked being waitedon--he reached over and touched a plain band ring she wore. Shecoloured. 

"My mother's, " she said; "her wedding ring. "

Their eyes met across the tray, but he only said, after a moment:"Eggs like a rock, of course! Couldn't we get 'em raw and boil themover here?"

It was that morning, also, that he suggested a thing which had beenin his mind for some time. 

"Wouldn't it be possible, " he asked, "to bring your tray in here andto eat together? It would be more sociable. "

She smiled. 

"It isn't permitted. "

"Do you think--would another box of orchids----"

She shook her head as she poured out his coffee. "I should probablybe expelled. "

He was greatly aggrieved. 

"That's all foolishness, " he said. "How is that any worse--any moreunconventional--than your bringing me your extra blanket on a coldnight? Oh, I heard you last night!"

"Then why didn't you leave it on?"

"And let you freeze?"

"I was quite warm. As it was, it lay in the hallway all night anddid no one any good. "

Having got thus far from wedding rings, he did not try to get back. He ate alone, and after breakfast, while she took her half-hour ofexercise outside the window, he sat inside reading--only apparentlyreading, however. 

Once she went quite as far as the gate and stood looking out. 

"Jenks!" called Billy Grant. 

Jenks has not entered into the story much. He was a little man, rather fat, who occupied a tiny room in the pavilion, carried mealsand soiled clothes, had sat on Billy Grant's chest once or twiceduring a delirium, and kept a bottle locked in the dish closet. 

"Yes, sir, " said Jenks, coming behind a strong odour of _spiritusfrumenti_. 

"Jenks, " said Billy Grant with an eye on the figure at the gate, "isthat bottle of yours empty?"

"What bottle?"

"The one in the closet. "

Jenks eyed Billy Grant, and Billy eyed Jenks--a look of man to man, brother to brother. 

"Not quite, sir--a nip or two. "

"At, " suggested Billy Grant, "say--five dollars a nip?"

Jenks smiled. 

"About that, " he said. "Filled?"

Billy Grant debated. The Nurse was turning at the gate. 

"No, " he said. "As it is, Jenks. Bring it here. "

Jenks brought the bottle and a glass, but the glass was motionedaway. Billy Grant took the bottle in his hand and looked at it witha curious expression. Then he went over and put it in the upperbureau drawer, under a pile of handkerchiefs. Jenks watched him, bewildered. 

"Just a little experiment, Jenks, " said Billy Grant. 

Jenks understood then and stopped smiling. 

"I wouldn't, Mr. Grant, " he said; "it will only make you loseconfidence in yourself when it doesn't work out. "

"But it's going to work out, " said Billy Grant. "Would you mindturning on the cold water?"

Now the next twenty-four hours puzzled the Nurse. When Billy Grant'seyes were not on her with an unfathomable expression in them, theywere fixed on something in the neighbourhood of the dresser, and atthese times they had a curious, fixed look not unmixed with triumph. She tried a new arrangement of combs and brushes and tilted themirror at a different angle, without effect. 

That day Billy Grant took only one cold plunge. As the hours wore onhe grew more cheerful; the look of triumph was unmistakable. Hestared less at the dresser and more at the Nurse. At last it grewunendurable. She stopped in front of him and looked down at himseverely. She could only be severe when he was sitting--when he wasstanding she had to look so far up at him, even when she stood onher tiptoes. 

"What is wrong with me?" she demanded. "You look so queer! Is my capcrooked?"

"It is a wonderful cap. "

"Is my face dirty?"

"It is a won---- No, certainly not. "

"Then would you mind not staring so? You--upset me. "

"I shall have to shut my eyes, " he replied meekly, and worried herinto a state of frenzy by sitting for fifty minutes with his headback and his eyes shut. 

So--the evening and the morning were another day, and the bottle layundisturbed under the handkerchiefs, and the cold shower ceasedrunning, and Billy Grant assumed the air of triumph permanently. That morning when the breakfast trays came he walked over into theNurse's room and picked hers up, table and all, carrying it acrossthe hall. In his own room he arranged the two trays side by side, and two chairs opposite each other. When the Nurse, who had beenputting breadcrumbs on the window-sill, turned round Billy Grant waswaiting to draw out one of the chairs, and there was something inhis face she had not seen there before. 

"Shall we breakfast?" he said. 

"I told you yesterday----"

"Think a minute, " he said softly. "Is there any reason why we shouldnot breakfast together?" She pressed her hands close together, butshe did not speak. "Unless--you do not wish to. "

"You remember you promised, as soon as you got away, to--fixthat----"

"So I will if you say the word. "

"And--to forget all about it. "

"That, " said Billy Grant solemnly, "I shall never do so long as Ilive. Do you say the word?"

"What else can I do?"

"Then there is somebody else?"

"Oh, no!"

He took a step toward her, but still he did not touch her. 

"If there is no one else, " he said, "and if I tell you that you havemade me a man again----"

"Gracious! Your eggs will be cold. " She made a motion toward theegg-cup, but Billy Grant caught her hand. 

"Damn the eggs!" he said. "Why don't you look at me?"

Something sweet and luminous and most unprofessional shone in thelittle Nurse's eyes, and the line of her pulse on a chart would havelooked like a seismic disturbance. 

"I--I have to look up so far!" she said, but really she was lookingdown when she said it. 

"Oh, my dear--my dear!" exulted Billy Grant. "It is I who must lookup at you!" And with that he dropped on his knees and kissed thestarched hem of her apron. 

The Nurse felt very absurd and a little frightened. 

"If only, " she said, backing off--"if only you wouldn't be such asilly! Jenks is coming!"

But Jenks was not coming. Billy Grant rose to his full height andlooked down at her--a new Billy Grant, the one who had got drunk ata club and given a ring to a cabman having died that grey morningsome weeks before. 

"I love you--love you--love you!" he said, and took her in his arms. 

 * * * * *

Now the Head Nurse was interviewing an applicant; and, as the H. N. Took a constitutional each morning in the courtyard and believed inlosing no time, she was holding the interview as she walked. 

"I think I would make a good nurse, " said the applicant, a triflebreathless, the h. N. Being a brisk walker. "I am so sympathetic. "

The H. N. Stopped and raised a reproving forefinger. 

"Too much sympathy is a handicap, " she orated. "The perfect nurse isa silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine--this littlebuilding here is the isolation pavilion. "

"An emotionless machine, " repeated the applicant. "I see--an e----"

The words died on her lips. She was looking past a crowd of birds onthe windowsill to where, just inside, Billy Grant and the Nurse in avery mussed cap were breakfasting together. And as she looked BillyGrant bent over across the tray. 

"I adore you!" he said distinctly and, lifting the Nurse's hands, kissed first one and then the other. 

"It is hard work, " said Miss Smith--having made a note that the boysin the children's ward must be restrained from lowering a pasteboardbox on a string from a window--"hard work without sentiment. It isnot a romantic occupation. "

She waved an admonitory hand toward the window, and the box went upswiftly. The applicant looked again toward the pavilion, whereBilly Grant, having kissed the Nurse's hands, had buried his face inher two palms. 

The mild October sun shone down on the courtyard, with its bandagedfigures in wheel-chairs, its cripples sunning on a bench, theircrutches beside them, its waterless fountain and dingy birds. 

The applicant thrilled to it all--joy and suffering, birth anddeath, misery and hope, life and love. Love!

The H. N. Turned to her grimly, but her eyes were soft. 

"All this, " she said, waving her hand vaguely, "for eight dollars amonth!"

"I think, " said the applicant shyly, "I should like to come. "

GOD'S FOOL

I

The great God endows His children variously. To some He givesintellect--and they move the earth. To some He allots heart--and thebeating pulse of humanity is theirs. But to some He gives only asoul, without intelligence--and these, who never grow up, but remainalways His children, are God's fools, kindly, elemental, simple, asif from His palette the Artist of all had taken one colour insteadof many. 

The Dummy was God's fool. Having only a soul and no intelligence, helived the life of the soul. Through his faded, childish old blueeyes he looked out on a world that hurried past him with, atbest, a friendly touch on his shoulder. No man shook his hand incomradeship. No woman save the little old mother had ever caressedhim. He lived alone in a world of his own fashioning, peopled bymoving, noiseless figures and filled with dreams--noiseless becausethe Dummy had ears that heard not and lips that smiled at akindness, but that did not speak. 

In this world of his there was no uncharitableness--no sin. Therewas a God--why should he not know his Father?--there were brasses toclean and three meals a day; and there was chapel on Sunday, whereone held a book--the Dummy held his upside down--and felt thevibration of the organ, and proudly watched the afternoon sunlightsmiling on the polished metal of the chandelier and choir rail. 

 * * * * *

The Probationer sat turning the bandage machine and watching theDummy, who was polishing the brass plates on the beds. The platessaid: "Endowed in perpetuity"--by various leading citizens, to whomGod had given His best gifts, both heart and brain. 

"How old do you suppose he is?" she asked, dropping her voice. 

The Senior Nurse was writing fresh labels for the medicine closet, and for "tincture of myrrh" she wrote absently "tincture of mirth, "and had to tear it up. 

"He can't hear you, " she said rather shortly. "How old? Oh, I don'tknow. About a hundred, I should think. "

This was, of course, because of his soul, which was all he had, andwhich, having existed from the beginning, was incredibly old. Thelittle dead mother could have told them that he was less thanthirty. 

The Probationer sat winding bandages. Now and then they wentcrooked and had to be done again. She was very tired. The creakingof the bandage machine made her nervous--that and a sort ofdisillusionment; for was this her great mission, this sitting in asilent, sunny ward, where the double row of beds held only querulousconvalescent women? How close was she to life who had come to soothethe suffering and close the eyes of the dying; who had imagined thather instruments of healing were a thermometer and a prayer-book; andwho found herself fighting the good fight with a bandage machineand, even worse, a scrubbing brush and a finetooth comb?

The Senior Nurse, having finished the M's, glanced up and surpriseda tear on the Probationer's round young cheek. She was wise, havingtrained many probationers. 

"Go to first supper, please, " she said. First supper is the Senior'sprerogative; but it is given occasionally to juniors andprobationers as a mark of approval, or when the Senior is nothungry, or when a probationer reaches the breaking point, which isjust before she gets her uniform. 

The Probationer smiled and brightened. After all, she must be doingfairly well; and if she were not in the battle she was of it. Glimpses she had of the battle--stretchers going up and down in theslow elevator; sheeted figures on their way to the operating room;the clang of the ambulance bell in the courtyard; the occasional cryof a new life ushered in; the impressive silence of an old lifegoing out. She surveyed the bandages on the bed. 

"I'll put away the bandages first, " she said. "That's what you said, I think--never to leave the emergency bed with anything on it?"

"Right-oh!" said the Senior. 

"Though nothing ever happens back here--does it?'

"It's about our turn; I'm looking for a burned case. " TheProbationer, putting the bandages into a basket, turned and stared. 

"We have had two in to-day in the house, " the Senior went on, starting on the N's and making the capital carefully. "There will bea third, of course; and we may get it. Cases always seem to run inthrees. While you're straightening the bed I suppose I might as wellgo to supper after all. "

So it was the Probationer and the Dummy who received the new case, while the Senior ate cold salmon and fried potatoes with otherseniors, and inveighed against lectures on Saturday evening andother things that seniors object to, such as things lost in thewash, and milk in the coffee instead of cream, and women from theAvenue who drank carbolic acid and kept the ambulance busy. 

The Probationer was from the country and she had never heard ofthe Avenue. And the Dummy, who walked there daily with thesuperintendent's dog, knew nothing of its wickedness. In his soul, where there was nothing but kindness, there was even a feeling oftenderness for the Avenue. Once the dog had been bitten by a terrierfrom one of the houses, and a girl had carried him in and washed thewounds and bound them up. Thereafter the Dummy had watched for herand bowed when he saw her. When he did not see her he bowed to thehouse. 

The Dummy finished the brass plates and, gathering up his rags andpolish, shuffled to the door. His walk was a patient shamble, but hecovered incredible distances. When he reached the emergency bed hestopped and pointed to it. The Probationer looked startled. 

"He's tellin' you to get it ready, " shrilled Irish Delia, sitting upin the next bed. "He did that before you was brought in, " she calledto Old Maggie across the ward. "Goodness knows how he finds out--buthe knows. Get the spread off the bed, miss. There's somethingcoming. "

 * * * * *

The Probationer had come from the country and naturally knew nothingof the Avenue. Sometimes on her off duty she took short walks there, wondering if the passers-by who stared at her knew that she was apart of the great building that loomed over the district, happilyignorant of the real significance of their glances. Once a girl, sitting behind bowed shutters, had leaned out and smiled at her. 

"Hot to-day, isn't it?" she said. 

The Probationer stopped politely. 

"It's fearful! Is there any place near where I can get some sodawater?"

The girl in the window stared. 

"There's a drug store two squares down, " she said. "And say, if Iwere you----"

"Yes?"

"Oh, nothing!" said the girl in the window, and quite unexpectedlyslammed the shutters. 

The Probationer had puzzled over it quite a lot. More than once shewalked by the house, but she did not see the smiling girl--only, curiously enough, one day she saw the Dummy passing the house andwatched him bow and take off his old cap, though there was no one insight. 

Sooner or later the Avenue girls get to the hospital. Sometimes itis because they cannot sleep, and lie and think things over--andthere is no way out; and God hates them--though, of course, there isthat story about Jesus and the Avenue woman. And what is the use ofgoing home and being asked questions that cannot be answered? Sothey try to put an end to things generally--and end up in theemergency bed, terribly frightened, because it has occurred to themthat if they do not dare to meet the home folks how are they goingto meet the Almighty?

Or sometimes it is jealousy. Even an Avenue woman must love someone; and, because she's an elemental creature, if the object of heraffections turns elsewhere she's rather apt to use a knife or arazor. In that case it is the rival who ends up on the emergencybed. 

Or the life gets her, as it does sooner or later, and she comes inwith typhoid or a cough, or other things, and lies alone, day afterday, without visitors or inquiries, making no effort to get better, because--well, why should she?

And so the Dummy's Avenue Girl met her turn and rode down the streetin a clanging ambulance, and was taken up in the elevator and alonga grey hall to where the emergency bed was waiting; and theProbationer, very cold as to hands and feet, was sending mentalappeals to the Senior to come--and come quickly. The ward got up onelbows and watched. Also it told the Probationer what to do. 

"Hot-water bottles and screens, " it said variously. "Take hertemperature. Don't be frightened! There'll be a doctor in a minute. "

The girl lay on the bed with her eyes shut. It was Irish Delia whosaw the Dummy and raised a cry. 

"Look at the Dummy!" she said. "He's crying. "

The Dummy's world had always been a small one. There was thesuperintendent, who gave him his old clothes; and there was theengineer, who brought him tobacco; and there were the ambulancehorses, who talked to him now and then without speech. And, ofcourse, there was his Father. 

Fringing this small inner circle of his heart was a kaleidoscope ofchanging faces, nurses, _internes_, patients, visitors--a wall oflife that kept inviolate his inner shrine. And in the holiest place, where had dwelt only his Father, and not even the superintendent, the Dummy had recently placed the Avenue Girl. She was his saint, though he knew nothing of saints. Who can know why he chose her? Aqueer trick of the soul perhaps--or was it super-wisdom?--to chooseher from among many saintly women and so enshrine her. 

Or perhaps---- Down in the chapel, in a great glass window, theyoung John knelt among lilies and prayed. When, at service onSundays, the sunlight came through on to the Dummy's polished choirrail and candles, the young John had the face of a girl, with shortcurling hair, very yellow for the colour scheme. The Avenue Girl hadhair like that and was rather like him in other ways. 

And here she was where all the others had come, and where countlessothers would come sooner or later. She was not unconscious and atDelia's cry she opened her eyes. The Probationer was off fillingwater bottles, and only the Dummy, stricken, round-shouldered, unlovely, stood beside her. 

"Rotten luck, old top!" she said faintly. 

To the Dummy it was a benediction. She could open her eyes. Themiracle of speech was still hers. 

"Cigarette!" explained the Avenue Girl, seeing his eyes still onher. "Must have gone to sleep with it and dropped it. I'm--all in!"

"Don't you talk like that, " said Irish Delia, bending over from thenext bed. "You'll get well a' right--unless you inhaled. Y'ought to'a' kept your mouth shut. "

Across the ward Old Maggie had donned her ragged slippers and a bluecalico wrapper and shuffled to the foot of the emergency bed. OldMaggie was of that vague neighbourhood back of the Avenue, wheresqualor and poverty rubbed elbows with vice, and scorned it. 

"Humph!" she said, without troubling to lower her voice. "I've seenher often. I done her washing once. She's as bad as they make 'em. "

"You shut your mouth!" Irish Delia rose to the defence. "She's introuble now and what she was don't matter. You go back to bed orI'll tell the Head Nurse on you. Look out! The Dummy----"

The Dummy was advancing on Old Maggie with threatening eyes. As thewoman recoiled he caught her arm in one of his ugly, misshapen handsand jerked her away from the bed. Old Maggie reeled--almost fell. 

"You all seen that!" she appealed to the ward. "I haven't even spoketo him and he attacked me! I'll go to the superintendent about it. I'll----"

The Probationer hurried in. Her young cheeks were flushed withexcitement and anxiety; her arms were full of jugs, towels, bandages--anything she could imagine as essential. She found theDummy on his knees polishing a bed plate, and the ward inorder--only Old Maggie was grumbling and making her way back to bed;and Irish Delia was sitting up, with her eyes shining--for had notthe Dummy, who could not hear, known what Old Maggie had said aboutthe new girl? Had she not said that he knew many things that werehidden, though God knows how he knew them?

The next hour saw the Avenue Girl through a great deal. Her burnswere dressed by an _interne_ and she was moved back to a bed at theend of the ward. The Probationer sat beside her, having refusedsupper. The Dummy was gone--the Senior Nurse had shooed him off asone shoos a chicken. 

"Get out of here! You're always under my feet, " she had said--notunkindly--and pointed to the door. 

The Dummy had stood, with his faded old-young eyes on her, and hadnot moved. The Senior, who had the ward supper to serve and beds tobrush out and backs to rub, not to mention having to make up theemergency bed and clear away the dressings--the Senior trieddiplomacy and offered him an orange from her own corner of themedicine closet. He shook his head. 

"I guess he wants to know whether that girl from the Avenue's goingto get well, " said Irish Delia. "He seems to know her. "

There was a titter through the ward at this. Old Maggie's gossipingtongue had been busy during the hour. From pity the ward had veeredto contempt. 

"Humph!" said the Senior, and put the orange back. "Why, yes; Iguess she'll get well. But how in Heaven's name am I to let himknow?"

She was a resourceful person, however, and by pointing to the AvenueGirl and then nodding reassuringly she got her message of cheer overthe gulf of his understanding. In return the Dummy told her bygestures how he knew the girl and how she had bound up the leg ofthe superintendent's dog. The Senior was a literal person and notoccult; and she was very busy. When the Dummy stooped to indicatethe dog, a foot or so from the ground, she seized that as the key ofthe situation. 

"He's trying to let me know that he knew her when she was a baby, "she observed generally. "All right, if that's the case. Come in andsee her when you want to. And now get out, for goodness' sake!"

The Dummy, with his patient shamble, made his way out of the wardand stored his polishes for the night in the corner of ascrub-closet. Then, ignoring supper, he went down the stairs, flightafter flight, to the chapel. The late autumn sun had set behind thebuildings across the courtyard and the lower part of the silent roomwas in shadow; but the afterglow came palely through thestained-glass window, with the young John and tall stalks of whitelilies, and "To the Memory of My Daughter Elizabeth" beneath. 

It was only a coincidence--and not even that to the Dummy--butElizabeth had been the Avenue Girl's name not so long ago. 

The Dummy sat down near the door very humbly and gazed at thememorial window. 

II

Time may be measured in different ways--by joys; by throbs of pain;by instants; by centuries. In a hospital it is marked by nightnurses and day nurses; by rounds of the Staff; by visiting days; bymedicines and temperatures and milk diets and fever baths; by thedistant singing in the chapel on Sundays; by the shift of themorning sun on the east beds to the evening sun on the beds alongthe west windows. 

The Avenue Girl lay alone most of the time. The friendly offices ofthe ward were not for her. Private curiosity and possible kindlinesswere over-shadowed by a general arrogance of goodness. The wardflung its virtue at her like a weapon and she raised no defence. Inthe first days things were not so bad. She lay in shock for a time, and there were not wanting hands during the bad hours to lift a cupof water to her lips; but after that came the tedious time whendeath no longer hovered overhead and life was there for the asking. 

The curious thing was that the Avenue Girl did not ask. She lay forhours without moving, with eyes that seemed tired with looking intothe dregs of life. The Probationer was in despair. 

"She could get better if she would, " she said to the _interne_ oneday. The Senior was off duty and they had done the dressingtogether. "She just won't try. "

"Perhaps she thinks it isn't worth while, " replied the _interne_, who was drying his hands carefully while the Probationer waited forthe towel. 

She was a very pretty Probationer. 

"She hasn't much to look forward to, you know. "

The Probationer was not accustomed to discussing certain things withyoung men, but she had the Avenue Girl on her mind. 

"She has a home--she admits it. " She coloured bravely. "Why--whycannot she go back to it, even now?"

The _interne_ poured a little rosewater and glycerine into the palmof one hand and gave the Probationer the bottle. If his fingerstouched hers, she never knew it. 

"Perhaps they'd not want her after--well, they'd never feel thesame, likely. They'd probably prefer to think of her as dead and letit go at that. There--there doesn't seem to be any way back, youknow. "

He was exceedingly self-conscious. 

"Then life is very cruel, " said the Probationer with rather shakylips. 

And going back to the Avenue Girl's bed she filled her cup with iceand straightened her pillows. It was her only way of showingdefiance to a world that mutilated its children and turned them outto die. The _interne_ watched her as she worked. It rather galledhim to see her touching this patient. He had no particular sympathyfor the Avenue Girl. He was a man, and ruthless, as men are apt tobe in such things. 

The Avenue Girl had no visitors. She had had one or two atfirst--pretty girls with tired eyes and apologetic glances; anegress who got by the hall porter with a box of cigarettes, whichthe Senior promptly confiscated; and--the Dummy. Morning and eveningcame the Dummy and stood by her bed and worshipped. Morning andevening he brought tribute--a flower from the masses that came indaily; an orange, got by no one knows what trickery from thekitchen; a leadpencil; a box of cheap candies. At first the girl hadbeen embarrassed by his visits. Later, as the unfriendliness of theward grew more pronounced, she greeted him with a faint smile. Thefirst time she smiled he grew quite pale and shuffled out. Late thatnight they found him sitting in the chapel looking at the window, which was only a blur. 

For certain small services in the ward the Senior depended on theconvalescents--filling drinking cups; passing milk at eleven andthree; keeping the white bedspreads in geometrical order. But theAvenue Girl was taboo. The boycott had been instituted by OldMaggie. The rampant respectability of the ward even went so far asto refuse to wash her in those early morning hours when the nightnurse, flying about with her cap on one ear, was carrying tin basinsabout like a blue-and-white cyclone. The Dummy knew nothing of thewashing; the early morning was the time when he polished the brassdoorplate which said: Hospital and Free Dispensary. But he knewabout the drinking cup and after a time that became hisself-appointed task. 

On Sundays he put on his one white shirt and a frayed collar twosizes too large and went to chapel. At those times he sat with hisprayer book upside down and watched the Probationer who cared forhis lady and who had no cap to hide her shining hair, and the_interne_, who was glad there was no cap because of the hair. God'sfool he was, indeed, for he liked to look in the _interne's_ eyes, and did not know an _interne_ cannot marry for years and years, andthat a probationer must not upset discipline by being engaged. God'sfool, indeed, who could see into the hearts of men, but not intotheir thoughts or their lives; and who, seeing only thus, on twodimensions of life and not the third, found the Avenue Girl holy andworthy of all worship!

 * * * * *

The Probationer worried a great deal. 

"It must hurt her so!" she said to the Senior. "Did you see themcall that baby away on visiting day for fear she would touch it?"

"None are so good as the untempted, " explained the Senior, who hadbeen beautiful and was now placid and full of good works. "Youcannot remake the world, child. Bodies are our business here--notsouls. " But the next moment she called Old Maggie to her. 

"I've been pretty patient, Maggie, " she said. "You know what I mean. You're the ringleader. Now things are going to change, or--you'll goback on codliver oil to-night. "

"Yes'm, " said Old Maggie meekly, with hate in her heart. She loathedthe codliver oil. 

"Go back and straighten her bed!" commanded the Senior sternly. 

"Now?"

"Now!"

"It hurts my back to stoop over, " whined Old Maggie, with the wardwatching. "The doctor said that I----"

The Senior made a move for the medicine closet and the bottleslabelled C. 

"I'm going, " whimpered Old Maggie. "Can't you give a body time?"

And she went down to defeat, with the laughter of the ward in herears--down to defeat, for the Avenue Girl would have none of her. 

"You get out of here!" she said fiercely as Old Maggie set to workat the draw sheet. "Get out quick--or I'll throw this cup in yourface!"

The Senior was watching. Old Maggie put on an air of benevolence andcalled the Avenue Girl an unlovely name under her breath while shesmoothed her pillow. She did not get the cup, but the water out ofit, in her hard old face, and matters were as they had been. 

The Girl did not improve as she should. The _interne_ did thedressing day after day, while the Probationer helped him--the Seniordisliked burned cases--and talked of skin grafting if a new powderhe had discovered did no good. _Internes_ are always trying out newthings, looking for the great discovery. 

The powder did no good. The day came when, the dressing over and thewhite coverings drawn up smoothly again over her slender body, theAvenue Girl voiced the question that her eyes had asked each time. 

"Am I going to lie in this hole all my life?" she demanded. 

The _interne_ considered. 

"It isn't healing--not very fast anyhow, " he said. "If we could geta little skin to graft on you'd be all right in a jiffy. Can't youget some friends to come in? It isn't painful and it's over in aminute. "

"Friends? Where would I get friends of that sort?"

"Well, relatives then--some of your own people?"

The Avenue Girl shut her eyes as she did when the dressing hurt her. 

"None that I'd care to see, " she said. And the Probationer knew shelied. The _interne_ shrugged his shoulders. 

"If you think of any let me know. We'll get them here, " he saidbriskly, and turned to see the Probationer rolling up her sleeve. 

"Please!" she said, and held out a bare white arm. The _interne_stared at it stupefied. It was very lovely. 

"I am not at all afraid, " urged the Probationer, "and my blood isgood. It would grow--I know it would. "

The _interne_ had hard work not to stoop and kiss the blue veinsthat rose to the surface in the inner curve of her elbow. Thedressing screens were up and the three were quite alone. To keep hisvoice steady he became stern. 

"Put your sleeve down and don't be a foolish girl!" he, commanded. "Put your sleeve down!" His eyes said: "You wonder! You beauty! Youbrave little girl!"

Because the Probationer seemed to take her responsibilities ratherto heart, however, and because, when he should have been thinking ofother things, such as calling up the staff and making reports, hekept seeing that white arm and the resolute face above it, the_interne_ worked out a plan. 

"I've fixed it, I think, " he said, meeting her in a hallway wherehe had no business to be, and trying to look as if he had not knownshe was coming. "Father Feeny was in this morning and I tackled him. He's got a lot of students--fellows studying for the priesthood--andhe says any daughter of the church shall have skin if he has to flay'em alive. "

"But--is she a daughter of the church?" asked the Probationer. "Andeven if she were, under the circumstances----"

"What circumstances?" demanded the _interne_. "Here's a poor girlburned and suffering. The father is not going to ask whether she'sof the anointed. "

The Probationer was not sure. She liked doing things in the open andwith nothing to happen later to make one uncomfortable; but shespoke to the Senior and the Senior was willing. Her chief trouble, after all, was with the Avenue Girl herself. 

"I don't want to get well, " she said wearily when the thing was putup to her. "What's the use? I'd just go back to the same old thing;and when it got too strong for me I'd end up here again or in themorgue. "

"Tell me where your people live, then, and let me send for them. "

"Why? To have them read in my face what I've been, and go back hometo die of shame?"

The Probationer looked at the Avenue Girl's face. 

"There--there is nothing in your face to hurt them, " she said, flushing--because there were some things the Probationer had neverdiscussed, even with herself. "You--look sad. Honestly, that's all. "

The Avenue Girl held up her thin right hand. The forefinger wasstill yellow from cigarettes. 

"What about that?" she sneered. 

"If I bleach it will you let me send for your people?"

"I'll--perhaps, " was the most the Probationer could get. 

Many people would have been discouraged. Even the Senior was a bitcynical. It took a Probationer still heartsick for home to read inthe Avenue Girl's eyes the terrible longing for the things she hadgiven up--for home and home folks; for a clean slate again. TheProbationer bleached and scrubbed the finger, and gradually a littleof her hopeful spirit touched the other girl. 

"What day is it?" the Avenue Girl asked once. 

"Friday. "

"That's baking day at home. We bake in an out-oven. Did you eversmell bread as it comes from an out-oven?" Or: "That's a prettyshade of blue you nurses wear. It would be nice for working in thedairy, wouldn't it?"

"Fine!" said the Probationer, and scrubbed away to hide the triumphin her eyes. 

III

That was the day the Dummy stole the parrot. The parrot belonged tothe Girl; but how did he know it? So many things he should haveknown the Dummy never learned; so many things he knew that he seemednever to have learned! He did not know, for instance, of FatherFeeny and the Holy Name students; but he knew of the Avenue Girl'sloneliness and heartache, and of the cabal against her. It is one ofthe black marks on record against him that he refused to polish theplate on Old Maggie's bed, and that he shook his fist at her morethan once when the Senior was out of the ward. 

And he knew of the parrot. That day, then, a short, stout woman witha hard face appeared in the superintendent's office and demanded aparrot. 

"Parrot?" said the superintendent blandly. 

"Parrot! That crazy man you keep here walked into my house to-dayand stole a parrot--and I want it. "

"The Dummy! But what on earth----"

"It was my parrot, " said the woman. "It belonged to one of myboarders. She's a burned case up in one of the wards--and she owedme money. I took it for a debt. You call that man and let him lookme in the eye while I say parrot to him. "

"He cannot speak or hear. "

"You call him. He'll understand me!"

They found the Dummy coming stealthily down from the top of thestable and haled him into the office. He was very calm--quiteimpassive. Apparently he had never seen the woman before; as sheraged he smiled cheerfully and shook his head. 

"As a matter of fact, " said the superintendent, "I don't believe heever saw the bird; but if he has it we shall find it out and you'llget it again. "

They let him go then; and he went to the chapel and looked at a doveabove the young John's head. Then he went up to the kitchen andfilled his pockets with lettuce leaves. He knew nothing at all ofparrots or how to care for them. 

Things, you see, were moving right for the Avenue Girl. The stainwas coming off--she had been fond of the parrot and now it was closeat hand; and Father Feeny's lusty crowd stood ready to come into ahospital ward and shed skin that they generally sacrificed on thefootball field. But the Avenue Girl had two years to accountfor--and there was the matter of an alibi. 

"I might tell the folks at home anything and they'd believe itbecause they'd want to believe it, " said the Avenue Girl. "Butthere's the neighbours. I was pretty wild at home. And--there's afellow who wanted to marry me--he knew how sick I was of the oldplace and how I wanted my fling. His name was Jerry. We'd have toshow Jerry. "

The Probationer worried a great deal about this matter of the alibi. It had to be a clean slate for the folks back home, and especiallyfor Jerry. She took her anxieties out walking several times on heroff-duty, but nothing seemed to come of it. She walked on the Avenuemostly, because it was near and she could throw a long coat over herblue dress. And so she happened to think of the woman the girl hadlived with. 

"She got her into all this, " thought the Probationer. "She's justgot to see her out. "

It took three days' off-duty to get her courage up to ringing thedoorbell of the house with the bowed shutters, and after she hadrung it she wanted very much to run and hide; but she thought of thegirl and everything going for nothing for the want of an alibi, andshe stuck. The negress opened the door and stared at her. 

"She's dead, is she?" she asked. 

"No. May I come in? I want to see your mistress. "

The negress did not admit her, however. She let her stand in thevestibule and went back to the foot of a staircase. 

"One of these heah nurses from the hospital!" she said. "She wantsto come in and speak to you. "

"Let her in, you fool!" replied a voice from above stairs. 

The rest was rather confused. Afterward the Probationer rememberedputting the case to the stout woman who had claimed the parrot andfinding it difficult to make her understand. 

"Don't you see?" she finished desperately. "I want her to gohome--to her own folks. She wants it too. But what are we going tosay about these last two years?"

The stout woman sat turning over her rings. She was mostuncomfortable. After all, what had she done? Had she not warned themagain and again about having lighted cigarettes lying round. 

"She's in bad shape, is she?"

"She may recover, but she'll be badly scarred--not her face, but herchest and shoulders. "

That was another way of looking at it. If the girl was scarred----

"Just what do you want me to do?" she asked. Now that it was downto brass tacks and no talk about home and mother, she was morecomfortable. 

"If you could just come over to the hospital while her people arethere and--and say she'd lived with you all the time----"

"That's the truth all right!"

"And--that she worked for you, sewing--she sews very well, shesays. And--oh, you'll know what to say; that she's been--all right, you know; anything to make them comfortable and happy. "

Now the stout woman was softening--not that she was really hard, butshe had developed a sort of artificial veneer of hardness, and goodimpulses had a hard time crawling through. 

"I guess I could do that much, " she conceded. "She nursed me when Iwas down and out with the grippe and that worthless nigger was drunkin the kitchen. But you folks over there have got a parrot thatbelongs to me. What about that?"

The Probationer knew about the parrot. The Dummy had slipped itinto the ward more than once and its profanity had delighted thepatients. The Avenue Girl had been glad to see it too; and as it saton the bedside table and shrieked defiance and oaths the Dummy hadsmiled benignly. John and the dove--the girl and the parrot!

"I am sorry about the parrot. I--perhaps I could buy him from you. "

She got out her shabby little purse, in which she carried hermunificent monthly allowance of eight dollars and a little money shehad brought from home. 

"Twenty dollars takes him. That's what she owed me. "

The Probationer had seventeen dollars and eleven cents. She spreadit out in her lap and counted it twice. 

"I'm afraid that's all, " she said. She had hoped the second countwould show up better. "I could bring the rest next month. "

The Probationer folded the money together and held it out. The stoutwoman took it eagerly. 

"He's yours, " she said largely. "Don't bother about the balance. When do you want me?"

"I'll send you word, " said the Probationer, and got up. She wasalmost dizzy with excitement and the feeling of having no money atall in the world and a parrot she did not want. She got out into theair somehow and back to the hospital. She took a bath immediatelyand put on everything fresh, and felt much better--but verypoor. Before she went on duty she said a little prayer aboutthermometers--that she should not break hers until she had money fora new one. 

 * * * * *

Father Feeny came and lined up six budding priests outside the doorof the ward. He was a fine specimen of manhood and he had asked noquestions at all. The Senior thought she had better tell himsomething, but he put up a white hand. 

"What does it matter, sister?" he said cheerfully. "Yesterday isgone and to-day is a new day. Also there is to-morrow"--his Irisheyes twinkled--"and a fine day it will be by the sunset. "

Then he turned to his small army. 

"Boys, " he said, "it's a poor leader who is afraid to take chanceswith his men. I'm going first"--he said fir-rst. "It's a smallthing, as I've told you--a bit of skin and it's over. Go in smilingand come out smiling! Are you ready, sir?" This to the _interne_. 

That was a great day in the ward. The inmates watched Father Feenyand the _interne_ go behind the screens, both smiling, and theywatched the father come out very soon after, still smiling but alittle bleached. And they watched the line patiently waiting outsidethe door, shortening one by one. After a time the smiles were ratherforced, as if waiting was telling on them; but there was nodeserter--only one six-foot youth, walking with a swagger tocontribute his little half inch or so of cuticle, added a sensationto the general excitement by fainting halfway up the ward; and heremained in blissful unconsciousness until it was all over. 

Though the _interne_ had said there was no way back, the first stephad really been taken; and he was greatly pleased with himself andwith everybody because it had been his idea. The Probationer triedto find a chance to thank him; and, failing that, she sent agrateful little note to his room:

 Is Mimi the Austrian to have a baked apple? [Signed] WARD A. 

 P. S. --It went through wonderfully! She is so cheerful since it is over. How can I ever thank you?

The reply came back very quickly:

 Baked apple, without milk, for Mimi. WARD A. [Signed] D. L. S. 

 P. S. --Can you come up on the roof for a little air?

She hesitated over that for some time. A really honest-to-goodnessnurse may break a rule now and then and nothing happen; buta probationer is only on trial and has to be exceedinglycareful--though any one might go to the roof and watch the sunset. She decided not to go. Then she pulled her soft hair down over herforehead, where it was most becoming, and fastened it with tinyhairpins, and went up after all--not because she intended to, butbecause as she came out of her room the elevator was going up--notdown. She was on the roof almost before she knew it. 

The _interne_ was there in fresh white ducks, smoking. At first theytalked of skin grafting and the powder that had not done what wasexpected of it. After a time, when the autumn twilight had fallen onthem like a benediction, she took her courage in her hands and toldof her visit to the house on the Avenue, and about the parrot andthe plot. 

The _interne_ stood very still. He was young and intolerant. Someday he would mellow and accept life as it is--not as he would haveit. When she had finished he seemed to have drawn himself into ashell, turtle fashion, and huddled himself together. The shell waspride and old prejudice and the intolerance of youth. "She had tohave an alibi!" said the Probationer. 

"Oh, of course, " very stiffly. 

"I cannot see why you disapprove. Something had to be done. "

"I cannot see that you had to do it; but it's your own affair, ofcourse. Only----"

"Please go on. "

"Well, one cannot touch dirt without being soiled. "

"I think you will be sorry you said that, " said the Probationerstiffly. And she went down the staircase, leaving him alone. He wassorry, of course; but he would not say so even to himself. Hethought of the Probationer, with her eager eyes and shining hair andher warm little heart, ringing the bell of the Avenue house andmaking her plea--and his blood ran hot in him. It was just thenthat the parrot spoke on the other side of the chimney. 

"Gimme a bottle of beer!" it said. "Nice cold beer! Cold beer!"

The _interne_ walked furiously toward the sound. Must this girl ofthe streets and her wretched associates follow him everywhere? Shehad ruined his life already. He felt that it was ruined. Probablythe Probationer would never speak to him again. 

The Dummy was sitting on a bench, with the parrot on his kneelooking rather queer from being smuggled about under a coat and fedthe curious things that the Dummy thought a bird should eat. It hada piece of apple pie in its claw now. 

"Cold beer!" said the parrot, and eyed the _interne_ crookedly. 

The Dummy had not heard him, of course. He sat looking over theparapet toward the river, with one knotted hand smoothing the bird'sruffled plumage and such a look of wretchedness in his eyes that ithurt to see it. God's fools, who cannot reason, can feel. Someinstinct of despair had seized him for its own--some conception, perhaps, of what life would never mean to him. Before it, the_interne's_ wrath gave way to impotency. 

"Cold beer!" said the parrot wickedly. 

IV

The Avenue Girl improved slowly. Morning and evening came the Dummyand smiled down at her, with reverence in his eyes. She could smileback now and sometimes she spoke to him. There was a change in theAvenue Girl. She was less sullen. In the back of her eyes eachmorning found a glow of hope--that died, it is true, by noontime;but it came again with the new day. 

"How's Polly this morning, Montmorency?" she would say, and give hima bit of toast from her breakfast for the bird. Or: "I wish youcould talk, Reginald. I'd like to hear what Rose said when you tookthe parrot. It must have been a scream!"

He brought her the first chrysanthemums of the fall and laid them onher pillow. It was after he had gone, while the Probationer wascombing out the soft short curls of her hair, that she mentioned theDummy. She strove to make her voice steady, but there were tears inher eyes. 

"The old goat's been pretty good to me, hasn't he?" she said. 

"I believe it is very unusual. I wonder"--the Probationer poised thecomb--"perhaps you remind him of some one he used to know. "

They knew nothing, of course, of the boy John and the window. 

"He's about the first decent man I ever knew, " said the AvenueGirl--"and he's a fool!"

"Either a fool or very, very wise, " replied the Probationer. 

The _interne_ and the Probationer were good friends again, but theyhad never quite got back to the place they had lost on the roof. Over the Avenue Girl's dressing their eyes met sometimes, and therewas an appeal in the man's and tenderness; but there was pride too. He would not say he had not meant it. Any man will tell you that hewas entirely right, and that she had been most unwise and needed agood scolding--only, of course, it is never the wise people who makelife worth the living. 

And an important thing had happened--the Probationer had beenaccepted and had got her cap. She looked very stately in it, thoughit generally had a dent somewhere from her forgetting she had it onand putting her hat on over it. The first day she wore it she kneltat prayers with the others, and said a little Thank You! for gettingthrough when she was so unworthy. She asked to be made clean andpure, and delivered from vanity, and of some use in the world. And, trying to think of the things she had been remiss in, she went outthat night in a rain and bought some seed and things for the parrot. 

Prodigal as had been Father Feeny and his battalion, there was moregrafting needed before the Avenue Girl could take her scarred bodyand soul out into the world again. The Probationer offered, but wasrefused politely. 

"You are a part of the institution now, " said the _interne_, withhis eyes on her cap. He was rather afraid of the cap. "I cannotcripple the institution. "

It was the Dummy who solved that question. No one knew how he knewthe necessity or why he had not come forward sooner; but come he didand would not be denied. The _interne_ went to a member of the staffabout it. 

"The fellow works round the house, " he explained; "but he's taken agreat fancy to the girl and I hardly know what to do. "

"My dear boy, " said the staff, "one of the greatest joys in theworld is to suffer for a woman. Let him go to it. "

So the Dummy bared his old-young arm--not once, but many times. Always as the sharp razor nicked up its bit of skin he looked at thegirl and smiled. In the early evening he perched the parrot on hisbandaged arm and sat on the roof or by the fountain in thecourtyard. When the breeze blew strong enough the water flung overthe rim and made little puddles in the hollows of the cementpavement. Here belated sparrows drank or splashed their dustyfeathers, and the parrot watched them crookedly. 

The Avenue Girl grew better with each day, but remainedwistful-eyed. The ward no longer avoided her, though she was neverone of them. One day the Probationer found a new baby in thechildren's ward; and, with the passion of maternity that is the realreason for every good woman's being, she cuddled the mite in herarms. She visited the nurses in the different wards. 

"Just look!" she would say, opening her arms. "If I could only stealit!"

The Senior, who had once been beautiful and was now calm and placid, smiled at her. Old Maggie must peer and cry out over the child. Irish Delia must call down a blessing on it. And so up the ward tothe Avenue Girl; the Probationer laid the baby in her arms. 

"Just a minute, " she explained. "I'm idling and I have no businessto. Hold it until I give the three o'clocks. " Which means thethree-o'clock medicines. 

When she came back the Avenue Girl had a new look in her eyes; andthat day the little gleam of hope, that usually died, lasted andgrew. 

At last came the day when the alibi was to be brought forward. Thegirl had written home and the home folks were coming. In his strangeway the Dummy knew that a change was near. The kaleidoscope wouldshift again and the Avenue Girl would join the changing anddisappearing figures that fringed the inner circle of his heart. 

One night he did not go to bed in the ward bed that was his onlyhome, beside the little stand that held his only possessions. Thewatchman missed him and found him asleep in the chapel in one of theseats, with the parrot drowsing on the altar. 

Rose--who was the stout woman--came early. She wore a purple dress, with a hat to match, and purple gloves. The ward eyed her with scornand a certain deference. She greeted the Avenue Girl effusivelybehind the screens that surrounded the bed. 

"Well, you do look pinched!" she said. "Ain't it a mercy it didn'tget to your face! Pretty well chewed up, aren't you?"

"Do you want to see it?"

"Good land! No! Now look here, you've got to put me wise or I'llblow the whole thing. What's my little stunt? The purple's all rightfor it, isn't it?"

"All you need to do, " said the Avenue Girl wearily, "is to say thatI've been sewing for you since I came to the city. And--if you cansay anything good----"

"I'll do that all right, " Rose affirmed. She put a heavy silver bagon the bedside table and lowered herself into a chair. "You leave itto me, dearie. There ain't anything I won't say. "

The ward was watching with intense interest. Old Maggie, working thecreaking bandage machine, was palpitating with excitement. From herchair by the door she could see the elevator and it was she whoannounced the coming of destiny. 

"Here comes the father, " she confided to the end of the ward. "Guessthe mother couldn't come. "

It was not the father though. It was a young man who hesitated inthe doorway, hat in hand--a tall young man, with a strong and notunhandsome face. The Probationer, rather twitchy from excitement andanxiety, felt her heart stop and race on again. Jerry, without adoubt!

The meeting was rather constrained. The girl went whiter than herpillows and half closed her eyes; but Rose, who would have beenterrified at the sight of an elderly farmer, was buoyantly relievedand at her ease. 

"I'm sorry, " said Jerry. "I--we didn't realise it had been so bad. The folks are well; but--I thought I'd better come. They'reexpecting you back home. "

"It was nice of you to come, " said the girl, avoiding his eyes. "I--I'm getting along fine. "

"I guess introductions ain't necessary, " put in Rose briskly. "I'mMrs. Sweeney. She's been living with me--working for me, sewing. She's sure a fine sewer! She made this suit I'm wearing. "

Poor Rose, with "custom made" on every seam of the purple! But Jerrywas hardly listening. His eyes were on the girl among the pillows. 

"I see, " said Jerry slowly. "You haven't said yet, Elizabeth. Areyou going home?"

"If--they want me. "

"Of course they want you!" Again Rose: "Why shouldn't they? You'vebeen a good girl and a credit to any family. If they say anythingmean to you you let me know. "

"They'll not be mean to her. I'm sure they'll want to write andthank you. If you'll just give me your address, Mrs. Sweeney----"

He had a pencil poised over a notebook. Rose hesitated. Then shegave her address on the Avenue, with something of bravado in hervoice. After all, what could this country-store clerk know of theAvenue? Jerry wrote it down carefully. 

"Sweeney--with an e?" he asked politely. 

"With three e's, " corrected Rose, and got up with dignity. 

"Well, good-bye, dearie, " she said. "You've got your friends now andyou don't need me. I guess you've had your lesson about going tosleep with a cig--about being careless with fire. Drop me a postalwhen you get the time. "

She shook hands with Jerry and rustled and jingled down the ward, her chin well up. At the door she encountered Old Maggie, her armsfull of bandages. 

"How's the Avenue?" asked Old Maggie. 

Rose, however, like all good actresses, was still in the partas she made her exit. She passed Old Maggie unheeding, severerespectability in every line of her figure, every nod of her purpleplumes. She was still in the part when she encountered theProbationer. 

"It's going like a house afire!" she said. "He swallowed itall--hook and bait! And--oh, yes, I've got something for you. " Shewent down into her silver bag and pulled out a roll of bills. "I'vefelt meaner'n a dog every time I've thought of you buying thatparrot. I've got a different view of life--maybe--from yours; butI'm not taking candy from a baby. "

When the Probationer could speak Rose was taking herself and thepurple into the elevator and waving her a farewell. 

"Good-bye!" she said. "If ever you get stuck again just call on me. "

With Rose's departure silence fell behind the screen. The girl brokeit first. 

"They're all well, are they?"

"All well. Your mother's been kind of poorly. She thought you'dwrite to her. " The girl clenched her hands under the bedclothing. She could not speak just then. "There's nothing much happened. Thepost office burned down last summer. They're building a new one. And--I've been building. I tore down the old place. "

"Are you going to be married, Jerry?"

"Some day, I suppose. I'm not worrying about it. It was something todo; it kept me from--thinking. "

The girl looked at him and something gripped her throat. He knew!Rose might have gone down with her father, but Jerry knew! Nothingwas any use. She knew his rigid morality, his country-bred horror ofthe thing she was. She would have to go back--to Rose and theothers. He would never take her home. 

Down at the medicine closet the Probationer was carbolisingthermometers and humming a little song. Everything was well. TheAvenue Girl was with her people and at seven o'clock the Probationerwas going to the roof--to meet some one who was sincerely repentantand very meek. 

In the convalescent ward next door they were singing softly--one ofthose spontaneous outbursts that have their origin in the hearts ofpeople and a melody all their own:

 _'Way down upon de S'wanee Ribber, Far, far away, Dere's wha my heart is turnin' ebber-- Dere's wha de old folks stay. _

It penetrated back of the screen, where the girl lay in whitewretchedness--and where Jerry, with death in his eyes, sat rigid inhis chair. 

"Jerry?"

"Yes. "

"I--I guess I've been pretty far away. "

"Don't tell me about it!" A cry, this. 

"You used to care for me, Jerry. I'm not expecting that now; but ifyou'd only believe me when I say I'm sorry----"

"I believe you, Elizabeth. "

"One of the nurses here says----Jerry, won't you look at me?" Withsome difficulty he met her eyes. "She says that because one startswrong one needn't go wrong always. I was ashamed to write. She mademe do it. "

She held out an appealing hand, but he did not take it. All his lifehe had built up a house of morality. Now his house was crumbling andhe stood terrified in the wreck. "It isn't only because I've beenhurt that I--am sorry, " she went on. "I loathed it! I'd havefinished it all long ago, only--I was afraid. "

"I would rather have found you dead!"

There is a sort of anesthesia of misery. After a certain amount ofsuffering the brain ceases to feel. Jerry watched the white curtainof the screen swaying in the wind, settled his collar, glanced athis watch. He was quite white. The girl's hand still lay on thecoverlet. Somewhere back in the numbed brain that would think onlylittle thoughts he knew that if he touched that small, appealinghand the last wall of his house would fall. 

It was the Dummy, after all, who settled that for him. He came withhis afternoon offering of cracked ice just then and stood inside thescreen, staring. Perhaps he had known all along how it would end, that this, his saint, would go--and not alone--to join the vanishingcircle that had ringed the inner circle of his heart. Just at thetime it rather got him. He swayed a little and clutched at thescreen; but the next moment he had placed the bowl on the stand andstood smiling down at the girl. 

"The only person in the world who believes in me!" said the girlbitterly. "And he's a fool!"

The Dummy smiled into her eyes. In his faded, childish eyes therewas the eternal sadness of his kind, eternal tenderness, and theblur of one who has looked much into a far distance. Suddenly hebent over and placed the man's hand over the girl's. 

The last wall was down! Jerry buried his face in the whitecoverlet. 

 * * * * *

The _interne_ was pacing the roof anxiously. Golden sunset had fadedto lavender--to dark purple--to night. 

The Probationer came up at last--not a probationer now, of course;but she had left off her cap and was much less stately. 

"I'm sorry, " she explained; "but I've been terribly busy. It wentoff so well!"

"Of course--if you handled it. "

"You know--don't you?--it was the lover who came. He looks so strongand good--oh, she is safe now!"

"That's fine!" said the _interne_ absently. They were sitting on theparapet now and by sliding his hand along he found her fingers. "Isn't it a glorious evening?" He had the fingers pretty close bythat time; and suddenly gathering them up he lifted the hand to hislips. 

"Such a kind little hand!" he said over it. "Such a dear, tenderlittle hand! My hand!" he said, rather huskily. 

Down in the courtyard the Dummy sat with the parrot on his knee. Athis feet the superintendent's dog lay on his side and dreamed ofbattle. The Dummy's eyes lingered on the scar the Avenue Girl hadbandaged--how long ago!

His eyes wandered to the window with the young John among thelilies. In the stable were still the ambulance horses that talked tohim without words. And he had the parrot. If he thought at all itwas that his Father was good and that, after all, he was not alone. The parrot edged along his knee and eyed him with saturnineaffection. 

THE MIRACLE

I

Big Mary was sweeping the ward with a broom muffled in a white bag. In the breeze from the open windows, her blue calico wrapperballooned about her and made ludicrous her frantic thrusts after thebits of fluff that formed eddies under the beds and danced in thespring air. 

She finished her sweeping, and, with the joyous scraps captured inher dust-pan, stood in the doorway, critically surveying the ward. It was brilliantly clean and festive; on either side a row of beds, fresh white for the day; on the centre table a vase of Easterlilies, and on the record-table near the door a potted hyacinth. TheNurse herself wore a bunch of violets tucked in her apron-band. Oneof the patients had seen the Junior Medical give them to her. TheEastern sun, shining across the beds, made below them, on thepolished floor, black islands of shadow in a gleaming sea of light. 

And scattered here and there, rocking in chairs or standing atwindows, enjoying the Sunday respite from sewing or thebandage-machine, women, grotesque and distorted of figure, inattitudes of weariness and expectancy, with patient eyes awaitedtheir crucifixion. Behind them, in the beds, a dozen perhaps who hadcome up from death and held the miracle in their arms. 

The miracles were small and red, and inclined to feeble andineffectual wrigglings. Fists were thrust in the air and broughtdown on smiling, pale mother faces. With tight-closed eyes and openmouths, each miracle squirmed and nuzzled until the mother wouldlook with pleading eyes at the Nurse. And the Nurse would looksevere and say:

"Good gracious, Annie Petowski, surely you don't want to feed thatinfant again! Do you want the child to have a dilated stomach?"

Fear of that horrible and mysterious condition, a dilated stomach, would restrain Annie Petowski or Jennie Goldstein or Maggie McNamarafor a time. With the wisdom of the serpent, she would give the childher finger to suck--a finger so white, so clean, so soft in the lastweek that she was lost in admiration of it. And the child would takehold, all its small body set rigid in lines of desperate effort. Then it would relax suddenly, and spew out the finger, and the quiethospital air would be rent with shrieks of lost illusion. Then AnniePetowski or Jennie Goldstein or Maggie McNamara would watch theNurse with open hostility and defiance, and her rustling exit fromthe ward would be followed by swift cessation of cries, and, closeto Annie or Jennie or Maggie's heart, there would be small ecstaticgurglings--and peace. 

In her small domain the Nurse was queen. From her throne at therecord-table, she issued proclamations of baths and fine combs, ofclean bedding and trimmed nails, of tea and toast, of regular hoursfor the babies. From this throne, also, she directed periodicsearches of the bedside stands, unearthing scraps of old toast, decaying fruit, candy, and an occasional cigarette. From the throne, too, she sent daily a blue-wrappered and pig-tailed brigade to thekitchen, armed with knives, to attack the dinner potatoes. 

But on this Easter morning, the queen looked tired and worn. Hercrown, a starched white cap, had slipped back on her head, and herblue-and-white dress was stained and spotted. Even her fresh apronand sleevelets did not quite conceal the damage. She had come in fora moment at the breakfast hour, and asked the Swede, Ellen Ollman, to serve the breakfast for her; and at half past eight she hadappeared again for a moment, and had turned down one of the beds andput hot-water bottles in it. 

The ward ate little breakfast. It was always nervous when a case was"on. " Excursions down the corridor by one or another of theblue-wrappered brigade brought back bits of news:

"The doctor is smoking a cigarette in the hall;" or, "Miss Jones, the day assistant, has gone in;" and then, with bated breath, "Thedoctor with the red mustache has come"--by which it was known thatthings were going badly, the staff man having been summoned. 

Suggestions of Easter began to appear even in this isolated ward, denied to all visitors except an occasional husband, who was usuallyregarded with a mixture of contempt and scepticism by the otherwomen. But now the lilies came, and after them a lame young womanwho played the organ in the chapel on Sundays, and who afterwardwent from ward to ward, singing little songs and accompanyingherself on the mandolin she carried with her. The lame young womanseated herself in the throne-chair and sang an Easter anthem, andafterward limped around and placed a leaflet and a spray oflilies-of-the-valley on each bedside stand. 

She was escorted around the ward by Elizabeth Miller, known as "Liz"in Our Alley, and rechristened Elizabeth by the Nurse. Elizabethalways read the tracts. She had been there four times, and knew allthe nurses and nearly all the doctors. "Liz" had been known, in ashortage of nurses, to be called into the mysterious room down thehall to assist; and on those occasions, in an all-enveloping whitegown over her wrapper, with her hair under a cap, she outranked thequeen herself in regalness and authority. 

The lame mandolin-player stopped at the foot of the empty bed. "Shall I put one here?" she asked, fingering a tract. 

Liz meditated majestically. 

"Well, I guess I would, " she said. "Not that it'll do any good. "

"Why?"

Liz jerked her head toward the corridor. 

"She's not getting on very well, " she said; "and, even if she getsthrough, she won't read the tract. She held her fingers in her earslast Sunday while the Bible-reader was here. She's young. Says shehopes she and the kid'll both die. "

The mandolin-player was not unversed in the psychology of the ward. 

"Then she--isn't married?" she asked, and because she was young, sheflushed painfully. 

Liz stared at her, and a faint light of amusement dawned in hereyes. 

"Well, no, " she admitted; "I guess that's what's worrying her. She'sa fool, she is. She can put the kid in a home. That's what I do. Suppose she married the fellow that got her into trouble? Wouldn'the be always throwing it up to her?"

The mandolin-player looked at Liz, puzzled at this new philosophyof life. 

"Have--have you a baby here?" she asked timidly. 

"Have I!" said Liz, and, wheeling, led the way to her bed. Sheturned the blanket down with a practised hand, revealing a tiny redatom, so like the others that only mother love could havedistinguished it. 

"This is mine, " she said airily. "Funny little mutt, isn't he?"

The mandolin-player gazed diffidently at the child. 

"He--he's very little, " she said. 

"Little!" said Liz. "He holds the record here for the last sixmonths--eleven pounds three ounces in his skin, when he arrived. Thelittle devil!"

She put the blanket tenderly back over the little devil's sleepingform. The mandolin-player cast about desperately for the right thingto say. 

"Does--does he look like his father?" she asked timidly. Butapparently Liz did not hear. She had moved down the ward. Themandolin-player heard only a snicker from Annie Petowski's bed, and, vaguely uncomfortable, she moved toward the door. 

Liz was turning down the cover of the empty bed, and the Nurse, withtired but shining eyes, was wheeling in the operating table. 

The mandolin-player stepped aside to let the table pass. From theblankets she had a glimpse of a young face, bloodless and wan--ofhurt, defiant blue eyes. She had never before seen life so naked, sorelentless. She shrank back against the wall, a little sick. Thenshe gathered up her tracts and her mandolin, and limped down thehall. 

The door of the mysterious room was open, and from it came a shrill, high wail, a rising and falling note of distress--the voice of a newsoul in protest. She went past with averted face. 

Back in the ward Liz leaned over the table and, picking the girl upbodily, deposited her tenderly in the warm bed. Then she stood backand smiled down at her, with her hands on her hips. 

"Well, " she said kindly, "it's over, and here you are! But it's nopicnic, is it?"

The girl on the bed turned her head away. The coarsening of herfeatures in the last month or two had changed to an almost bloodlessrefinement. With her bright hair, she looked as if she had beenthrough the furnace of pain and had come out pure gold. But her eyeswere hard. 

"Go away, " she said petulantly. 

Liz leaned down and pulled the blanket over her shoulders. 

"You sleep now, " she said soothingly. "When you wake up you can havea cup of tea. "

The girl threw the cover off and looked up despairingly into Liz'sface. 

"I don't want to sleep, " she said. "My God, Liz, it's going to liveand so am I!"

II

Now, the Nurse had been up all night, and at noon, after she hadoiled the new baby and washed out his eyes and given him ateaspoonful of warm water, she placed Liz in charge of the ward, andwent to her room to put on a fresh uniform. The first thing she did, when she got there, was to go to the mirror, with the picture of hermother tucked in its frame, and survey herself. When she saw her capand the untidiness of her hair and her white collar all spotted, shefrowned. 

Then she took the violets out of her belt and put them carefully ina glass of water, and feeling rather silly, she leaned over andkissed them. After that she felt better. 

She bathed her face in hot water and then in cold, which brought hercolour back, and she put on everything fresh, so that she rustledwith each step, which is proper for trained nurses; and finally shetucked the violets back where they belonged, and put on a new cap, which is also proper for trained nurses on gala occasions. 

If she had not gone back to the mirror to see that the generaleffect was as crisp as it should be, things would have beendifferent for Liz, and for the new mother back in the ward. But shedid go back; and there, lying on the floor in front of the bureau, all folded together, was a piece of white paper exactly as if it hasbeen tucked in her belt with the violets. 

She opened it rather shakily, and it was a leaf from the wardorder-book, for at the top it said:

 Annie Petowski--may sit up for one hour. 

And below that:

 Goldstein baby--bran baths. 

And below that:

 I love you. E. J. 

"E. J. " was the Junior Medical. 

So the Nurse went back to the ward, and sat down, palpitating, inthe throne-chair by the table, and spread her crisp skirts, andfound where the page had been torn out of the order-book. 

And as the smiles of sovereigns are hailed with delight by theircourts, so the ward brightened until it seemed to gleam that Easterafternoon. And a sort of miracle happened: none of the babies hadcolic, and the mothers mostly slept. Also, one of the ladies of theHouse Committee looked in at the door and said:

"How beautiful you are here, and how peaceful! Your ward is always asort of benediction. "

The lady of the House Committee looked across and saw the newmother, with the sunshine on her yellow braids, and her face refinedfrom the furnace of pain. 

"What a sweet young mother!" she said, and rustled out, leaving anodor of peau d'Espagne. 

The girl lay much as Liz had left her. Except her eyes, there wasnothing in her face to show that despair had given place to wildmutiny. But Liz knew; Liz had gone through it all when "the firstone" came; and so, from the end of the ward, she rocked and watched. 

The odor of peau d'Espagne was still in the air, eclipsing theEaster lilies, when Liz got up and sauntered down to the girl's bed. 

"How are you now, dearie?" she asked, and, reaching under theblankets, brought out the tiny pearl-handled knife with which thegirl had been wont to clean her finger-nails. The girl eyed hersavagely, but said nothing; nor did she resist when Liz brought outher hands and examined the wrists. The left had a small cut on it. 

"Now listen to me, " said Liz. "None of that, do you hear? You ain'tthe only one that's laid here and wanted to end it all. And whathappened? Inside of a month they're well and strong again, and theyput the kid somewhere, and the folks that know what's happened getused to it, and the ones that don't know don't need to know. Don'tbe a fool!"

She carried the knife off, but the girl made no protest. There wereother ways. 

The Nurse was very tired, for she had been up almost all night. Shesat at the record-table with her Bible open, and, in the intervalsof taking temperatures, she read it. But mostly she read about AnniePetowski being allowed to sit up, and the Goldstein baby having branbaths, and the other thing written below!

At two o'clock came the Junior Medical, in a frock-coat and greytrousers. He expected to sing "The Palms" at the Easter servicedownstairs in the chapel that afternoon, and, according toprecedent, the one who sings "The Palms" on Easter in the chapelmust always wear a frock-coat. 

Very conscious, because all the ward was staring at hisgorgeousness, he went over to the bed where the new mother lay. Thenhe came back and stood by the table, looking at a record. 

"Have you taken her temperature?" he said, businesslike and erect. 

"Ninety-eight. "

"Her pulse is strong?"

"Yes; she's resting quietly. "

"Good. --And--did you get my note?"

This, much as if he had said, "Did you find my scarf-pin?" oranything merely casual; for Liz was hovering near. 

"Yes. " The nurse's red lips were trembling, but she smiled up athim. Liz came nearer. She was only wishing him Godspeed with hiswooing, but it made him uncomfortable. 

"Watch her closely, " he said, "she's pretty weak and despondent. "And he looked at Liz. 

"Elizabeth, " said the Nurse, "won't you sit by Claribel and fanher?"

Claribel was the new mother. Claribel is, of course, no name for amother, but she had been named when she was very small. 

Liz went away and sat by the girl's bed, and said a little prayer tothe effect that they were both so damned good to everybody, shehoped they'd hit it off. But perhaps the prayer of the wickedavaileth nothing. 

"You know I meant that, " he said, from behind a record. "I--I loveyou with all my heart--and if only you----"

The nurse shook down a thermometer and examined it closely. "I loveyou, too!" she said. And, walking shakily to one of the beds, sheput the thermometer upside down in Maggie McNamara's mouth. 

The Junior Medical went away with his shoulders erect in hisfrock-coat, and his heavy brown hair, which would never partproperly and had to be persuaded with brilliantine, bristling withhappiness. 

And the Nurse-Queen, looking over her kingdom for somebody to lavishher new joy on, saw Claribel lying in bed, looking at the ceilingand reading there all the tragedy of her broken life, all herdespair. 

So she rustled out to the baby-room, where the new baby had neverbatted an eye since her bath and was lying on her back with bothfists clenched on her breast, and she did something that no trainednurse is ever supposed to do. 

She lifted the baby, asleep and all, and carried her to her mother. 

But Claribel's face only darkened when she saw her. 

"Take the brat away, " she said, and went on reading tragedies on theceiling. 

Liz came and proffered her the little mite with every art she knew. She showed her the wrinkled bits of feet, the tiny, ridiculoushands, and how long the hair grew on the back of her head. But whenLiz put the baby on her arm, she shuddered and turned her head away. So finally Liz took it back to the other room, and left it there, still sleeping. 

The fine edge of the Nurse's joy was dulled. It is a characteristicof great happiness to wish all to be well with the world; and herebefore her was dry-eyed despair. It was Liz who finally decided her. 

"I guess I'll sit up with her to-night, " she said, approaching thetable with the peculiar gait engendered of heel-less hospitalcarpet-slippers and Mother Hubbard wrappers. "I don't like the wayshe watches the ceiling. "

"What do you mean, Elizabeth?" asked the Nurse. 

"Time I had the twins--that's before your time, " said Liz--"we hadone like that. She went out the window head first the night afterthe baby came, and took the kid with her. "

The Nurse rose with quick decision. 

"We must watch her, " she said. "Perhaps if I could find--I thinkI'll go to the telephone. Watch the ward carefully, Elizabeth, andif Annie Petowski tries to feed her baby before three o'clock, takeit from her. The child's stuffed like a sausage every time I'm outfor five minutes. "

Nurses know many strange things: they know how to rub an aching backuntil the ache is changed to a restful thrill, and how to change thebedding and the patient's night-dress without rolling the patientover more than once, which is a high and desirable form ofknowledge. But also they get to know many strange people; theirclean starchiness has a way of rubbing up against the filth of theworld and coming away unsoiled. And so the Nurse went downstairs tothe telephone, leaving Liz to watch for nefarious feeding. 

The Nurse called up Rose Davis; and Rosie, who was lying in bed withthe Sunday papers scattered around her and a cigarette in hermanicured fingers, reached out with a yawn and, taking thetelephone, rested it on her laced and ribboned bosom. 

"Yes, " she said indolently. 

The nurse told her who she was, and Rosie's voice took on a warmertinge. 

"Oh, yes, " she said. "How are you?. .. Claribel? Yes; what abouther?. .. What!"

"Yes, " said the Nurse. "A girl--seven pounds. "

"My Gawd! Well, what do you think of that! Excuse me a moment; mycigarette's set fire to the sheet. All right--go ahead. "

"She's taking it pretty hard, and I--I thought you might help her. She--she----"

"How much do you want?" said Rose, a trifle coldly. She turned inthe bed and eyed the black leather bag on the stand at her elbow. "Twenty enough?"

"I don't think it's money, " said the Nurse, "although she needs thattoo; she hasn't any clothes for the baby. But--she's awfullydespondent--almost desperate. Have you any idea who the child'sfather is?"

Rosie considered, lighting a new cigarette with one hand andbalancing the telephone with the other. 

"She left me a year ago, " she said. "Oh, yes; I know now. What timeis it?"

"Two o'clock. "

"I'll tell you what I'll do, " said Rosie. "I'll get the fellow onthe wire and see what he's willing to do. Maybe he'll give her adollar or two a week. "

"Do you think you could bring him to see her?"

"Say, what do you think I am--a missionary?" The Nurse was wise, soshe kept silent. "Well, I'll tell you what I will do. If I can bringhim, I will. How's that yellow-haired she-devil you've got overthere? I've got that fixed all right. She pulled a razor on mefirst--I've got witnesses. Well, if I can get Al, I'll do it. Solong. "

It did not occur to the Nurse to deprecate having used an evilmedium toward a righteous end. She took life much as she found it. And so she tiptoed past the chapel again, where a faint odour ofpeau d'Espagne came stealing out into the hall, and where thechildren from the children's ward, in roller-chairs and on crutches, were singing with all their shrill young voices, earnest eyesuplifted. 

The white Easter lilies on the altar sent their fragrance out overthe gathering, over the nurses, young and placid, over the hopelessand the hopeful, over the faces where death had passed and left itsinevitable stamp, over bodies freshly risen on this Easter Sundayto new hope and new life--over the Junior Medical, waiting with themanuscript of "The Palms" rolled in his hand and his heart singing ahymn of happiness. 

The Nurse went up to her ward, and put a screen around Claribel, and, with all her woman's art, tidied the immaculate white bed andloosened the uncompromising yellow braids, so that the soft hairfell across Claribel's bloodless forehead and softened the defiancein her blue eyes. She brought the pink hyacinth in its pot, too, andplaced it on the bedside table. Then she stood off and looked at herwork. It was good. 

Claribel submitted weakly. She had stopped staring at the wall, andhad taken to watching the open window opposite with strangeintentness. Only when the Nurse gave a final pat to the bedspreadshe spoke. 

"Was it a boy--or a girl?" she asked. 

"Girl, " said the nurse briskly. "A little beauty, perfect in everyway. "

"A girl--to grow up and go through this hell!" she muttered, and hereyes wandered back to the window. 

But the Nurse was wise with the accumulated wisdom of a sex that hashad to match strength with wile for ages, and she was not yet ready. She went into the little room where eleven miracles lay in elevencribs, and, although they all looked exactly alike, she selectedClaribel's without hesitation, and carried it to the mysterious roomdown the hall--which was no longer a torture-chamber, but aresplendently white place, all glass and tile and sunlight, andwhere she did certain things that are not prescribed in the hospitalrules. 

First of all, she opened a cupboard and took out a baby dress oflace and insertion, --and everybody knows that such a dress is usedonly when a hospital infant is baptised, --and she clothed Claribel'sbaby in linen and fine raiment, and because they are very, very redwhen they are so new, she dusted it with a bit of talcum--to breakthe shock, as you may say. It was very probable that Al had neverseen so new a baby, and it was useless to spoil the joy ofparenthood unnecessarily. For it really was a fine child, andeventually it would be white and beautiful. 

The baby smelled of violet, for the christening-robe was kept in asachet. 

Finally she gave it another teaspoonful of warm water and put itback in its crib. And then she rustled starchily back to thethrone-chair by the record-table, and opened her Bible at the placewhere it said that Annie Petowski might sit up, and the Goldsteinbaby--bran baths, and the other thing written just below. 

III

The music poured up the well of the staircase; softened by distance, the shrill childish sopranos and the throaty basses of the medicalstaff merged into a rising and falling harmony of exquisite beauty. 

Liz sat on the top step of the stairs, with her baby in her arms;and, as the song went on, Liz's eyes fell to her child and stayedthere. 

At three o'clock the elevator-man brought Rosie Davis along thehall--Rosie, whose costume betrayed haste, and whose figure, under agaudy motor-coat, gave more than a suggestion of being unsupportedand wrapper-clad. She carried a clinking silver chatelaine, however, and at the door she opened it and took out a quarter, extending itwith a regal gesture to the elevator-man. 

"Here, old sport, " she said, "go and blow yourself to a drink. It'sEaster. "

Such munificence appalled the ward. 

Rosie was not alone. Behind her, uncomfortable and sullen, was Al. The ward, turning from the episode of the quarter, fixed on himcurious and hostile eyes; and Al, glancing around the ward from thedoorway, felt their hostility, and plucked Rosie's arm. 

"Gee, Rose, I'm not going in there, " he said. But Rosie pulled himin and presented him to the Nurse. 

Behind the screen, Claribel, shut off from her view of the openwindow, had taken to staring at the ceiling again. 

When the singing came up the staircase from the chapel, she hadmoaned and put her fingers in her ears. 

"Well, I found him, " said Rosie cheerfully. "Had the deuce of a timelocating him. " And the Nurse, apprising in one glance his stockyfigure and heavy shoulders, his ill-at-ease arrogance, his weak, andjust now sullen but not bad-tempered face, smiled at him. 

"We have a little girl here who will be glad to see you, " she said, and took him to the screen. "Just five minutes, and you must do thetalking. "

Al hesitated between the visible antagonism of the ward and themystery of the white screen. A vision of Claribel as he had seen herlast, swollen with grief and despair, distorted of figure andaccusing of voice, held him back. A faint titter of derision wentthrough the room. He turned on Rosie's comfortable back a look ofblack hate and fury. Then the Nurse gave him a gentle shove, and hewas looking at Claribel--a white, Madonna-faced Claribel, lying nowwith closed eyes, her long lashes sweeping her cheek. 

The girl did not open her eyes at his entrance. He put his hatawkwardly on the foot of the bed, and, tiptoeing around, sat on theedge of the stiff chair. 

"Well, how are you, kid?" he asked, with affected ease. 

She opened her eyes and stared at him. Then she made a little clutchat her throat, as if she were smothering. 

"How did you--how did you know I was here?"

"Saw it in the paper, in the society column. " She winced at that, and some fleeting sense of what was fitting came to his aid. "Howare you?" he asked more gently. He had expected a flood ofreproaches, and he was magnanimous in his relief. 

"I've been pretty bad; I'm better. "

"Oh, you'll be around soon, and going to dances again. The MaginnisSocial Club's having a dance Saturday night in Mason's Hall. "

The girl did not reply. She was wrestling with a problem that is asold as the ages, although she did not know it--why this tragedy ofhers should not be his. She lay with her hands crossed quietly onher breast and one of the loosened yellow braids was near his hand. He picked it up and ran it through his fingers. 

"Hasn't hurt your looks any, " he said awkwardly. "You're lookingpretty good. "

With a jerk of her head she pulled the braid out of his fingers. 

"Don't, " she said and fell to staring at the ceiling, where she hadwritten her problem. 

"How's the--how's the kid?"--after a moment. 

"I don't know--or care. "

There was nothing strange to Al in this frame of mind. Neither didhe know or care. 

"What are you goin' to do with it?"

"Kill it!"

Al considered this a moment. Things were bad enough now, withoutClaribel murdering the child and making things worse. 

"I wouldn't do that, " he said soothingly. "You can put it somewhere, can't you? Maybe Rosie'll know. "

"I don't want it to live. "

For the first time he realised her despair. She turned on him hertormented eyes, and he quailed. 

"I'll find a place for it, kid, " he said. "It's mine, too. I guessI'm it, all right. "

"Yours!" She half rose on her elbow, weak as she was. "Yours! Didn'tyou throw me over when you found I was going to have it? Yours! Didyou go through hell for twenty-four hours to bring it into theworld? I tell you, it's mine--mine! And I'll do what I want with it. I'll kill it, and myself too!"

"You don't know what you're saying!"

She had dropped back, white and exhausted. 

"Don't I?" she said, and fell silent. 

Al felt defrauded, ill-treated. He had done the right thing; he hadcome to see the girl, which wasn't customary in those circles whereAl lived and worked and had his being; he had acknowledged hisresponsibility, and even--why, hang it all----

"Say the word and I'll marry you, " he said magnanimously. 

"I don't want to marry you. "

He drew a breath of relief. Nothing could have been fairer than hisoffer, and she had refused it. He wished Rosie had been there tohear. 

And just then Rosie came. She carried the baby, still faintlyodorous of violets, held tight in unaccustomed arms. She lookedawkward and conscious, but her amused smile at herself was halftender. 

"Hello, Claribel, " she said. "How are you? Just look here, Al! Whatdo you think of this?"

Al got up sheepishly and looked at the child. 

"Boy or girl?" he asked politely. 

"Girl; but it's the living image of you, " said Rose--for Rose andthe Nurse were alike in the wiles of the serpent. 

"Looks like me!" Al observed caustically. "Looks like an over-ripetomato!"

But he drew himself up a trifle. Somewhere in his young andhardened soul the germs of parental pride, astutely sowed, had takenquick root. 

"Feel how heavy she is, " Rose commanded. And Al held out two armsunaccustomed to such tender offices. 

"Heavy! She's about as big as a peanut. "

"Mind her back, " said Rose, remembering instructions. 

After her first glance Claribel had not looked at the child. Butnow, in its father's arms, it began to whimper. The mother stirreduneasily, and frowned. 

"Take it away!" she ordered. "I told them not to bring it here. "

The child cried louder. Its tiny red face, under the powder, turnedpurple. It beat the air with its fists. Al, still holding it in hisoutstretched arms, began vague motions to comfort it, swinging it upand down and across. But it cried on, drawing up its tiny knees inspasms of distress. Claribel put her fingers in her ears. 

"You'll have to feed it!" Rose shouted over the din. 

The girl comprehended without hearing, and shook her head in sullenobstinacy. 

"What do you think of that for noise?" said Al, not without pride. "She's like me, all right. When I'm hungry, there's hell to pay ifI'm not fed quick. Here, "--he bent down over Claribel, --"you mightas well have dinner now, and stop the row. "

Not ungently, he placed the squirming mass in the baptismal dressbeside the girl on the bed. With the instinct of ages, the babystopped wailing and opened her mouth. 

"The little cuss!" cried Al, delighted. "Ain't that me all over?Little angel-face the minute I get to the table!"

Unresisting now, Claribel let Rose uncover her firm white breast. The mother's arm, passively extended by Rose to receive the smallbody, contracted around it unconsciously. 

She turned and looked long at the nuzzling, eager mouth, at the redhand lying trustfully open on her breast, at the wrinkled face, theindeterminate nose, the throbbing fontanelle where the little lifewas already beating so hard. 

"A girl, Rose!" she said. "My God, what am I going to do with her?"

Rose was not listening. The Junior Medical's turn had come at last. Downstairs in the chapel, he was standing by the organ, his headthrown back, his heavy brown hair (which would never stay partedwithout the persuasion of brilliantine) bristling with earnestness. 

 "_O'er all the way, green palms and blossoms gay_, "

he sang, and his clear tenor came welling up the staircase to Liz, and past her to the ward, and to the group behind the screen. 

 "_Are strewn this day in festal preparation, Where Jesus comes to wipe our tears away-- E'en now the throng to welcome Him prepare. _"

On the throne-chair by the record-table, the Nurse sat and listened. And because it was Easter and she was very happy and because of thethrill in the tenor voice that came up the stairs to her, andbecause of the page in the order-book about bran baths and the restof it, she cried a little, surreptitiously, and let the tears dropdown on a yellow hospital record. 

The song was almost done. Liz, on the stairs, had fed her babytwenty minutes too soon, and now it lay, sleeping and sated, in herlap. Liz sat there, brooding over it, and the last line of the songcame up the staircase. 

 "_Blessed is He who comes bringing sal-va-a-a-ation!_"

the Junior Medical sang. 

The services were over. Downstairs the small crowd dispersed slowly. The minister shook hands with the nurses at the door, and the JuniorMedical rolled up his song and wondered how soon he could makerounds upstairs again. 

Liz got up, with her baby in her arms, and padded in to thethrone-chair by the record-table. 

"He can sing some, can't he!" she said. 

"He has a beautiful voice. " The Nurse's eyes were shining. 

Liz moved off. Then she turned and came back. 

"I--I know you'll tell me I'm a fool, " she said; "but I've decidedto keep the kid, this time. I guess I'll make out, somehow. "

Behind the screen, Rosie had lighted a cigarette and was smoking, sublimely unconscious of the blue smoke swirl that rose in telltaleclouds high above her head. The baby had dropped asleep, andClaribel lay still. But her eyes were not on the ceiling; they wereon the child. 

Al leaned forward and put his lips to the arm that circled the baby. 

"I'm sorry, kid, " he said. "I guess it was the limit, all right. Doyou hate me?"

She looked at him, and the hardness and defiance died out of hereyes. She shook her head. 

"No. "

"Do you--still--like me a little?"

"Yes, " in a whisper. 

"Then what's the matter with you and me and the little mutt gettingmarried and starting all over--eh?"

He leaned over and buried his face with a caressing movement in thehollow of her neck. 

Rose extinguished her cigarette on the foot of the bed, and, carefulof appearances, put the butt in her chatelaine. 

"I guess you two don't need me any more, " she said yawning. "I'mgoing back home to bed. "

"ARE WE DOWNHEARTED? NO!"

I

There are certain people who will never understand this story, people who live their lives by rule of thumb. Little lives they are, too, measured by the letter and not the spirit. Quite simple too. Right is right and wrong is wrong. 

That shadowy No Man's Land between the trenches of virtue and sin, where most of us fight our battles and are wounded, and even die, does not exist for them. 

The boy in this story belonged to that class. Even if he reads it hemay not recognise it. But he will not read it or have it read tohim. He will even be somewhat fretful if it comes his way. 

"If that's one of those problem things, " he will say, "I don't wantto hear it. I don't see why nobody writes adventure any more. "

Right is right and wrong is wrong. Seven words for a creed, and allof life to live!

This is not a war story. But it deals, as must anything thatrepresents life in this year of our Lord of Peace, with war. Withwar in its human relations. Not with guns and trenches, but withmen and women, with a boy and a girl. 

For only in the mass is war vast. To the man in the trench itreduces itself to the man on his right, the man on his left, the manacross, beyond the barbed wire, and a woman. 

The boy was a Canadian. He was twenty-two and not very tall. Hisname in this story is Cecil Hamilton. He had won two medals forlife-saving, each in a leather case. He had saved people fromdrowning. When he went abroad to fight he took the medals along. Notto show. But he felt that the time might come when he would not besure of himself. A good many men on the way to war have felt thatway. The body has a way of turning craven, in spite of highresolves. It would be rather comforting, he felt, to have thosemedals somewhere about him at that time. He never looked at themwithout a proud little intake of breath and a certain swelling ofthe heart. 

On the steamer he found that a medal for running had slipped intoone of the cases. He rather chuckled over that. He had a sense ofhumour, in spite of his seven-word creed. And a bit of superstition, for that night, at dusk, he went out on to the darkened deck andflung it overboard. 

The steamer had picked him up at Halifax--a cold dawn, with a fewpinched faces looking over the rail. Forgive him if he swaggered upthe gangway. He was twenty-two, he was a lieutenant, and he was afighting man. 

The girl in the story saw him then. She was up and about, in a shortsport suit, with a white tam-o'-shanter on her head and a whitewoolen scarf tucked round her neck. Under her belted coat she wore amiddy blouse, and when she saw Lieutenant Cecil Hamilton, withhis eager eyes--not unlike her own, his eyes were young andinquiring--she reached into a pocket of the blouse and dabbed herlips with a small stick of cold cream. 

Cold air has a way of drying lips. 

He caught her at it, and she smiled. It was all over for him then, poor lad!

Afterward, when he was in the trenches, he wondered about that. Hecalled it "Kismet" to himself. It was really a compound, that firstday or two, of homesickness and a little furtive stirring of anxietyand the thrill of new adventure that was in his blood. 

On the second afternoon out they had tea together, she in hersteamer chair and he calmly settled next to her, in a chairbelonging to an irritated English lawyer. Afterward he went down tohis cabin, hung round with his new equipment, and put away thephotograph of a very nice Toronto girl, which had been propped upback of his hairbrushes. 

They got rather well acquainted that first day. 

"You know, " he said, with his cup in one hand and a rather stalecake in the other, "it's awfully bully of you to be so nice to me. "

She let that go. She was looking, as a matter of fact, after a tallman with heavily fringed eyes and English clothes, who had just goneby. 

"You know, " he confided--he frequently prefaced his speeches withthat--"I was horribly lonely when I came up the gangway. Then I sawyou, and you were smiling. It did me a lot of good. "

"I suppose I really should not have smiled. " She came back to himwith rather an effort. "But you caught me, you know. It wasn'trouge. It was cold cream. I'll show you. "

She unbuttoned her jacket, against his protest, and held out thelittle stick. He took it and looked at it. 

"You don't need even this, " he said rather severely. He disapprovedof cosmetics. "You have a lovely mouth. "

"It's rather large. Don't you think so?"

"It's exactly right. "

He was young, and as yet more interested in himself than in anythingin the world. So he sat there and told her who he was, and what hehoped to do and, rather to his own astonishment, about the medals. 

"How very brave you are!" she said. 

That made him anxious. He hoped she did not think he was swanking. It was only that he did not make friends easily, and when he didmeet somebody he liked he was apt to forget and talk too much abouthimself. He was so afraid that he gulped down his tepid tea in ahurry and muttered something about letters to write, and got himselfaway. The girl stared after him with a pucker between her eyebrows. And the tall man came and took the place he vacated. 

Things were worrying the girl--whose name, by the way, was Edith. Onprograms it was spelled "Edythe, " but that was not her fault. Yes, on programs--Edythe O'Hara. The business manager had suggesteddeHara, but she had refused. Not that it mattered much. She had beenin the chorus. She had a little bit of a voice, rather sweet, andshe was divinely young and graceful. 

In the chorus she would have remained, too, but for one of thosequeer shifts that alter lives. A girl who did a song and aneccentric dance had wrenched her knee, and Edith had gone on in herplace. Something of her tomboy youth remained in her, and for a fewminutes, as she frolicked over the stage, she was a youngster, dancing to her shadow. 

She had not brought down the house, but a man with heavily fringedeyes, who watched her from the wings, made a note of her name. Hewas in America for music-hall material for England, and he wasshrewd after the manner of his kind. Here was a girl who frolickedon the stage. The English, accustomed to either sensuous or sedatedancing, would fall hard for her, he decided. Either that, or shewould go "bla. " She was a hit or nothing. 

And that, in so many words, he told her that afternoon. 

"Feeling all right?" he asked her. 

"Better than this morning. The wind's gone down, hasn't it?"

He did not answer her. He sat on the side of the chair and lookedher over. 

"You want to keep well, " he warned her. "The whole key to your doinganything is vitality. That's the word--Life. "

She smiled. It seemed so easy. Life? She was full-fed with the joyof it. Even as she sat, her active feet in their high-heeled shoeswere aching to be astir. 

"Working in the gymnasium?" he demanded. 

"Two hours a day, morning and evening. Feel. "

She held out her arm to him, and he felt its small, rounded muscle, with a smile. But his heavily fringed eyes were on her face, and hekept his hold until she shook it off. 

"Who's the soldier boy?" he asked suddenly. 

"Lieutenant Hamilton. He's rather nice. Don't you think so?"

"He'll do to play with on the trip. You'll soon lose him in London. "

The winter darkness closed down round them. Stewards were busyclosing ports and windows with fitted cardboards. Through the nightthe ship would travel over the dangerous lanes of the sea with onlyher small port and starboard lights. A sense of exhilarationpossessed Edith. This hurling forward over black water, this senseof danger, visualised by precautions, this going to something newand strange, set every nerve to jumping. She threw back her rug, andgetting up went to the rail. Lethway, the manager, followed her. 

"Nervous, aren't you?"

"Not frightened, anyhow. "

It was then that he told her how he had sized the situation up. Shewas a hit or nothing. 

"If you go all right, " he said, "you can have the town. London's foryou or against you, especially if you're an American. If you goflat----"

"Then what?"

She had not thought of that. What would she do then? Her salary wasnot to begin until the performances started. Her fare and expensesacross were paid, but how about getting back? Even at the best hersalary was small. That had been one of her attractions to Lethway. 

"I'll have to go home, of course, " she said. "If they don't like me, and decide in a hurry, I--I may have to borrow money from you to getback. "

"Don't worry about that. " He put a hand over hers as it lay on therail, and when she made no effort to release it he bent down andkissed her warm fingers. "Don't you worry about that, " he repeated. 

She did worry, however. Down in her cabin, not so tidy as theboy's--littered with her curiously anomalous belongings, a greatbunch of violets in the wash bowl, a cheap toilet set, elaboratehigh-heeled shoes, and a plain muslin nightgown hanging to thedoor--down there she opened her trunk and got out her contract. There was nothing in it about getting back home. 

For a few minutes she was panicky. Her hands shook as she put thedocument away. She knew life with all the lack of illusion of twoyears in the chorus. Even Lethway--not that she minded his casualcaress on the deck. She had seen a lot of that. It meant nothing. Stage directors either bawled you out or petted you. That was partof the business. 

But to-night, all day indeed, there had been something in Lethway'sface that worried her. And there were other things. 

The women on the boat replied coldly to her friendly advances. Shehad spoken to a nice girl, her own age or thereabouts, and thegirl's mother or aunt or chaperon, whoever it was, had taken heraway. It had puzzled her at the time. Now she knew. The crowd thathad seen her off, from the Pretty Coquette Company--that had queeredher, she decided. That and Lethway. 

None of the girls had thought it odd that she should cross the oceanwith Lethway. They had been envious, as a matter of fact. They hadbrought her gifts, the queer little sachets and fruit and boxes ofcandy that littered the room. In that half hour before sailing theyhad chattered about her, chorus unmistakably, from their smart, cheap little hats to their short skirts and fancy shoes. Herroommate, Mabel, had been the only one she had hated to leave. AndMabel had queered her, too, with her short-bobbed yellow hair. 

She did a reckless thing that night, out of pure defiance. It was awinter voyage in wartime. The night before the women had gone down, sedately dressed, to dinner. The girl she had tried to speak to hadworn a sweater. So Edith dressed for dinner. 

She whitened her neck and arms with liquid powder, and slicked upher brown hair daringly smooth and flat. Then she put on her oneevening dress, a black net, and pinned on her violets. She rougedher lips a bit too. 

The boy, meeting her on the companionway, gasped. 

That night he asked permission to move over to her table, and afterthat the three of them ate together, Lethway watching and sayinglittle, the other two chattering. They were very gay. They gambledto the extent of a quarter each, on the number of fronds, orwhatever they are, in the top of a pineapple that Cecil ordered in, and she won. It was delightful to gamble, she declared, and put thefifty cents into a smoking-room pool. 

The boy was clearly infatuated. She looked like a debutante, and, knowing it, acted the part. It was not acting really. Life had onlytouched her so far, and had left no mark. When Lethway lounged awayto an evening's bridge Cecil fetched his military cape and they wenton deck. 

"I'm afraid it's rather lonely for you, " he said. "It's always likethis the first day or two. Then the women warm up and get friendly. "

"I don't want to know them. They are a stupid-looking lot. Did youever see such clothes?"

"You are the only person who looks like a lady to-night, " heobserved. "You look lovely. I hope you don't mind my saying it?"

She was a downright young person, after all. And there was somethingabout the boy that compelled candour. So, although she gatheredafter a time that he did not approve of chorus girls, was evenrather skeptical about them and believed that the stage should be anuplifting influence, she told him about herself that night. 

It was a blow. He rallied gallantly, but she could see himstraggling to gain this new point of view. 

"Anyhow, " he said at last, "you're not like the others. " Thenhastily: "I don't mean to offend you when I say that, you know. Onlyone can tell, to look at you, that you are different. " He thoughtthat sounded rather boyish, and remembered that he was going to thewar, and was, or would soon be, a fighting man. "I've known a lot ofgirls, " he added rather loftily. "All sorts of girls. "

It was the next night that Lethway kissed her. He had left her alonemost of the day, and by sheer gravitation of loneliness she and theboy drifted together. All day long they ranged the ship, watched aboxing match in the steerage, fed bread to the hovering gulls fromthe stern. They told each other many things. There had been a man inthe company who had wanted to marry her, but she intended to have acareer. Anyhow, she would not marry unless she loved a person verymuch. 

He eyed her wistfully when she said that. 

At dusk he told her about the girl in Toronto. 

"It wasn't an engagement, you understand. But we've been awfullygood friends. She came to see me off. It was rather awful. Shecried. She had some sort of silly idea that I'll get hurt. "

It was her turn to look wistful. Oh, they were getting on! When hewent to ask the steward to bring tea to the corner they had found, she looked after him. She had been so busy with her own worries thatshe had not thought much of the significance of his neatly beltedkhaki. Suddenly it hurt her. He was going to war. 

She knew little about the war, except from the pictures inillustrated magazines. Once or twice she had tried to talk about itwith Mabel, but Mabel had only said, "It's fierce!" and changed thesubject. 

The uniforms scattered over the ship and the precautions taken atnight, however, were bringing this thing called war very close toher. It was just beyond that horizon toward which they were heading. And even then it was brought nearer to her. 

Under cover of the dusk the girl she had tried to approach came upand stood beside her. Edith was very distant with her. 

"The nights make me nervous, " the girl said. "In the daylight it isnot so bad. But these darkened windows bring it all home to me--thewar, you know. "

"I guess it's pretty bad. "

"It's bad enough. My brother has been wounded. I am going to him. "

Even above the sound of the water Edith caught the thrill in hervoice. It was a new tone to her, the exaltation of sacrifice. 

"I'm sorry, " she said. And some subconscious memory of Mabel madeher say: "It's fierce!"

The girl looked at her. 

"That young officer you're with, he's going, of course. He seemsvery young. My brother was older. Thirty. "

"He's twenty-two. "

"He has such nice eyes, " said the girl. "I wish----"

But he was coming back, and she slipped away. 

During tea Cecil caught her eyes on him more than once. He had takenoff his stiff-crowned cap, and the wind blew his dark hair round. 

"I wish you were not going to the war, " she said unexpectedly. Ithad come home to her, all at once, the potentialities of that trimuniform. It made her a little sick. 

"It's nice of you to say that. "

There was a new mood on her, of confession, almost of consecration. He asked her if he might smoke. No one in her brief life had everbefore asked her permission to smoke. 

"I'll have to smoke all I can, " he said. "The fellows say cigarettesare scarce in the trenches. I'm taking a lot over. "

He knew a girl who smoked cigarettes, he said. She was a nice girltoo. He couldn't understand it. The way he felt about it, maybea cigarette for a girl wasn't a crime. But it led to otherthings--drinking, you know, and all that. 

"The fellows don't respect a girl that smokes, " he said. "That's theplain truth. I've talked to her a lot about it. "

"It wasn't your friend in Toronto, was it?"

"Good heavens, no!" He repudiated the idea with horror. 

It was the girl who had to readjust her ideas of life that day. Shehad been born and raised in that neutral ground between the lines ofright and wrong, and now suddenly her position was attacked and shemust choose sides. She chose. 

"I've smoked a cigarette now and then. If you think it is wrong I'llnot do it any more. "

He was almost overcome, both at the confession and at herrenunciation. To tell the truth, among the older Canadian officershe had felt rather a boy. Her promise reinstated him in his ownesteem. He was a man, and a girl was offering to give something upif he wished it. It helped a lot. 

That evening he laid out his entire equipment in his small cabin, and invited her to see it. He put his mother's picture behind hisbrushes, where the other one had been, and when all was ready herang for a stewardess. 

"I am going to show a young lady some of my stuff, " he explained. "And as she is alone I wish you'd stay round, will you? I want herto feel perfectly comfortable. "

The stewardess agreed, and as she was an elderly woman, with a sonat the front, a boy like Cecil, she went back to her close littleroom over the engines and cried a little, very quietly. 

It was unfortunate that he did not explain the presence of thestewardess to the girl. For when it was all over, and she had stoodrather awed before his mother's picture, and rather to his surprisehad smoothed her hair with one of his brushes, she turned to himoutside the door. 

"That stewardess has a lot of nerve, " she said. "The idea ofstanding in the doorway, rubbering!"

"I asked her, " he explained. "I thought you'd prefer having some onethere. "

She stared at him. 

II

Lethway had won the ship's pool that day. In the evening he playedbridge, and won again. He had been drinking a little. Not much, butenough to make him reckless. 

For the last rubber or two the thought of Edith had obsessed him, her hand on the rail as he had kissed it, her cool eyes that were atonce so wise and so ignorant, her lithe body in the short skirt andmiddy blouse. He found her more alluring, so attired, than she hadbeen in the scant costume of what to him was always "the show. "

He pondered on that during all of a dummy hand, sitting low in hischair with his feet thrust far under the table. The show businesswas going to the bad. Why? Because nobody connected with it knewanything about human nature. He formulated a plan, compounded ofliquor and real business acumen, of dressing a chorus, of suggestingthe feminine form instead of showing it, of veiling it in chiffonsof soft colours and sending a draft of air from electric fans in thewings to set the chiffons in motion. 

"Like the Aurora, " he said to himself. "Only not so beefy. Ought tobe a hit. Pretty? It will be the real thing!"

The thought of Edith in such a costume, playing like a dryad overthe stage, stayed with him when the dummy hand had been played andhe had been recalled to the game by a thump on the shoulder. Edithin soft, pastel-coloured chiffons, dancing in bare feet to lightstring music. A forest setting, of course. Pan. A goat or two. Allthat sort of thing. 

On his way down to his cabin he passed her door. He went on, hesitated, came back and knocked. 

Now Edith had not been able to sleep. Her thrifty soul, trainedagainst waste, had urged her not to fling her cigarettes overboard, but to smoke them. 

"And then never again, " she said solemnly. 

The result was that she could not get to sleep. Blanketed to thechin she lay in her bunk, reading. The book had been Mabel'sfarewell offering, a thing of perverted ideals, or none, of cheapsentiment, of erotic thought overlaid with words. The immediateresult of it, when she yawned at last and turned out the light overher bed, was a new light on the boy. 

"Little prig!" she said to herself, and stretched her round armsluxuriously above her head. 

Then Lethway rapped. She sat up and listened. Then, grumbling, shegot out and opened the door an inch or two. The lights were lowoutside and her own cabin dark. But she knew him. 

"Are we chased?" she demanded. In the back of her mind, fear ofpursuit by a German submarine was dogging her across the Atlantic. 

"Sure we are!" he said. "What are you so stingy about the door for?"

She recognised his condition out of a not inconsiderable experienceand did her best to force the door shut, but he put his foot overthe sill and smiled. 

"Please go away, Mr. Lethway. "

"I'll go if you'll kiss me good night. "

She calculated the situation, and surrendered. There was nothingelse to do. But when she upturned her face he slipped past her andinto the room. Just inside the door, swinging open and shut withevery roll of the ship, he took her in his arms and kissed her, notonce but many times. 

She did not lose her head. She had an arm free and she rang thebell. Then she jerked herself loose. 

"I have rung for the stewardess, " she said furiously. "If you arehere when she comes I'll ask for help. "

"You young devil!" was all he said, and went, slamming the doorbehind him. His rage grew as he reached his own cabin. Damn thegirl, anyhow! He had not meant anything. Here he was, spending moneyhe might never get back to give her a chance, and she called thestewardess because he kissed her!

As for the girl, she went back to bed. For a few moments sheer ragekept her awake. Then youth and fatigue triumphed and she fellasleep. Her last thought was of the boy, after all. "He wouldn't doa thing like that, " she reflected. "He's a gentleman. He's the realthing. He's----"

Her eyes closed. 

Lethway apologised the next day, apologised with an excess of mannerthat somehow made the apology as much of an insult as the act. Butshe matched him at that game--took her cue from him, even went himone better as to manner. When he left her he had begun to feel thatshe was no unworthy antagonist. The game would be interesting. Andshe had the advantage, if she only knew it. Back of his desire toget back at her, back of his mocking smile and half-closed eyes, hewas just a trifle mad about her since the night before. 

That is the way things stood when they reached the Mersey. Cecil wasin love with the girl. Very earnestly in love. He did not sleep atnight for thinking about her. He remembered certain semi-harmlessescapades of his college days, and called himself unworthy andvarious other things. He scourged himself by leaving her alone inher steamer chair and walking by at stated intervals. Once, in awhite sweater over a running shirt, he went to the gymnasium andfound her there. She had on a "gym" suit of baggy bloomers and theusual blouse. He backed away from the door hastily. 

At first he was jealous of Lethway. Then that passed. She confidedto him that she did not like the manager. After that he was sorryfor him. He was sorry for any one she did not like. He botheredLethway by walking the deck with him and looking at him with whatLethway refused to think was compassion. 

But because, contrary to the boy's belief, none of us is quite goodor quite evil, he was kind to the boy. The khaki stood for somethingwhich no Englishman could ignore. 

"Poor little devil!" he said on the last day in the smoking room, "he's going to a bad time, all right. I was in Africa for eightyears. Boer war and the rest of it. Got run through the thigh in anative uprising, and they won't have me now. But Africa was cheeryto this war. "

He asked the boy into the smoking room, which he had hithertoavoided. He had some queer idea that he did not care to take hisuniform in there. Absurd, of course. It made him rather lonely inthe hours Edith spent in her cabin, preparing variations of costumefor the evening out of her small trunk. But he was all man, and heliked the society of men; so he went at last, with Lethway, andordered vichy!

He had not allowed himself to think much beyond the end of thevoyage. As the ship advanced, war seemed to slip beyond the edge ofhis horizon. Even at night, as he lay and tossed, his thoughts wereeither of the next day, when he would see Edith again, or of thatindefinite future when he would return, covered with honors, and goto her, wherever she was. 

He never doubted the honors now. He had something to fight for. Themedals in their cases looked paltry to him, compared with what wascoming. In his sleep he dreamed of the V. C. , dreams he was toomodest to put into thoughts in waking hours. 

Then they reached the Mersey. On the last evening of the voyage heand Edith stood on the upper deck. It was a zone of danger. Fromeach side of the narrowing river flashlights skimmed the surface ofthe water, playing round but never on the darkened ship. Red andgreen lights blinked signals. Their progress was a devious onethrough the mine-strewn channel. There was a heavy sea even there, and the small lights on the mast on the pilot boat, as it came to astop, described great arcs that seemed, first to starboard, then toport, to touch the very tips of the waves. 

"I'm not crazy about this, " the girl said, as the wind tugged at herskirts. "It frightens me. Brings the war pretty close, doesn't it?"

Emotion swelled his heart and made him husky--love and patriotism, pride and hope, and a hot burst of courage. 

"What if we strike a mine?" she asked. 

"I wouldn't care so much. It would give me a chance to save you. "

Overhead they were signalling the shore with a white light. Alongwith the new emotions that were choking him came an unaccustomedimpulse of boastfulness. 

"I can read that, " he said when she ignored his offer to save her. "Of course it's code, but I can spell it out. "

He made a move to step forward and watch the signaler, but she puther hand on his arm. 

"Don't go. I'm nervous, Cecil, " she said. 

She had called him by his first name. It shook him profoundly, thatand the touch of her hand on his arm. 

"Oh, I love you, love you!" he said hoarsely. But he did not try totake her in his arms, or attempt to caress the hand that still clungto him. He stood very erect, looking at the shadowy outline of her. Then, her long scarf blowing toward him, he took the end of it andkissed that very gravely. 

"I would die for you, " he said. 

Then Lethway joined them. 

III

London was not kind to him. He had felt, like many Canadians, thatin going to England he was going home. But England was cold. 

Not the people on the streets. They liked the Canadians and theycheered them when their own regiments went by unhailed. It appealedto their rampant patriotism that these men had come from across thesea to join hands with them against common foe. But in the clubs, where his letters admitted the boy, there was a differentatmosphere. Young British officers were either cool or, much worse, patronising. They were inclined to suspect that his quiet confidencewas swanking. One day at luncheon he drank a glass of wine, notbecause he wanted it but because he did not like to refuse. Theresult was unfortunate. It loosened his tongue a bit, and hementioned the medals. 

Not noisily, of course. In an offhand manner, to his next neighbor. It went round the table, and a sort of icy silence, after that, greeted his small sallies. He never knew what the trouble was, buthis heart was heavy in him. 

And it rained. 

It was always raining. He had very little money beyond his pay, andthe constant hiring of taxicabs worried him. Now and then he sawsome one he knew, down from Salisbury for a holiday, but they hadbeen over long enough to know their way about. They had engagements, things to buy. He fairly ate his heart out in sheer loneliness. 

There were two hours in the day that redeemed the others. One wasthe hour late in the afternoon when, rehearsal over, he took EdithO'Hara to tea. The other was just before he went to bed, when hewrote her the small note that reached her every morning with herbreakfast. 

In the seven days before he joined his regiment at Salisbury hewrote her seven notes. They were candid, boyish scrawls, not loveletters at all. This was one of them:

 _Dear Edith_: I have put in a rotten evening and am just going to bed. I am rather worried because you looked so tired to-day. Please don't work too hard. 

 I am only writing to say how I look forward each night to seeing you the next day. I am sending with this a small bunch of lilies of the valley. They remind me of you. CECIL. 

The girl saved those letters. She was not in love with him, but hegave her something no one else had ever offered: a chivalrousrespect that pleased as well as puzzled her. 

Once in a tea shop he voiced his creed, as it pertained to her, overa plate of muffins. 

"When we are both back home, Edith, " he said, "I am going to ask yousomething. "

"Why not now?"

"Because it wouldn't be quite fair to you. I--I may be killed, orsomething. That's one thing. Then, it's because of your people. "

That rather stunned her. She had no people. She was going to tellhim that, but she decided not to. She felt quite sure that heconsidered "people" essential, and though she felt that, for anylong period of time, these queer ideas and scruples of his would bedifficult to live up to, she intended to do it for that one week. 

"Oh, all right, " she said, meekly enough. 

She felt very tender toward him after that, and her new gentlenessmade it all hard for him. She caught him looking at her wistfully attimes, and it seemed to her that he was not looking well. His eyeswere hollow, his face thin. She put her hand over his as it lay onthe table. 

"Look here, " she said, "you look half sick, or worried, orsomething. Stop telling me to take care of myself, and look afteryourself a little better. "

"I'm all right, " he replied. Then soon after: "Everything's strange. That's the trouble, " he confessed. "It's only in little things thatdon't matter, but a fellow feels such a duffer. "

On the last night he took her to dinner--a small French restaurantin a back street in Soho. He had heard about it somewhere. Edithclassed it as soon as she entered. It was too retiring, too demure. Its very location was clandestine. 

But he never knew. He was divided that night between joy at gettingto his regiment and grief at leaving her. Rather self-engrossed, shethought. 

They had a table by an open grate fire, with a screen "to shut offthe draft, " the waiter said. It gave the modest meal a delightfullyhomey air, their isolation and the bright coal fire. For the firsttime they learned the joys of mussels boiled in milk, of French_soufflé_ and other things. 

At the end of the evening he took her back to her cheap hotel in ataxicab. She expected him to kiss her. Her experience of taxicabshad been like that. But he did not. He said very little on the wayhome, but sat well back and eyed her wistful eyes. She chattered tocover his silence--of rehearsals, of--with reservations--of Lethway, of the anticipated London opening. She felt very sad herself. He hadbeen a tie to America, and he had been much more than that. Thoughshe did not realise it, he had had a profound effect on her. Intrying to seem what he thought her she was becoming what he thoughther. Her old reckless attitude toward life was gone, or was going. 

The day before she had refused an invitation to a night club, andcalled herself a fool for doing it. But she had refused. 

Not that he had performed miracles with her. She was still frankly adweller on the neutral ground. But to that instinct that had kepther up to that time what she would have called "straight" had beenadded a new refinement. She was no longer the reckless and rompinggirl whose abandon had caught Lethway's eye. 

She had gained a soul, perhaps, and lost a livelihood. 

When they reached the hotel he got out and went in with her. Thehall porter was watching and she held out her hand. But he shook hishead. 

"If I touched your hand, " he said, "I would have to take you in myarms. Good-bye, dear. "

"Good-bye, " she said. There were tears in her eyes. It was through amist that she saw him, as the elevator went up, standing at salute, his eyes following her until she disappeared from sight. 

IV

Things were going wrong with Lethway. The management was ragginghim, for one thing. 

"Give the girl time, " he said almost viciously, at the end of aparticularly bad rehearsal. "She's had a long voyage and she'stired. Besides, " he added, "these acts never do go at rehearsal. Give me a good house at the opening and she'll show you what she cando. "

But in his soul he was worried. There was a change in Edith O'Hara. Even her voice had altered. It was not only her manner to him. Thatwas marked enough, but he only shrugged his shoulders over it. Timeenough for that when the production was on. 

He had engaged a hoyden, and she was by way of becoming a lady. During the first week or so he had hoped that it was only thestrangeness of her surroundings. He had been shrewd enough to laysome of it, however, to Cecil's influence. 

"When your soldier boy gets out of the way, " he sneered one day inthe wings, "perhaps you'll get down to earth and put some life inyour work. "

But to his dismay she grew steadily worse. Her dancing was delicate, accurate, even graceful, but the thing the British public likes tothink typically American, a sort of breezy swagger, was gone. Tobill her in her present state as the Madcap American would be sheerfolly. 

Ten days before the opening he cabled for another girl to take herplace. 

He did not tell her. Better to let her work on, he decided. A Germansubmarine might sink the ship on which the other girl was coming, and then where would they be?

Up to the last, however, he had hopes of Edith. Not that he cared tosave her. But he hated to acknowledge a failure. He disliked todisavow his own judgment. 

He made a final effort with her, took her one day to luncheon atSimpson's, and in one of the pewlike compartments, over mutton andcaper sauce, he tried to "talk a little life into her. "

"What the devil has come over you?" he demanded savagely. "You werelarky enough over in New York. There are any number of girls inLondon who can do what you are doing now, and do it better. "

"I'm doing just what I did in New York. "

"The hell you are! I could do what you're doing with a jointed dolland some wires. Now see here, Edith, " he said, "either you put somego into the thing, or you go. That's flat. "

Her eyes filled. 

"I--maybe I'm worried, " she said. "Ever since I found out that I'vesigned up, with no arrangement about sending me back, it's been onmy mind. "

"Don't you worry about that. "

"But if they put some one on in my place?"

"You needn't worry about that either. I'll look after you. You knowthat. If I hadn't been crazy about you I'd have let you go a weekago. You know that too. "

She knew the tone, knew instantly where she stood. Knew, too, thatshe would not play the first night in London. She went rather white, but she faced him coolly. 

"Don't look like that, " he said. "I'm only telling you that if youneed a friend I'll be there. "

It was two days before the opening, however, when the blow fell. Shehad not been sleeping, partly from anxiety about herself, partlyabout the boy. Every paper she picked up was full of the horrors ofwar. There were columns filled with the names of those who hadfallen. Somehow even his uniform had never closely connected the boywith death in her mind. He seemed so young. 

She had had a feeling that his very youth would keep him fromdanger. War to her was a faintly conceived struggle between men, andhe was a boy. 

But here were boys who had died, boys at nineteen. And the lists ofmissing startled her. One morning she read in the personal column aquery, asking if any one could give the details of the death of ayoung subaltern. She cried over that. In all her care-free lifenever before had she wept over the griefs of others. 

Cecil had sent her his photograph taken in his uniform. Because hehad had it taken to give her he had gazed directly into the eye ofthe camera. When she looked at it it returned her glance. She tookto looking at it a great deal. 

Two days before the opening she turned from a dispirited rehearsalto see Mabel standing in the wings. Then she knew. The end had come. 

Mabel was jaunty, but rather uneasy. 

"You poor dear!" she said, when Edith went to her. "What on earth'shappened? The cable only said--honest, dearie, I feel like a dog!"

"They don't like me. That's all, " she replied wearily, and pickedup her hat and jacket from a chair. But Mabel was curious. Uncomfortable, too, as she had said. She slipped an arm roundEdith's waist. 

"Say the word and I'll throw them down, " she cried. "It looks likedirty work to me. And you're thin. Honest, dearie, I mean it. "

Her loyalty soothed the girl's sore spirit. 

"I don't know what's come over me, " she said. "I've tried hardenough. But I'm always tired. I--I think it's being so close to thewar. "

Mabel stared at her. There was a war. She knew that. The theatricalnews was being crowded to a back page to make space for disagreeablediagrams and strange, throaty names. 

"I know. It's fierce, isn't it?" she said. 

Edith took her home, and they talked far into the night. She hadslipped Cecil's picture into the wardrobe before she turned on thelight. Then she explained the situation. 

"It's pep they want, is it?" said Mabel at last. "Well, believe me, honey, I'll give it to them. And as long as I've got a cent it'syours. "

They slept together in Edith's narrow bed, two slim young figuresdelicately flushed with sleep. As pathetic, had they known it, asthose other sleepers in their untidy billets across the channel. Almost as hopeless too. Dwellers in the neutral ground. 

V

Now war, after all, is to each fighting man an affair of smallnumbers, an affair of the men to his right and his left, of theA. M. S. C. In the rear and of a handful of men across. On his days ofrest the horizon is somewhat expanded. It becomes then a thing ofcrowded and muddy village streets, of food and drink and tobacco anda place to sleep. 

Always, of course, it is a thing of noises. 

This is not a narrative of war. It matters very little, forinstance, how Cecil's regiment left Salisbury and went to Soissons, in France. What really matters is that at last the Canadian-mademotor lorries moved up their equipment, and that, after diggingpractice trenches in the yellow clay of old battlefields, they weremoved up to the front. 

Once there, there seemed to be a great deal of time. It was the lullbefore Neuve Chapelle. Cecil's spirit grew heavy with waiting. Once, back on rest at his billet, he took a long walk over the half-frozenside roads and came without warning on a main artery. Three tractionengines were taking to the front the first of the great Britishguns, so long awaited. He took the news back to his mess. Thegeneral verdict was that there would be something doing now. 

Cecil wrote a letter to Edith that day. He had written before, ofcourse, but this was different. He wrote first to his mother, justin case anything happened, a long, boyish letter with a misspelledword here and there. He said he was very happy and very comfortable, and that if he did get his he wanted her to know that it was allperfectly cheerful and not anything like the war correspondents saidit was. He'd had a bully time all his life, thanks to her. He hadn'tlet her know often enough how he felt about her, and she knew he wasa dub at writing. There were a great many things worse than "goingout" in a good fight. "It isn't at all as if you could see theblooming thing coming, " he wrote. "You never know it's after youuntil you've got it, and then you don't. "

The letter was not to be sent unless he was killed. So he put in afew anecdotes to let her know exactly how happy and contented hewas. Then he dropped the whole thing in the ten inches of mud andwater he was standing in, and had to copy it all over. 

To Edith he wrote a different sort of letter. He told her that heloved her. "It's almost more adoration than love, " he wrote, whiletwo men next to him were roaring over a filthy story. "I mean bythat, that I feel every hour of every day how far above me you are. It's like one of these _fusées_ the Germans are always throwing upover us at night. It's perfectly dark, and then something bright andclear and like a star, only nearer, is overhead. Everything looksdifferent while it floats there. And so, my dear, my dear, everything has been different to me since I knew you. "

Rather boyish, all of it, but terribly earnest. He said he hadwanted to ask her to marry him, but that the way he felt about it, afellow had no right to ask a girl such a thing when he was going toa war. If he came back he would ask her. And he would love her allhis life. 

The next day, at dawn, he went out with eighty men to an outpostthat had been an abandoned farm. It was rather a forlorn hope. Theyhad one machine gun. At nine o'clock the enemy opened fire on themand followed it by an attack. The major in charge went down early. At two Cecil was standing in the loft of the farmhouse, firing witha revolver on men who beneath him, outside, were placing dynamiteunder a corner of the building. 

To add to the general hopelessness, their own artillery, believingthem all dead, opened fire on the building. They moved their woundedto the cellar and kept on fighting. 

At eight o'clock that night Cecil's right arm was hanging helpless, and the building was burning merrily. There were five of them left. They fixed bayonets and charged the open door. 

 * * * * *

When the boy opened his eyes he was lying in six inches of manure ina box car. One of his men was standing over him, keeping him frombeing trampled on. There was no air and no water. The ammonia fumesfrom the manure were stifling. 

The car lurched and jolted along. Cecil opened his eyes now andthen, and at first he begged for water. When he found there was nonehe lay still. The men hammered on the door and called for air. Theymade frantic, useless rushes at the closed and barred door. ExceptCecil, all were standing. They were herded like cattle, and therewas no room to lie or sit. 

He lay there, drugged by weakness. He felt quite sure that he wasdying, and death was not so bad. He voiced this feebly to the manwho stood over him. 

"It's not so bad, " he said. 

"The hell it's not!" said the man. 

For the time Edith was effaced from his mind. He remembered thewounded men left in the cellar with the building burning over them. That, and days at home, long before the war. 

Once he said "Mother. " The soldier who was now standing astride ofhim, the better to keep off the crowding men, thought he was askingfor water again. 

Thirty hours of that, and then air and a little water. Not enoughwater. Not all the water in all the cool streams of the earth wouldhave slaked the thirst of his wound. 

The boy was impassive. He was living in the past. One day he recitedat great length the story of his medals. No one listened. 

And all the time his right arm lay or hung, as he was prone orerect, a strange right arm that did not belong to him. It did noteven swell. When he touched it the fingers were cold and bluish. Itfelt like a dead hand. 

Then, at the end of it all, was a bed, and a woman's voice, andquiet. 

The woman was large and elderly, and her eyes were very kind. Shestirred something in the boy that had been dead of pain. 

"Edith!" he said. 

VI

Mabel had made a hit. Unconscious imitator that she was, she stoleEdith's former recklessness, and added to it something of her owndash and verve. Lethway, standing in the wings, knew she was not andnever would be Edith. She was not fine enough. Edith at her besthad frolicked. Mabel romped, was almost wanton. He cut out thestring music at the final rehearsal. It did not fit. 

On the opening night the brass notes of the orchestra blared andshrieked. Mabel's bare feet flew, her loose hair, cut to her earsand held only by a band over her forehead, kept time in ecstaticlittle jerks. When at last she pulled off the fillet and bowed tothe applause, her thick short hair fell over her face as she jerkedher head forward. They liked that. It savoured of the abandoned. Sheshook it back, and danced the encore without the fillet. With herscant chiffons whirling about her knees, her loose hair, her girlishbody, she was the embodiment of young love, of its passion, itsfire. 

Edith had been spring, palpitant with gladness. 

Lethway, looking with tired eyes from the wings, knew that he hadmade a commercial success. But back of his sordid methods there wassomething of the soul of an artist. And this rebelled. 

But he made a note to try flame-coloured chiffon for Mabel. Edithwas to have danced in the pale greens of a water nymph. 

On the night of her triumph Mabel returned late to Edith's room, where she was still quartered. She was moving the next day to asmall apartment. With the generosity of her class she had urgedEdith to join her, and Edith had perforce consented. 

"How did it go?" Edith asked from the bed. 

"Pretty well, " said Mabel. "Nothing unusual. "

She turned up the light, and from her radiant reflection in themirror Edith got the truth. She lay back with a dull, sickeningweight round her heart. Not that Mabel had won, but that she herselfhad failed. 

"You're awfully late. "

"I went to supper. Wish you'd been along, dearie. Terribly swellclub of some sort. " Then her good resolution forgotten: "I made themsit up and take notice, all right. Two invitations for supperto-morrow night and more on the way. And when I saw I'd got thehouse going to-night, and remembered what I was being paid for it, it made me sick. "

"It's better than nothing. "

"Why don't you ask Lethway to take you on in the chorus? It would dountil you get something else. "

"I have asked him. He won't do it. "

Mabel was still standing in front of the mirror. She threw her headforward so her short hair covered her face, and watched the effectcarefully. Then she came over and sat on the bed. 

"He's a dirty dog, " she said. 

The two girls looked at each other. They knew every move in the gameof life, and Lethway's methods were familiar ones. 

"What are you going to do about it?" Mabel demanded at last. "Believe me, old dear, he's got a bad eye. Now listen here, " shesaid with impulsive generosity. "I've got a scheme. I'll draw enoughahead to send you back. I'll do it to-morrow, while the drawing'sgood. "

"And queer yourself at the start?" said Edith scornfully. "Talksense, Mabel, I'm up against it, but don't you worry. I'll getsomething. "

But she did not get anything. She was reduced in the next week toentire dependence on the other girl. And, even with such miracles ofmanagement as they had both learned, it was increasingly difficultto get along. 

There was a new element too. Edith was incredulous at first, but atlast she faced it. There was a change in Mabel. She was not lesshospitable nor less generous. It was a matter of a point of view. Success was going to her head. Her indignation at certain phases oflife was changing to tolerance. She found Edith's rampant virtue atrifle wearing. She took to staying out very late, and coming inready to meet Edith's protest with defiant gaiety. She boughtclothes too. 

"You'll have to pay for them sometime, " Edith reminded her. 

"I should worry. I've got to look like something if I'm going to goout at all. "

Edith, who had never thought things out before, had long hours tothink now. And the one thing that seemed clear and undeniable wasthat she must not drive Mabel into debt. Debt was the curse of mostof the girls she knew. As long as they were on their own they couldmanage. It was the burden of unpaid bills, lightly contracted, thatdrove so many of them wrong. 

That night, while Mabel was asleep, she got up and cautiouslylighted the gas. Then she took the boy's photograph out of itshiding place and propped it on top of her trunk. For a long time shesat there, her chin in her hands, and looked at it. 

It was the next day that she saw his name among the missing. 

She did not cry, not at first. The time came when it seemed to hershe did nothing else. But at first she only stared. She was tooyoung and too strong to faint, but things went gray for her. 

And gray they remained--through long spring days and eternalnights--days when Mabel slept all morning, rehearsed or played inthe afternoons, was away all evening and far into the night. She didnot eat or sleep. She spent money that was meant for food on papersand journals and searched for news. She made a frantic butineffectual effort to get into the War Office. 

She had received his letter two days after she had seen his nameamong the missing. She had hardly dared to open it, but having readit, for days she went round with a strange air of consecration thatleft Mabel uneasy. 

"I wish you wouldn't look like that!" she said one morning. "You geton my nerves. "

But as time went on the feeling that he was dead overcame everythingelse. She despaired, rather than grieved. And following despair camerecklessness. He was dead. Nothing else mattered. Lethway, meetingher one day in Oxford Circus, almost passed her before he knew her. He stopped her then. 

"Haven't been sick, have you?"

"Me? No. "

"There's something wrong. "

She did not deny it and he fell into step beside her. 

"Doing anything?" he asked. 

She shook her head. With all the power that was in her she washating his tall figure, his heavy-lashed eyes, even the familiarulster he wore. 

"I wish you were a sensible young person, " he said. But something inthe glance she gave him forbade his going on. It was not an uglyglance. Rather it was cold, appraising--even, if he had known it, despairing. 

Lethway had been busy. She had been in the back of his mind ratheroften, but other things had crowded her out. This new glimpse of herfired him again, however. And she had a new quality that thrilledeven through the callus of his soul. The very thing that hadforedoomed her to failure in the theatre appealed to him strongly--arefinement, a something he did not analyse. 

When she was about to leave him he detained her with a hand on herarm. 

"You know you can always count on me, don't you?" he said. 

"I know I can't, " she flashed back at him with a return of her oldspirit. 

"I'm crazy about you. "

"Old stuff!" she said coolly, and walked off. But there was a tug offear at her heart. She told Mabel, but it was typical of the changethat Mabel only shrugged her shoulders. 

It was Lethway's shrewdness that led to his next move. He had triedbullying, and failed. He had tried fear, with the same lack ofeffect. Now he tried kindness. 

She distrusted him at first, but her starved heart was crying outfor the very thing he offered her. As the weeks went on, with nonews of Cecil, she accepted his death stoically at last. Somethingof her had died. But in a curious way the boy had put his mark onher. And as she grew more like the thing he had thought her to bethe gulf between Mabel and herself widened. They had, at last, onlyin common their room, their struggle, the contacts of their dailylife. 

And Lethway was now always in the background. He took her for quietmeals and brought her home early. He promised her that sometime hewould see that she got back home. 

"But not just yet, " he added as her colour rose. "I'm selfish, Edith. Give me a little time to be happy. "

That was a new angle. It had been a part of the boy's quiet creed tomake others happy. 

"Why don't you give me something to do, since you're so crazy tohave me hanging about?"

"Can't do it. I'm not the management. And they're sore at you. Theythink you threw them down. " He liked to air his American slang. 

Edith cupped her chin in her hand and looked at him. There was nomystery about the situation, no shyness in the eyes with which sheappraised him. She was beginning to like him too. 

That night when she got back to Mabel's apartment her mood wasreckless. She went to the window and stood looking at the crookedand chimney-potted skyline that was London. 

"Oh, what's the use?" she said savagely, and gave up the fight. 

When Mabel came home she told her. 

"I'm going to get out, " she said without preamble. 

She caught the relief in Mabel's face, followed by a purelyconventional protest. 

"Although, " she hedged cautiously, "I don't know, dearie. Peoplelook at things sensibly these days. You've got to live, haven't you?They're mighty quick to jail a girl who tries to jump in the riverwhen she's desperate. "

"I'll probably end there. And I don't much care. "

Mabel gave her a good talking to about that. Her early training hadbeen in a church which regarded self-destruction as a cardinal sin. Then business acumen asserted itself:

"He'll probably put you on somewhere. He's crazy about you, Ede. "

But Edith was not listening. She was standing in front of her openedtrunk tearing into small pieces something that had been lying in thetray. 

VII

Now the boy had tried very hard to die, and failed. The thing thathad happened to him was an unbelievable thing. When he began to usehis tired faculties again, when the ward became not a shadow landbut a room, and the nurse not a presence but a woman, he triedfeebly to move his right arm. 

But it was gone. 

At first he refused to believe it. He could feel it lying therebeside him. It ached and throbbed. The fingers were cramped. Butwhen he looked it was not there. 

There was not one shock of discovery, but many. For each time heroused from sleep he had forgotten, and must learn the thing again. 

The elderly German woman stayed close. She was wise, and war hadtaught her many things. So when he opened his eyes she was alwaysthere. She talked to him very often of his mother, and he listenedwith his eyes on her face--eyes like those of a sick child. 

In that manner they got by the first few days. 

"It won't make any difference to her, " he said once. "She'd take meback if I was only a fragment. " Then bitterly: "That's all I am--afragment! A part of a man!"

After a time she knew that there was a some one else, some one hewas definitely relinquishing. She dared not speak to him about it. His young dignity was militant. But one night, as she dozed besidehim in the chair, he reached the limit of his repression and toldher. 

"An actress!" she cried, sitting bolt upright. "_Du lieber_--anactress!"

"Not an actress, " he corrected her gravely. "A--a dancer. But good. She's a very good girl. Even when I was--was whole"--ragingbitterness there--"I was not good enough for her. "

"No actress is good. And dancers!"

"You don't know what you are talking about, " he said roughly, andturned his back to her. It was almost insulting to have her assisthim to his attitude of contempt, and to prop him in it with pillowsbehind his back. Lying there he tried hard to remember that thiswoman belonged to his hereditary foes. He was succeeding in hatingher when he felt her heavy hand on his head. 

"Poor boy! Poor little one!" she said. And her voice was husky. 

When at last he was moved from the hospital to the prison camp shepinned the sleeve of his ragged uniform across his chest and kissedhim, to his great discomfiture. Then she went to the curtainedcorner that was her quarters and wept long and silently. 

The prison camp was overcrowded. Early morning and late eveningprisoners were lined up to be counted. There was a medley oflanguages--French, English, Arabic, Russian. The barracks were builtround a muddy inclosure in which the men took what exercise theycould. 

One night a boy with a beautiful tenor voice sang Auld Lang Syneunder the boy's window. He stood with his hand on the cuff of hisempty sleeves and listened. And suddenly a great shame filled him, that with so many gone forever, with men dying every minute ofevery hour, back at the lines, he had been so obsessed with himself. He was still bitter, but the bitterness was that he could not goback again and fight. 

When he had been in the camp a month he helped two British officersto escape. One of them had snubbed him in London months before. Heapologised before he left. 

"You're a man, Hamilton, " he said. "All you Canadians are men. I'vesome things to tell when I get home. "

The boy could not go with them. There would be canals to swimacross, and there was his empty sleeve and weakness. He would neverswim again, he thought. That night, as he looked at the empty bedsof the men who had gone, he remembered his medals and smiled grimly. 

He was learning to use his left hand. He wrote letters home with itfor soldiers who could not write. He went into the prison hospitaland wrote letters for those who would never go home. But he did notwrite to the girl. 

 * * * * *

He went back at last, when the hopelessly wounded were exchanged. Tobe branded "hopelessly wounded" was to him a stain, a stigma. It puthim among the clutterers of the earth. It stranded him on the shoreof life. Hopelessly wounded!

For, except what would never be whole, he was well again. True, confinement and poor food had kept him weak and white. His legs hada way of going shaky at nightfall. But once he knocked down aninsolent Russian with his left hand, and began to feel his own managain. That the Russian was weak from starvation did not matter. Thepoint to the boy was that he had made the attempt. 

Providence has a curious way of letting two lives run along, eachapparently independent of the other. Parallel lines they seem, hopeless of meeting. Converging lines really, destined, through longages, by every deed that has been done to meet at a certain pointand there fuse. 

Edith had left Mabel, but not to go to Lethway. When nothing elseremained that way was open. She no longer felt any horror--only agreat distaste. But two weeks found her at her limit. She, who hadrarely had more than just enough, now had nothing. 

And no glory of sacrifice upheld her. She no longer believed that byremoving the burden of her support she could save Mabel. It wasclear that Mabel would not be saved. To go back and live on her, under the circumstances, was but a degree removed from the otherthing that confronted her. 

There is just a chance that, had she not known the boy, she wouldhave killed herself. But again the curious change he had worked inher manifested itself. He thought suicide a wicked thing. 

"I take it like this, " he had said in his eager way: "life's a thingthat's given us for some purpose. Maybe the purpose getsclouded--I'm afraid I'm an awful duffer at saying what I mean. Butwe've got to work it out, do you see? Or--or the whole scheme isupset. "

It had seemed very clear then. 

Then, on a day when the rare sun made even the rusty silk hats ofclerks on tops of omnibuses to gleam, when the traffic glittered onthe streets and the windows of silversmiths' shops shone painful tothe eye, she met Lethway again. 

The sun had made her reckless. Since the boy was gone life waswretchedness, but she clung to it. She had given up all hope ofCecil's return, and what she became mattered to no one else. 

Perhaps, more than anything else, she craved companionship. Inall her crowded young life she had never before been alone. Companionship and kindness. She would have followed to heel, likea dog, for a kind word. 

Then she met Lethway. They walked through the park. When he left herher once clear, careless glance had a suggestion of furtiveness init. 

That afternoon she packed her trunk and sent it to an address hehad given her. In her packing she came across the stick of coldcream, still in the pocket of the middy blouse. She flung it, ashard as she could, across the room. 

She paid her bill with money Lethway had given her. She had exactlya sixpence of her own. She found herself in Trafalgar Square late inthe afternoon. The great enlisting posters there caught her eye, filled her with bitterness. 

"Your king and your country need you, " she read. She had needed theboy, too, but this vast and impersonal thing, his mother country, had taken him from her--taken him and lost him. She wanted to standby the poster and cry to the passing women to hold their men back. As she now knew she hated Lethway, she hated England. 

She wandered on. Near Charing Cross she spent the sixpence for abunch of lilies of the valley, because he had said once that she waslike them. Then she was for throwing them in the street, rememberingthe thing she would soon be. 

"For the wounded soldiers, " said the flower girl. When shecomprehended that, she made her way into the station. There was agreat crowd, but something in her face made the crowd draw back andlet her through. They nudged each other as she passed. 

"Looking for some one, poor child!" said a girl and, following her, thrust the flowers she too carried into Edith's hand. She put themwith the others, rather dazed. 

 * * * * *

To Cecil the journey had been a series of tragedies. Not his own. There were two hundred of them, officers and men, on the boat acrossthe Channel. Blind, maimed, paralysed, in motley garments, they werehilariously happy. Every throb of the turbine engines was a thrusttoward home. They sang, they cheered. 

Now and then some one would shout: "Are we downhearted?" Andcrutches and canes would come down on the deck to the unanimousshout: "No!"

Folkestone had been trying, with its parade of cheerfulness, withkindly women on the platform serving tea and buns. In the railwaycoach to London, where the officers sat, a talking machine playedsteadily, and there were masses of flowers, violets and lilies ofthe valley. At Charing Cross was a great mass of people, and as theyslowly disembarked he saw that many were crying. He was rathersurprised. He had known London as a cold and unemotional place. Ithad treated him as an alien, had snubbed and ignored him. 

He had been prepared to ask nothing of London, and it lay at hisfeet in tears. 

Then he saw Edith. 

Perhaps, when in the fullness of years the boy goes over to thelife he so firmly believes awaits him, the one thing he will carrywith him through the open door will be the look in her eyes when shesaw him. Too precious a thing to lose, surely, even then. Suchthings make heaven. 

"What did I tell you?" cried the girl who had given Edith herflowers. "She has found him. See, he has lost his arm. Lookout--catch him!"

But he did not faint. He went even whiter, and looking at Edith hetouched his empty sleeve. 

"As if that would make any difference to her!" said the girl, whowas in black. "Look at her face! She's got him. "

Neither Edith nor the boy could speak. He was afraid of unmanlytears. His dignity was very dear to him. And the tragedy of hisempty sleeve had her by the throat. So they went out together andthe crowd opened to let them by. 

 * * * * *

At nine o'clock that night Lethway stormed through the stageentrance of the theatre and knocked viciously at the door of Mabel'sdressing room. Receiving no attention, he opened the door and wentin. 

The room was full of flowers, and Mabel, ready to go on, was havingher pink toes rouged for her barefoot dance. 

"You've got a nerve!" she said coolly. 

"Where's Edith?"

"I don't know and I don't care. She ran away, when I was stintingmyself to keep her. I'm done. Now you go out and close that door, and when you want to enter a lady's dressing room, knock. "

He looked at her with blazing hatred. 

"Right-o!" was all he said. And he turned and left her to herflowers. 

At exactly the same time Edith was entering the elevator of a small, very respectable hotel in Kensington. The boy, smiling, watched herin. 

He did not kiss her, greatly to the disappointment of the hallporter. As the elevator rose the boy stood at salute, the fingers ofhis left hand to the brim of his shabby cap. In his eyes, as theyfollowed her, was all that there is of love--love and a newunderstanding. 

She had told him, and now he knew. His creed was still the same. Right was right and wrong was wrong. But he had learned of thatshadowy No Man's Land between the lines, where many there were whofought their battles and were wounded, and even died. 

As he turned and went out two men on crutches were passing along thequiet street. They recognised him in the light of the doorway, andstopped in front of him. Their voices rang out in cheerful unison:

"Are we downhearted? No!"

Their crutches struck the pavement with a resounding thump. 

THE GAME

I

The Red Un was very red; even his freckles were red rather thancopper-coloured. And he was more prodigal than most kings, for hehad two crowns on his head. Also his hair grew in varyingdirections, like a wheatfields after a storm. He wore a coat withouta tail, but with brass buttons to compensate, and a celluloid collarwith a front attached. It was the Red Un's habit to dress first andwash after, as saving labour; instead of his neck he washed hiscollar. 

The Red Un was the Chief Engineer's boy and rather more impressivethan the Chief, who was apt to decry his own greatness. It was theRed Un's duty to look after the Chief, carry in his meals, make hisbed, run errands, and remind him to get his hair cut now and then. It was the Red Un's pleasure to assist unassumingly in thesurveillance of that part of the ship where the great god, Steam, ruled an underworld of trimmers and oilers and stokers and assistantengineers--and even, with reservations, the Chief. The Red Un kept asharp eye on the runs and read the Chief's log daily--so much coalin the bunkers; so much water in the wells; so many engine-roommiles in twenty-four hours--which, of course, are not sea milesexactly, there being currents and winds, and God knows what, towaste steam on. 

The Red Un, like the assistants, was becoming a bear on the speedmarket. He had learned that, just when the engines get heated enoughto work like demons, and there is a chance to break a record and geta letter from the management, some current or other will show up--ora fog, which takes the very tripe out of the cylinders and sends thebridge yapping for caution. 

The Red Un was thirteen; and he made the Chief's bed by pulling thecounterpane neatly and smoothly over the chaos underneath--and gotaway with it, the Chief being weary at night. Also, in odd momentshe made life miserable for the crew. Up to shortly before, he hadhad to use much energy and all his wits to keep life in his starvedlittle body; and even keeping an eye on the log and the Chief'shair, and slipping down into the engine room, where he had no mannerof business, hardly used up his activities. However, he did not lieand he looked the Chief square in the eye, as man to man. 

The Chief had salvaged him out of the Hudson, when what he had takenfor a bobbing red tomato had suddenly revealed a blue face and twoset and desperate eyes. After that the big Scot had forgotten allabout him, except the next day when he put on his shoes, which hadshrunk in the drying. The liner finished coaling about that time, took on passengers, luggage, steamer baskets and a pilot, and, having stowed the first two, examined the cards on the third anddropped the last, was pointed, nose to the east wind, for the race. 

The arrow on the twin dials pointed to Stand By! for the longvoyage--three thousand miles or so without a stop. The gong, andthen Half Ahead!--great elbows thrust up and down, up and down; thegrunt of power overcoming inertia, followed by the easy swing oflimitless strength. Full Ahead!--and so off again for the greatstruggle--man's wits and the engines and the mercy of God againstthe upreaching of the sea. 

The Chief, who sometimes dreamed his greatness, but who ignored itwaking, snapped his watch shut. 

"Eleven-eleven!" he said to the Senior Second. "Well, here's luck!"That is what he said aloud; to himself he always said a bit of aprayer, realising perhaps even more than the bridge how little man'swits count in the great equation. He generally said something to theeffect that "After all, it's up to Thee, O Lord!"

He shook hands with the Senior Second, which also was his habit; andhe smiled too, but rather grimly. They were playing a bit of agame, you see; and so far the Chief had won all the tricks--just anamusing little game and nothing whatever to do with a woman; theSecond was married, but the Chief had put all such things out of hishead years before, when he was a youngster and sailing to the Plate. Out of his head, quite certainly; but who dreams of greatness forhimself alone? So the Chief, having glanced about and run his handcaressingly over various fearful and pounding steel creatures, hadclimbed up the blistering metal staircase to his room at the top andwas proceeding to put down eleven-eleven and various other thingsthat the first cabin never even heard of, when he felt that he wasbeing stared at from behind. 

Now and then, after shore leave, a drunken trimmer or stoker gets upto the Chief's room and has to be subdued by the power of executiveeye or the strength of executive arm. As most Chiefs are Scots, theeye is generally sufficient. So the Chief, mightily ferocious, turned about, eye set, as one may say, to annihilate a six-foottrimmer in filthy overalls and a hangover, and saw--a smallred-haired boy in a Turkish towel. 

The boy quailed rather at the eye, but he had the courage of nothingto lose--not even a pair of breeches--and everything to gain. 

"Please, " said the apparition, "the pilot's gone, and you can't putme off!"

The Chief opened his mouth and shut it again. The mouth, and themodification of an eye set for a six-foot trimmer to an eye for afour-foot-ten urchin in a Turkish towel, produced a certainsoftening. The Red Un, who was like the Chief in that he earned hisway by pitting his wits against relentless Nature, smiled alittle--a surface smile, with fear just behind. 

"The Captain's boy's my size; I could wear his clothes, " hesuggested. 

Now, back in that time when the Chief had kept a woman's picture inhis breast pocket instead of in a drawer of his desk, there had beensmall furtive hopes, the pride of the Scot to perpetuate his line, the desire of a man for a manchild. The Chief had buried all that inthe desk drawer with the picture; but he had gone overboard in hisbest uniform to rescue a wharf-rat, and he had felt a curious senseof comfort when he held the cold little figure in his arms and washauled on deck, sputtering dirty river water and broad Scotch, aswas his way when excited. 

"And where ha' ye been skulking since yesterday?" he demanded. 

"In the bed where I was put till last night. This morning early----"he hesitated. 

"Don't lie! Where were ye?"

"In a passenger's room, under a bed. When the passengers came aboardI had to get out. "

"How did ye get here?"

This met with silence. Quite suddenly the Chief recognised theconnivance of the crew, perhaps, or of a kindly stewardess. 

"Who told you this was my cabin?" A smile this time, rather like theSenior Second's when the Chief and he had shaken hands. 

"A nigger!" he said. "A coloured fella in a white suit. "

There was not a darky on the boat. The Red Un, whose code was thetruth when possible, but any lie to save a friend--and that's thecode of a gentleman--sat, defiantly hopeful, arranging the towel tocover as much as possible of his small person. 

"You're lying! Do you know what we do with liars on this ship? Wethrow them overboard!"

"Then I'm thinking, " responded the Turkish towel, "that you'll beneeding another Chief Engineer before long!"

Now, as it happened, the Chief had no boy that trip. The previousone had been adopted after the last trip by a childless couple whohad liked the shape of his nose and the way his eyelashes curled onhis cheek. The Chief looked at the Red Un; it was perfectly clearthat no one would ever adopt him for the shape of his nose, and heapparently lacked lashes entirely. He rose and took a bathrobe froma hook on the door. 

"Here, " he said; "cover your legs wi' that, and say a prayer if ye'know wan. The Captain's a verra hard man wi' stowaways. "

The Captain, however, who was a gentleman and a navigator and had asense of humour also, was not hard with the Red Un. It beingimpracticable to take the boy to him, the great man made a specialvisit to the boy. The Red Un, in the Chief's bathrobe, sat on achair, with his feet about four inches from the floor, and returnedthe Captain's glare with wide blue eyes. 

"Is there any reason, young man, why I shouldn't order you to thelockup for the balance of this voyage?" the Captain demanded, extragrim, and trying not to smile. 

"Well, " said the Red Un, wiggling his legs nervously, "you'd have tofeed me, wouldn't you? And I might as well work for my keep. "

This being a fundamental truth on which most economics and allgovernments are founded, and the Captain having a boy of his own athome, he gave a grudging consent, for the sake of discipline, to theRed Un's working for his keep as the Chief's boy, and left. Outsidethe door he paused. 

"The little devil's starved, " he said. "Put some meat on thoseribs, Chief, and--be a bit easy with him!"

This last was facetious, the Chief being known to have the heart ofa child. 

So the Red Un went on the payroll of the line, and requisition wasmade on the storekeeper for the short-tailed coat and the longtrousers, and on the barber for a hair-cut. And in some curious waythe Red Un and the Chief hit it off. It might have been a matter ofred blood or of indomitable spirit. 

Spirit enough and to spare had the Red Un. On the trip out he hadlicked the Captain's boy and the Purser's boy; on the incoming triphe had lashed the Doctor's boy to his triumphant mast, and onlythree days before he had settled a row in the stokehole by puttinghot ashes down the back of a drunken trimmer, and changing hisattitude from menace with a steel shovel to supplication and prayer. 

He had no business in the stokehole, but by that time he knew everycorner of the ship--called the engines by name and the men byepithets; had named one of the pumps Marguerite, after the JuniorSecond's best girl; and had taken violent partisanship in theeternal rivalry of the liner between the engine room and the bridge. 

"Aw, gwan!" he said to the Captain's boy. "Where'd you and your OldMan be but for us? In a blasted steel tank, floating about on thebloomin' sea! What's a ship without insides?"

The Captain's boy, who was fourteen, and kept his bath sponge in arubber bag, and shaved now and then with the Captain's razor, retorted in kind. 

"You fellows below think you're the whole bally ship!" he saidloftily. "Insides is all right--we need 'em in our business. Butwhat'd your steel tank do, with the engines goin', if shewasn't bein' navigated? Steamin' in circles, like a tinklin'merry-go-round!"

It was some seconds after this that the Purser, a well-intentionedbut interfering gentleman with a beard, received the kick that puthim in dry dock for two days. 

II

They were three days out of New York on the Red Un's second roundtrip when the Second, still playing the game and almost despairing, made a strategic move. The Red Un was laying out the Chief'sluncheon on his desk--a clean napkin for a cloth; a glass; silver; aplate; and the menu from the first-cabin dining saloon. The menu waspropped against a framed verse:

 _But I ha' lived and I ha' worked! All thanks to Thee, Most High. _

And as he placed the menu, the Red Un repeated the words fromMcAndrew's hymn. It had rather got him at first; it was a newphilosophy of life. To give thanks for life was understandable, evenif unnecessary. But thanks for work! There was another framed cardabove the desk, more within the Red Un's ken: "Cable crossing! Donot anchor here!"

The card worked well with the first class, resting in the Chief'scabin after the arduous labours of seeing the engines. 

The Chief was below, flat on his back in a manhole looking for astaccato note that did not belong in his trained and orderly chorus. There was grease in his sandy hair, and the cranks were only a fewinches from his nose. By opening the door the Red Un was able tocommand the cylinder tops, far below, and the fiddley, which is theroof of hell or a steel grating over the cylinders to walkon--depending on whether one is used to it or not. The Chief wasnaturally not in sight. 

This gave the Red Un two minutes' leeway--two minutes forexploration. A drawer in the desk, always heretofore locked, wasunfastened--that is, the bolt had been shot before the drawer wasentirely closed. The Red Un was jealous of that drawer. In twovoyages he had learned most of the Chief's history and, lacking oneof his own, had appropriated it to himself. Thus it was not unusualfor him to remark casually, as he stood behind the Chief's chair atdinner: "We'd better send this here postcard to Cousin Willie, atEdinburgh. "

"Ou-ay!" the Chief would agree, and tear off the postcard of theship that topped each day's menu; but, so far, all hints as to thisone drawer had been futile; it remained the one barrier to theirperfect confidence, the fly in the ointment of the Red Un's content. 

Now, at last---- Below, a drop of grease in the Chief's eye set himwiping and cursing; over his head hammered, banged and lunged hisgreat babies; in the stokehole a gaunt and grimy creature, ycleptthe Junior Second, stewed in his own sweat and yelled for steam. 

The Red Un opened the drawed quickly and thrust in a hand. At firsthe thought it was empty, working as he did by touch, his eye on thedoor. Then he found a disappointing something--the lid of acigar-box! Under that was a photograph. Here was luck! Had the RedUn known it, he had found the only two secrets in his Chief's openlife. But the picture was disappointing--a snapshot of a youngwoman, rather slim, with the face obscured by a tennis racket, obviously thrust into the picture at the psychological moment. Poorspoil this--a cigar-box lid and a girl without a face! However, marred as it was, it clearly meant something to the Chief. For onits reverse side was another stanza from McAndrew's hymn:

 _Ye know how hard an idol dies, An' what that meant to me-- E'en tak' it for a sacrifice Acceptable to Thee. _

The Red Un thrust it back into the drawer, with the lid. If she wasdead what did it matter? He was a literal youth--so far, his ownwords had proved sufficient for his thoughts; it is after thirtythat a man finds his emotions bigger than his power of expressingthem, and turns to those that have the gift. The Chief was overthirty. 

It was as he shut the drawer that he realised he was not alone. Thealley door was open and in it stood the Senior Second. The Red Uneyed him unpleasantly. 

"Sneaking!" said the Second. 

"None of your blamed business!" replied the Red Un. 

The Second, who was really an agreeable person, with a sense ofhumour, smiled. He rather liked the Red Un. 

"Do you know, William, " he observed--William was the Red Un'sname--"I'd be willing to offer two shillings for an itemisedaccount of what's in that drawer?"

"Fill it with shillings, " boasted the Red Un, "and I'll not tellyou. "

"Three?" said the Second cheerfully. 

"No. "

"Four?"

"Why don't you look yourself?"

"Just between gentlemen, that isn't done, young man. But if youvolunteered the information, and I saw fit to make you a present of, say, a pipe, with a box of tobacco----"

"What do you want to know for?"

"I guess you know. "

The Red Un knew quite well. The Chief and the two Seconds were stillplaying their game, and the Chief was still winning; but even theRed Un did not know how the Chief won--and as for the two Secondsand the Third and the Fourth, they were quite stumped. 

This was the game: In bad weather, when the ports are closed andfirst-class passengers are yapping for air, it is the province ofthe engine room to see that they get it. An auxiliary engine pumpscubic feet of atmosphere into every cabin through a series ofairtrunks. 

So far so good. But auxiliaries take steam; and it is exceedinglygalling to a Junior or Senior, wagering more than he can afford onthe run in his watch, to have to turn valuable steam toauxiliaries--"So that a lot of blooming nuts may smoke in theirbunks!" as the Third put it. 

The first move in the game is the Chief's, who goes to bed andpresumably to sleep. After that it's the engine-room move, whichgives the first class time to settle down and then shuts off theairpumps. Now there is no noise about shutting off the air in thetrunks. It flows or it does not flow. The game is to see whether theChief wakens when the air stops or does not. So far he had alwayswakened. 

It was uncanny. It was worse than that--it was damnable! Did not theOld Man sleep at all?--not that he was old, but every Chief is theOld Man behind his back. Everything being serene, and theengine-room clock marking twelve-thirty, one of the Seconds wouldshut off the air very gradually; the auxiliary would slow down, wheeze, pant and die--and within two seconds the Chief's bell wouldring and an angry voice over the telephone demand what the severalkinds of perdition had happened to the air! Another trick in thegame to the Chief!

It had gone past joking now: had moved up from the uncanny to theimpossible, from the impossible to the enraging. Surreptitioussearch of the Chief's room had shown nothing but the one lockeddrawer. They had taken advantage of the Chief's being laid up inAntwerp with a boil on his neck to sound the cabin for hidden wires. They had asked the ship's doctor anxiously how long a man could dowithout sleep. The doctor had quoted Napoleon. 

 * * * * *

"If at any time, " observed the Second pleasantly, "you would likethat cigarette case the barber is selling, you know how to get it. "

"Thanks, old man, " said the Red Un loftily, with his eye on thewall. 

The Second took a step forward and thought better of it. 

"Better think about it!"

"I was thinking of something else, " said the Red Un, still staringat the wall. The Second followed his eye. The Red Un was gazingintently at the sign which said: "Cable crossing! Do not anchorhere!"

As the Second slammed out, the Chief crawled from his manhole andstruggled out of his greasy overalls. Except for his face, he wasquite tidy. He ran an eye down the port tunnel, where the shaftrevolved so swiftly that it seemed to be standing still, to where atthe after end came the racing of the screw as it lifted, beardedwith scud, out of the water. 

"It looks like weather to-night, " he observed, with a twinkle, tothe Fourth. "There'll aye be air wanted. " But the Fourth was gazingat a steam gauge. 

III

The Red Un's story, like all Gaul, is divided into three parts--histemptation, his fall and his redemption. All lives are so divided: astep back; a plunge; and then, in desperation and despair, a littleclimb up God's ladder. 

Seven days the liner lay in New York--seven days of early autumnheat, of blistering decks, of drunken and deserting trimmers, ofcreaking gear and grime of coal-dust. The cabin which held the RedUn and the Purser's boy was breathless. On Sunday the four ship'sboys went to Coney Island and lay in the surf half the afternoon. The bliss of the water on their thin young legs and scrawny bodieswas Heaven. They did not swim; they lay inert, letting the wavesmove them about, and out of the depths of a deep content makingcaustic comments about the human form as revealed by the relentlesssea. 

"That's a pippin!" they would say; or, "My aunt! looks at his legs!"They voiced their opinions audibly and were ready to back them upwith flight or fight. 

It was there that the Red Un saw the little girl. She had come froma machine, and her mother stood near. She was not a Coney Islander. She was first-cabin certainly--silk stockings on her thin ankles, sheer white frock; no jewelry. She took a snapshot of the fourboys--to their discomfiture--and walked away while they were stillwrithing. 

"That for mine!" said the Red Un in one of his rare enthusiasms. 

They had supper--a sandwich and a glass of beer; they would havepreferred pop, but what deep-water man on shore drinks pop?--andmade their way back to the ship by moonlight. The Red Un was tersein his speech on the car: mostly he ate peanuts abstractedly. If heevolved any clear idea out of the chaos of his mind it was to wishshe had snapped him in his uniform with the brass buttons. 

The heat continued; the men in the stokehole, keeping up only enoughsteam for the dynamos and donkey engines, took turns under theventilators or crawled up to the boatdeck at dusk, too exhausted todress and go ashore. The swimmers were overboard in the cool riverwith the first shadows of night; the Quartermaster, so old that hedyed his hair for fear he'd be superannuated, lowered his lean bodyhand over hand down a rope and sat by the hour on a stringpiece ofthe dock, with the water laving his hairy and tattooed old breast. 

The Red Un was forbidden the river. To be honest, he was ratherrelieved--not twice does a man dare the river god, having once beencrowned with his slime and water-weed. When the boy grew very hothe slipped into a second-cabin shower, and stood for luxuriousminutes with streams running off his nose and the ends of hisfingers and splashing about his bony ankles. 

Then, one night, some of the men took as many passengers' lifebeltsand went in. The immediate result was fun combined with safety; thesecondary result was placards over the ship and the dock, forbiddingthe use of the ship's lifebelts by the crew. 

From that moment the Red Un was possessed for the river and alifebelt. So were the other three. The signs were responsible. Permitted, a ship's lifebelt was a subterfuge of the cowardly, white-livered skunks who were afraid of a little water; forbidden, aship's lifebelt took on the qualities of enemy's property--to bereconnoitred, assaulted, captured and turned to personal advantage. 

That very night, then, four small bodies, each naked save for alifebelt, barrelshaped and extending from breast almost to knee, slipped over the side of the ship with awkward splashes andproceeded to disport themselves in the river. Scolding tugs sentwaves for them to ride; ferries crawled like gigantic bugs with ahundred staring eyes. They found the Quartermaster on a stringpieceimmersed to the neck and smoking his pipe, and surrounded him--foursmall, shouting imps, floating barrels with splashing hands andkicking feet. 

"Gwan, ye little devils!" said the Quartermaster, clutching thestringpiece and looking about in the gloom for a weapon. The Red Un, quite safe and audacious in his cork jacket, turned over on his backand kicked. 

"Gwan yerself, Methuselah!" he sang. 

They stole the old man's pipe and passed it from mouth to mouth;they engaged him in innocent converse while one of them pinched hisbare old toe under water, crab-fashion. And at last they prepared toshin up the rope again and sleep the sleep of the young, theinnocent and the refreshed. 

The Chief was leaning over the rail, just above, smoking!

He leaned against the rail and smoked for three hours! Eight eyes, watching him from below, failed to find anything in his face butcontemplation; eight hands puckered like a washerwoman's; eight feetturned from medium to clean, from clean to bleached--and still theChief smoked on. He watched the scolding tugs and the ferryboatsthat crawled over the top of the water; he stood in raptcontemplation of the electric signs in Jersey, while the ship'sbells marked the passage of time to eternity, while theQuartermaster slept in his bed, while the odours of the river stankin their nostrils and the pressure of the ship's lifebelts weighedlike lead on their clammy bodies. 

At eight bells--which is midnight--the Chief emptied histwenty-fourth pipe over the rail and smiled into the gloom beneath. 

"Ye'll better be coming up, " he remarked pleasantly. "I'm forturning in mysel'. "

He wandered away; none of the watch was near. The ship was dark, save for her riding lights. Hand over puckered hand they struggledup and wriggled out of the belts; stark naked they ducked throughpassageways and alleys, and stowed their damp and cringing formsbetween sheets. 

The Red Un served the Chief's breakfast the next morning verycarefully. The Chief's cantaloupe was iced; his kipper covered witha hot plate; the morning paper propped against McAndrew's hymn. TheRed Un looked very clean and rather bleached. 

The Chief was busy; he read the night reports, which did not amountto much, the well soundings, and a letter from a man offering toshow him how to increase the efficiency of his engines fifty percent, and another offering him a rake-off on a new lubricant. 

Outwardly the Chief was calm--even cold. Inwardly he was ratheruncomfortable: he could feel two blue eyes fixed on his back andremembered the day he had pulled them out of the river, and howfixed and desperate they were then. But what was it McAndrew said?"Law, order, duty an' restraint, obedience, discipline!"

Besides, if the boys were going to run off with the belts somedamned first-class passenger was likely to get a cabin minus a beltand might write to the management. The line had had bad luck; it didnot want another black eye. He cleared his throat; the Red Undropped a fork. 

"That sort of thing last night won't do, William. "

"N-No, sir. "

"Ye had seen the signs, of course?"

"Yes, sir. " The Red Un never lied to the Chief; it was useless. 

The Chief toyed with his kipper. 

"Ye'll understand I'd ha' preferred dealin' with the matter mysel';but it's--gone up higher. "

The Quartermaster, of course! The Chief rose and pretended to glanceover the well soundings. 

"The four of ye will meet me in the Captain's room in fifteenminutes, " he observed casually. 

The Captain was feeding his cat when the Red Un got there. The fourboys lined up uncomfortably; all of them looked clean, subdued, apprehensive. If they were to be locked up in this sort of weather, and only three days to sailing time--even a fine would be better. The Captain stroked the cat and eyed them. 

"Well, " he said curtly, "what have you four young imps been up tonow?"

The four young imps stood panicky. They looked as innocent as choirboys. The cat, eating her kipper, wheezed. 

"Please, sir, " said the Captain's boy solicitously, "Peter hassomething in his throat. "

"Perhaps it's a ship's lifebelt, " said the Captain grimly, andcaught the Chief's eye. 

The line palpitated; under cover of its confusion the Chief, standing in the doorway with folded arms, winked swiftly at theCaptain; the next moment he was more dour than ever. 

"You are four upsetters of discipline, " said the Captain, suddenlypounding the table. "You four young monkeys have got the crew by theears, and I'm sick of it! Which one of you put the fish in Mrs. Schmidt's bed?"

Mrs. Schmidt was a stewardess. The Red Un stepped forward. 

"Who turned the deckhose into the Purser's cabin night before last?"

"Please, " said the Doctor's boy pallidly, "I made a mistake in theroom. I thought----"

"Who, " shouted the Captain, banging again, "cut the Quartermaster'srope two nights ago and left him sitting under the dock for fourhours?"

The Purser's boy this time, white to the lips! Fresh panic seizedthem; it could hardly be mere arrest if he knew all this; he mightorder them hanged from a yardarm or shot at sunrise. He looked likethe latter. The Red Un glanced at the Chief, who looked apprehensivealso, as if the thing was going too far. The Captain may have readtheir thoughts, for he said:

"You're limbs of Satan, all of you, and hanging's too good for you. What do you say, Chief? How can we make these young scamps lessonsin discipline to the crew?"

Everybody breathed again and looked at the Chief--who stood tall andsandy and rather young to be a Chief--in the doorway. 

"Eh, mon, " he said, and smiled, "I'm aye a bit severe. Don't ask meto punish the bairns. "

The Captain sniffed. 

"Severe!" he observed. "You Scots are hard in the head, but soft inthe disposition. Come, Chief--shall they walk the plank?"

"Good deescipline, " assented the Chief, "but it would leave us a bitshorthanded. "

"True, " said the Captain gloomily. 

"I was thinkin', " remarked the Chief diffidently--one hates to thinkbefore the Captain; that's always supposed to be his job. 

"Yes?"

"That we could make a verra fine example of them and still retaintheir services. Ha' ye, by chance, seen a crow hangin' head down inthe field, a warnin' to other mischief-makers?"

"Ou-ay!" said the Captain, who had a Scotch mother. The line waveredagain; the Captain's boy, who pulled his fingers when he wasexcited, cracked three knuckles. 

"It would be good deescipline, " continued the Chief, "to stand thefour o' them in ship's belt at the gangway, say for an hour, morningand evening--clad, ye ken, as they were during the saidinfreengements. "

"You're a great man, Chief!" said the Captain. "You hear that, lads'?"

"With--with no trousers'?" gasped the Doctor's boy. 

"If you wore trousers last night. If not----"

 * * * * *

The thing was done that morning. Four small boys, clad only inship's belts, above which rose four sheepish heads and freckledfaces, below which shifted and wriggled eight bare legs, stood inline at the gangway and suffered agonies of humiliation at the handsof crew and dockmen, grinning customs inspectors, coalpassers, and anewspaper photographer hunting a human-interest bit for a Sundaypaper. The cooks came up from below and peeped out at them; theship's cat took up a position in line and came out in the Sundayedition as "a fellow conspirator. "

The Red Un, owing to an early training that had considered clothingdesirable rather than essential, was not vitally concerned. TheQuartermaster had charge of the line; he had drawn a mark with chalkalong the deck, and he kept their toes to it by marching up and downin front of them with a broomhandle over his shoulder. 

"Toe up, you little varmints!" he would snap. "God knows I'd be gladto get a rap at you--keeping an old man down in the water half thenight! Toe up!"

Whereupon, aiming an unlucky blow at the Purser's boy, he hit theCaptain's cat. The line snickered. 

It was just after that the Red Un, surmising a snap by thephotographer on the dock and thwarting it by putting his thumb tohis nose, received the shock of his small life. The little girl fromConey Island, followed by her mother, was on the pier--was showingevery evidence of coming up the gangway to where he stood. Wascoming! Panic seized the Red Un--panic winged with flight. Heturned--to face the Chief. Appeal sprang to the Red Un's lips. 

"Please!" he gasped. "I'm sick, sick as h--, sick as a dog, Chief. I've got a pain in my chest--I----"

Curiously enough, the Chief did not answer or even hear. He, too, was looking at the girl on the gangway and at her mother. The nextmoment the Chief was in full flight, ignominious flight, his face, bleached with the heat of the engine room and the stokehole, set asno emergency of broken shaft or flying gear had ever seen it. Brokenshaft indeed! A man's life may be a broken shaft. 

The woman and the girl came up the gangway, exidently to inspectstaterooms. The Quartermaster had rallied the Red Un back to theline and stood before him, brandishing his broomhandle. Black furywas in the boy's eye; hate had written herself on his soul. HisChief had ignored his appeal--had left him to his degradation--haddeserted him. 

The girl saw the line, started, blushed, recognised the Red Un--andlaughed!

IV

The great voyage began--began with the band playing and much wavingof flags and display of handkerchiefs; began with the girl and hermother on board; began with the Chief eating his heart out over coaland oil vouchers and well soundings and other things; began with theRed Un in a new celluloid collar, lying awake at night to hate hismaster, adding up his injury each day to greater magnitude. 

The voyage began. The gong rang from the bridge. Stand By! said thetwin dials. Half Ahead! Full Ahead! Full Ahead! Man's wits once moreagainst the upreaching of the sea! The Chief, who knew thatsomewhere above was his woman and her child, which was not his, stood under a ventilator and said the few devout words with which hecommenced each voyage:

"With Thy help!" And then, snapping his watch: "Three minutes pastten!"

The chief engineer of a liner is always a gentleman and frequently aChristian. He knows, you see, how much his engines can do and howlittle. It is not his engines alone that conquer the sea, nor hisengines plus his own mother wit. It is engines plus wit plus _x_, and the _x_ is God's mercy. Being responsible for two quantities outof the three of the equation, he prays--if he does--with an eye on agauge and an ear open for a cylinder knock. 

There was gossip in the engineers' mess those next days: the Old Manwas going to pieces. A man could stand so many years of the strainand then where was he? In a land berth, growing fat and paunchy, andeating his heart out for the sea, or---- The sea got him one way oranother!

The Senior Second stood out for the Chief. 

"Wrong with him? There's nothing wrong with him, " he declared. "Ifhe was any more on the job than he is I'd resign. He's on the jobtwenty-four hours a day, nights included. "

There was a laugh at this; the mess was on to the game. Most of themwere playing it. 

So now we have the Red Un looking for revenge and in idle momentslurking about the decks where the girl played. He washed his neckunder his collar those days. 

And we have the Chief fretting over his engines, subduing drunkenstokers, quelling the frequent disturbances of Hell Alley, which ledto the firemen's quarters, eating little and smoking much, devisingout of his mental disquietude a hundred possible emergenciesand--keeping away from the passengers. The Junior Second took downthe two parties who came to see the engine room and gave themlemonade when they came up. The little girl's mother came with thesecond party and neither squealed nor asked questions--only at thedoor into the stokeholes she stood a moment with dilated eyes. Shewas a little woman, still slim, rather tragic. She laid a hand onthe Junior's arm. 

"The--the engineers do not go in there, do they?"

"Yes, madam. We stand four-hour watches. That is the Senior SecondEngineer on that pile of cinders. "

The Senior Second was entirely black, except for his teeth and thewhites of his eyes. There was a little trouble in a coalbunker;they had just discovered it. There would be no visitors after thisuntil the trouble was over. 

The girl's mother said nothing more. The Junior Second led themaround, helping a pretty young woman about and explaining to her. 

"This, " he said, smiling at the girl, "is a pump the men havenicknamed Marguerite, because she takes most of one man's time andis always giving trouble. "

The young woman tossed her head. 

"Perhaps she would do better if she were left alone, " she suggested. 

The girl's mother said nothing, but, before she left, she took onelong look about the engine room. In some such bedlam of noise andheat _he_ spent his life. She was wrong, of course, to pity him; oneneed not measure labour by its conditions or by its cost, but by thejoy of achievement. The woman saw the engines--sinister, menacing, frightful; the man saw power that answered to his hand--conquest, victory. The beat that was uproar to her ears was as the throbbingof his own heart. 

It was after they had gone that the Chief emerged from the forwardstokehole where the trouble was. He had not seen her; she would nothave known him, probably, had they met face to face. He was quiteblack and the light of battle gleamed in his eyes. 

They fixed the trouble somehow. It was fire in a coalbunker, one ofthe minor exigencies. Fire requiring air they smothered it one wayand another. It did not spread, but it did not quite die. And eachday's run was better than the day before. 

The weather was good. The steerage, hanging over the bow, saw farbelow the undercurling spray, white under dark blue--the bluegrowing paler, paler still, until the white drops burst to the topand danced free in the sun. A Greek, going home to Crete to marry awife, made all day long tiny boats of coloured paper, weighted withcorks, and sailed them down into the sea. 

"They shall carry back to America my farewells!" he said, smiling. "This to Pappas, the bootblack, who is my friend. This to a girlback in America, with eyes--behold that darkest blue, my children;so are her eyes! And this black one to my sister, who has lost achild. "

The first class watched the spray also--as it rose to the lip of aglass. 

Now at last it seemed they would break a record. Then rain set in, without enough wind to make a sea, but requiring the starboard portsto be closed. The Senior Second, going on duty at midnight thatnight, found his Junior railing at fate and the airpumps going. 

"Shut 'em off!" said the Senior Second furiously. 

"Shut 'em off yourself. I've tried it twice. "

The Senior Second gave a lever a vicious tug and the pump stopped. Before it had quite lapsed into inertia the Chief's bell rang. 

"Can you beat it?" demanded the Junior sulkily. "The old fox!"

The Senior cursed. Then he turned abruptly and climbed the steelladder he had just descended. The Junior, who was anticipating ashower and bed, stared after him. 

The Senior thought quickly--that was why he was a Senior. He foundthe Red Un's cabin and hammered at the door. Then, finding it wasnot locked, he walked in. The Red Un lay perched aloft; the shirt ofhis small pajamas had worked up about his neck and his thin torsolay bare. In one hand he clutched the dead end of a cigarette. TheSenior wakened him by running a forefinger down his ribs, much as aboy runs a stick along a paling fence. 

"Wha' ish it?" demanded the Red Un in sleepy soprano. And then "Wha'd'ye want?" in bass. His voice was changing; he sounded like twopeople in animated discussion most of the time. 

"You boys want to earn a sovereign?"

The Purser's boy, who had refused to rouse to this point, sat up inbed. 

"Whaffor?" he asked. 

"Get the Chief here some way. You"--to the Purser's boy--"go andtell him the Red Un's ill and asking for him. You"--to the RedUn--"double up; cry; do something. Start him off for thedoctor--anything, so you keep him ten minutes or so!"

The Red Un was still drowsy, and between sleeping and waking we arewhat we are. 

"I won't do it!"

The Senior Second held out a gold sovereign on his palm. 

"Don't be a bally little ass!" he said. 

The Red Un, waking full, now remembered that he hated the Chief; forfear he did not hate him enough, he recalled the lifebelt, and hislegs, and the girl laughing. 

"All right!" he said. "Gwan, Pimples! What'll I have?Appendiceetis?"

"Have a toothache, " snapped the Senior Second. "Tear off a fewyells--anything to keep him!"

It worked rather well; plots have a way of being successful indirect proportion to their iniquity. Beneficent plots, like lovingrelatives dressed as Santa Claus, frequently go wrong; while it hasbeen shown that the leakiest sort of scheme to wreck a bank will gothrough with the band playing. 

The Chief came and found the Red Un in agony, holding his jaw. Owingto the fact that he lay far back in an upper bunk, it took time todrag him into the light. It took more time to get his mouth open;once open, the Red Un pointed to a snag that should have given himtrouble if it didn't, and set up a fresh outcry. 

Not until long after could the Red Un recall without shame his sharein that night's work--recall the Chief, stubby hair erect, kind blueeyes searching anxiously for the offending tooth. Recall it? Wouldhe ever forget the arm the Chief put about him, and him: "Ou-ay!laddie; it's a weeked snag!"

The Chief, to whom God had denied a son of his flesh, had taken RedUn to his heart, you see--fatherless wharf-rat and childlessengineer; the man acting on the dour Scot principle of chasteningwhomsoever he loveth, and the boy cherishing a hate that was reallyonly hurt love. 

And as the Chief, who had dragged the Red Un out of eternity and wasnot minded to see him die of a toothache, took him back to his cabinthe pain grew better, ceased, turned to fright. The ten minutes orso were over and what would they find? The Chief opened the door; hehad in mind a drop of whisky out of the flask he never touched on atrip--whisky might help the tooth. 

On the threshold he seemed to scent something amiss. He glanced atthe ceiling over his bunk, where the airtrunk lay, and then--helooked at the boy. He stooped down and put a hand on the boy's head, turning it to the light. 

"Tell me now, lad, " he said quietly, "did ye or did ye no ha' thetoothache?"

"It's better now, " sullenly. 

"Did ye or did ye no?"

"No. "

The Chief turned the boy about and pushed him through the doorwayinto outer darkness. He said nothing. Down to his very depths he washurt. To have lost the game was something; but it was more thanthat. Had he been a man of words he might have said that once againa creature he loved had turned on him to his injury. Being a Scotand a man of few words he merely said he was damned, and crawledback into bed. 

The game? Well, that was simple enough. Directly over his pillow, inthe white-painted airtrunk, was a brass plate, fastened with fourscrews. In case of anything wrong with the ventilator the platecould be taken off for purposes of investigation. 

The Chief's scheme had been simplicity itself--so easy that theSeconds, searching for concealed wires and hidden alarm bells, hadnever thought of it. On nights when the air must be pumped, andofficious Seconds were only waiting the Chief's first sleep to shutoff steam and turn it back to the main engines, the Chief unlockedthe bolted drawer in his desk. First he took out the woman's pictureand gazed at it; quite frequently he read the words on theback--written out of a sore heart, be sure. And then he took outthe cigar-box lid. 

When he had unscrewed the brass plate over his head he replaced itwith the lid of the cigar-box. So long as the pumps in the engineroom kept the air moving, the lid stayed up by suction. 

When the air stopped the lid fell down on his head; he roused enoughto press a signal button and, as the air started viciously, toreplace the lid. Then, off to the sleep of the just and the craftyagain. And so on _ad infinitum_. 

Of course the game was not over because it was discovered and thelid gone. There would be other lids. But the snap, the joy, was goneout of it. It would never again be the same, and the worst of allwas the manner of the betrayal. 

He slept but little the remainder of the night; and, because unresttravels best from soul to soul at night, when the crowding emotionsof the day give it place, the woman slept little also. She wasthinking of the entrance to the stokehole, where one crouched underthe bellies of furnaces, and where the engineer on duty stood on apile of hot cinders. Toward morning her room grew very close: theair from the ventilator seemed to have ceased. 

Far down in the ship, in a breathless little cabin far aft, the RedUn kicked the Purser's boy and cried himself to sleep. 

V

The old ship made a record the next night that lifted the day's runto four hundred and twenty. She was not a greyhound, you see. Generally speaking, she was a nine-day boat. She averaged well underfour hundred miles. The fast boats went by her and slid over theedge of the sea, throwing her bits of news by wireless over ashoulder, so to speak. 

The little girl's mother was not a good sailor. She sat almost allday in a steamer chair, reading or looking out over the rail. Eachday she tore off the postal from the top of her menu and sent it tothe girl's father. She missed him more than she had expected. He hadbecome a habit; he was solid, dependable, loyal. He had never heardof the Chief. 

"Dear Daddy, " she would write: "Having a splendid voyage so far, butwish you were here. The baby is having such a good time--so popular;and won two prizes to-day at the sports! With love, Lily. "

They were all rather like that. She would drop them in the mailbox, with a tug of tenderness for the man who worked at home. Then shewould go back to her chair and watch the sea, and recall the heat ofthe engine room below, and wonder, wonder----

It had turned warm again; the edges of the horizon were grey and atnight a low mist lay over the water. Rooms were stifling, humid. TheRed Un discarded pajamas and slept in his skin. The engine-roomwatch came up white round the lips and sprawled over the boat deckwithout speech. Things were going wrong in the Red Un's small world. The Chief hardly spoke to him--was grave and quiet, and ate almostnothing. The Red Un hated himself unspeakably and gave his share ofthe sovereign to the Purser's boy. 

The Chief was suffering from lack of exercise in the air as well asother things. The girl's mother was not sleeping--what with heat andthe memories the sea had revived. On the fifth night out, while theship slept, these two met on the deck in the darkness--two shadowsout of the past. The deck was dark, but a ray from a window touchedhis face and she knew him. He had not needed light to know her;every line of her was written on his heart, and for him there was noone at home to hold in tenderness. 

"I think I knew you were here all the time, " she said, and held outboth hands. 

The Chief took one and dropped it. She belonged to the person athome. He had no thought of forgetting that!

"I saw your name on the passenger list, but I have been very busy. "He never lapsed into Scotch with her; she had not liked it. "Isyour husband with you?"

"He could not come just now. I have my daughter. "

Her voice fell rather flat. The Chief could not think of anything tosay. Her child, and not his! He was a one-woman man, you see--andthis was the woman. 

"I have seen her, " he said presently. "She's like you, Lily. "

That was a wrong move--the Lily; for it gave her courage to put herhand on his arm. 

"It is so long since we have met, " she said wistfully. "Yesterday, after I saw the--the place where you lived and--and work----" Shechoked; she was emotional, rather weak. Having made the situationshe should have let it alone; but, after all, it is not what thewoman is, but what the man thinks she is. 

The Chief stroked her fingers on his sleeve. 

"It's not bad, Lily, " he said. "It's a man's job. I like it. "

"I believe you had forgotten me entirely!"

The Chief winced. "Isn't that the best thing you could wish me?" hesaid. 

"Are you happy?"

"'I ha' lived and I ha' worked!'" he quoted sturdily. 

Very shortly after that he left her; he made an excuse of beingneeded below and swung off, his head high. 

VI

They struck the derelict when the mist was thickest, about two thatmorning. The Red Un was thrown out of his berth and landed, starknaked, on the floor. The Purser's boy was on the floor, too, in atangle of bedding. There was a sickening silence for a moment, followed by the sound of opening doors and feet in the passage. There was very little speech. People ran for the decks. The Purser'sboy ran with them. 

The Red Un never thought of the deck. One of the axioms of theengine room is that of every man to his post in danger. The Red Un'spost was with his Chief. His bare feet scorched on the steel laddersand the hot floor plates; he had on only his trousers, held up witha belt. 

The trouble was in the forward stokehole. Water was pouring in fromthe starboard side--was welling up through the floor plates. Thewound was ghastly, fatal! The smouldering in the bunker had weakenedresistance there and her necrosed ribs had given away. The Red Un, scurrying through the tunnel, was met by a maddened rush of trimmersand stokers. He went down under them and came up bruised, bleeding, battling for place. 

"You skunks!" he blubbered. "You crazy cowards! Come back and help!"

A big stoker stopped and caught the boy's arm. 

"You come on!" he gasped. "The whole thing'll go in a minute. She'llgo down by the head!"

He tried to catch the boy up in his arms, but the Red Un struck himon the nose. 

"Let me go, you big stiff!" he cried, and kicked himself free. 

Not all the men had gone. They were working like fiends. It was upto the bulkhead now. If it held--if it only held long enough to getthe passengers off!

Not an engineer thought of leaving his place, though they knew, better even than the deck officers, how mortally the ship was hurt. They called to their aid every resource of a business that isnothing but emergencies. Engines plus wit, plus the grace ofGod--and the engines were useless. Wits, then, plus Providence. Thepumps made no impression on the roaring flood; they lifted floorplates to strengthen the bulkheads and worked until it was death towork longer. Then, fighting for every foot, the little bandretreated to the after stokehole. Lights were out forward. The Chiefwas the last to escape. He carried an oil lantern, and squeezedthrough the bulkhead door with a wall of water behind him. 

The Red Un cried out, but too late. The Chief, blinded by hislantern, had stumbled into the pit where a floor plate had beenlifted. When he found his leg was broken he cried to them to go onand leave him, but they got him out somehow and carried him withthem as they fought and retreated--fought and retreated. He wasstill the Chief; he lay on the floor propped up against somethingand directed the fight. The something he leaned against was thestrained body of the Red Un, who held him up and sniffled shamefacedtears. She was down by the head already and rolling like a dyingthing. When the water came into the after stokehole they carried theChief into the engine room--the lights were going there. 

There had been no panic on deck. There were boats enough and thelights gave every one confidence. It was impossible to see thelights going and believe the ship doomed. Those who knew felt thelist of the decks and hurried with the lowering of the boats; theones who saw only the lights wished to go back to their cabins forclothing and money. 

The woman sat in the Quartermaster's boat, with her daughter in herarms, and stared at the ship. The Quartermaster said the engineerswere still below and took off his cap. In her feeble way the womantried to pray, and found only childish, futile things to say; but inher mind there was a great wonder--that they, who had once been lifeeach to the other, should part thus, and that now, as ever, the goodpart was hers! The girl looked up into her mother's face. 

"The redhaired little boy, mother--do you think he is safe?"

"First off, likely, " mumbled the Quartermaster grimly. 

All the passengers were off. Under the mist the sea rose and fellquietly; the boats and rafts had drawn off to a safe distance. TheGreek, who had humour as well as imagination, kept up the spirits ofthose about him while he held a child in his arms. 

"Shall we, " he inquired gravely, "think you--shall we pay extra tothe company for this excursion?"

 * * * * *

The battle below had been fought and lost. It was of minutes now. The Chief had given the order: "Every one for himself!" Some of themen had gone, climbing to outer safety. The two Seconds had refusedto leave the Chief. All lights were off by that time. The afterstokehole was flooded and water rolled sickeningly in theengine-pits. Each second it seemed the ship must take its fearfuldive into the quiet sea that so insistently reached up for her. With infinite labour the Seconds got the Chief up to the fiddley, twenty feet or less out of a hundred, and straight ladders insteadof a steel staircase. Ten men could not have lifted him withoutgear, and there was not time!

Then, because the rest was hopeless, they left him there, proppedagainst the wall, with the lantern beside him. He shook hands withthem; the Junior was crying; the Senior went last, and after he hadgone up a little way he turned and came back. 

"I can't do it, Chief!" he said. "I'll stick it out with you. " Butthe Chief drove him up, with the name of his wife and child. Far upthe shaft he turned and looked down. The lantern glowed faintlybelow. 

The Chief sat alone on his grating. He was faint with pain. Theblistering cylinders were growing cold; the steel floor beneath wasawash. More ominous still, as the ship's head sank, came crackingsand groanings from the engines below. They would fall through at thelast, ripping out the bulkheads and carrying her down bow first. 

Pain had made the Chief rather dull. "'I ha' lived and I ha'worked!'" he said several times--and waited for the end. Into hisstupor came the thought of the woman--and another thought of theRed Un. Both of them had sold him out, so to speak; but the womanhad grown up with his heart and the boy was his by right ofsalvage--only he thought of the woman as he dreamed of her, not ashe had seen her on the deck. He grew rather confused, after a time, and said: "I ha' loved and I ha' worked!"

Just between life and death there comes a time when the fight seemsa draw, or as if each side, exhausted, had called a truce. There isno more struggle, but it is not yet death. The ship lay so. Theupreaching sea had not conquered. The result was inevitable, but notyet. And in the pause the Red Un came back, came crawling down theladder, his indomitable spirit driving his craven little body. 

He had got as far as the boat and safety. The gripping devils offear that had followed him up from the engine room still hung to histhroat; but once on deck, with the silent men who were workingagainst time and eternity, he found he could not do it. He was theChief's boy--and the Chief was below and hurt!

The truce still held. As the ship rolled, water washed about thefoot of the ladder and lapped against the cylinders. The Chief trieddesperately to drive him up to the deck and failed. 

"It's no place for you alone, " said the Red Un. His voice hadlost its occasional soprano note; the Red Un was a grown man. "I'm staying!" And after a hesitating moment he put his small, frightened paw on the Chief's arm. 

It was that, perhaps, that roused the Chief--not love of life, butlove of the boy. To be drowned like a rat in a hole--that was not sobad when one had lived and worked. A man may not die better thanwhere he has laboured; but this child, who would die with him ratherthan live alone! The Chief got up on his usable knee. 

"I'm thinking, laddie, " he said, "we'll go fighting anyhow. "

The boy went first, with the lantern. And, painful rung by painfulrung, the Chief did the impossible, suffering hells as he moved. Foreach foot he gained the Red Un gained a foot--no more. What he wouldnot have endured for himself, the Chief suffered for the boy. Halfway up, he clung, exhausted. 

The boy leaned down and held out his hand. 

"I'll pull, " he said. "Just hang on to me. "

Only once again did he speak during that endless climb in thesilence of the dying ship, and what he said came in gasps. He waspulling indeed. 

"About--that airtrunk, " he managed to say--"I'm--sorry, sir!"

 * * * * *

The dawn came up out of the sea, like resurrection. In theQuartermaster's boat the woman slept heavily, with tears on hercheeks. The Quartermaster looked infinitely old and very tired withliving. 

It was the girl, after all, who spied them--two figures--one inertand almost lifeless; one very like a bobbing tomato, but revealing ablue face and two desperate eyes above a ship's lifebelt. 

The Chief came to an hour or so later and found the woman near, paleand tragic, and not so young as he had kept her in his heart. Hiseyes rested on hers a moment; the bitterness was gone, and the ache. He had died and lived again, and what was past was past. 

"I thought, " said the woman tremulously--"all night I thought thatyou----"

The Chief, coming to full consciousness, gave a little cry. Hiseyes, travelling past hers, had happened on a small and languidyoungster curled up at his feet, asleep. The woman drew back--asfrom an intrusion. 

As she watched, the Red Un yawned, stretched and sat up. His eyesmet the Chief's, and between them passed such a look ofunderstanding as made for the two one world, one victory!