"Will you have this woman?"
David's clear, low voice sounded over the little church, and the bride lifted confident, trusting eyes to his face. The people in the pews leaned forward. They had glanced approvingly at the slender, dark-eyed girl in her bridal white, but now every eye was centered on the minister. The hand in which he held the Book was white, blue veined, the fingers long and thin. His eyes were nervously bright, with faint circles beneath them.
David looked sick.
So the glowing, sweet faced bride was neglected and the groom received scant attention. The minister cleared his throat slightly, and the service went smoothly on to the end.
But the sigh of relief that went up at its conclusion betokened not so much satisfaction that another young couple were setting forth on the troubled, tempting waters of matrimony, as that David had finished another service and all might yet be well.
Carol, half way back in the church, had heard not one word of the service.
"David is an angel, but I do wish he were a little less heavenly," she thought passionately. "He—makes me nervous."
The carriage was at the door to take the minister and his wife to the Daniels home for the bridal reception, but David said, "Tell him to take us to the manse first, Carol. I've got to rest a minute. I'm tired to-night."
In the living-room of the manse he carefully removed the handsome black coat in which he had been graduated from the Seminary in Chicago, and in which a little later he had been ordained for the ministry and installed in his church in the Heights. Still later he had worn it at his marriage. David hung it over the back of a chair, saying as he did so:
"Wearing pretty well, isn't it? It may be called upon to officiate in other crises for me, so it behooves me to husband it well."
Then he dropped heavily on the davenport before the fireplace, with Carol crouching on a cushion beside him, stroking his hand.
"Let's not go to the reception," she said. "We've congratulated them a dozen times already."
"Oh, we've got to go," he answered. "They would be disappointed. We'll only stay a few minutes. Just as soon as I rest—I am played out to-night—it is only a step."
They slipped among the guests at the reception quietly and unobtrusively, but were instantly surrounded.
"A good service, David," said Mr. Daniels, eying him keenly. "You make such a pretty job of it I'd like to try it over myself."
"Now, Dan," expostulated his anxious little wife. "Don't you pay any attention to him, Mrs. Duke, he's always talking."
"I know it," said Carol appreciatively. "I never pay attention."
"You need a vacation, Mr. Duke," broke in a voice impulsively.
"I know it," assented David. "We'll take one in the spring,—and you can help pay the expenses."
"You'd better take it now," suggested Mrs. Baldwin. "The church can get along without you, you know."
But the laugh that went up was not genuine. Many of them, in their devotion to David, wondered if the church really could get along without him.
David gaily waved aside the enormous plate of refreshments that was passed to him. "I had my dinner, you know," he explained. "Carol isn't neglecting me."
"He had it, but he didn't eat it,—and it was fried chicken," said Carol sadly.
A few minutes later they were at home again, and before Carol had finished the solemn task of rubbing cold cream into her pretty skin, David was sleeping heavily, his face flushed, his hands twitching nervously at times.
Carol stood above him, gazing adoringly down upon him for a while. Then shutting her eyes, she said fervently:
"Oh, God, do make David less like an angel, and more like other men."
Early the next morning she was up and had steaming hot coffee ready for David almost before his eyes were open.
"To crowd out that mean little cough that spoils your breakfast," she said. "I shall keep you in bed to-day."
All morning David lounged around the house, hugging the fireplace, and complained of feeling cold though it was a warm bright day late in April, and although the fire was blazing. In the afternoon he took off his jacket and loosened his collar.
"It certainly is hot enough now," he declared. "Open the windows, Carol,—I am roasting."
"That is fever," she announced ominously. "Do you feel very badly?"
"Well, nothing extra," he assented grudgingly.
"David, if you love me, let's call a doctor. You are going to have the grippe, or pneumonia, or something awful, and—if you love me, David."
The pleading voice arrested his refusal and he gave the desired consent, still laughing at the silly notion.
So Carol sped next door to the home of Mr. Daniels, the fatherly elder.
"Mr. Daniels," she cried, brightly happy because David had consented to a doctor, and a doctor meant health and strength and the end of that hateful little cough. "We are going to have a doctor see David. What is the name of that man down-town—the one you think is so wonderful?"
Mr. Daniels gladly gave her the name, warmly approving the move, but he shook his head a little over David. "I am no pessimist," he said, "but David is not just exactly right."
"The doctor will fix him up," cried Carol joyously. "I am so relieved and comfortable now. Don't try to worry me."
David looked nervous when Carol gave him the name of the physician she had called.
"He is a Catholic,—and some of the members think—"
"Of course they do, but I am the head of this house," declared Carol, standing on tiptoe and assuming her most lordly air. "And Doctor O'Hara is the best in town, and he is coming."
"Oh, all right, if you feel like that about it. I don't suppose he would give me strychnine just because I am a Presbyterian minister."
"Oh, mercy!" ejaculated Carol. "I never thought of that. Do you suppose he would?"
But David only laughed at her, as he so often did.
When Carol met the doctor at the door, she found instant reassurance in the strong, kind, clever face.
"It's a cold," she explained, "but it hangs on too long, and he keeps running down-hill."
The doctor looked very searchingly into David's pale bright face. And Carol and David did not know that the extra joke and the extravagant cheeriness of his voice indicated that things looked badly. They took great satisfaction in his easy manner, and when, after a brief examination, he said:
"Now, into bed you go, Mr. Duke, and there you stay a while. Get a substitute for Sunday. You've got to make a baby of a bad cold and pet it a little."
David and Carol laughed, and when the doctor went away, and David was safely in bed, Carol perched up beside him and they had a stirring game of parcheesi. But David soon tired, and lay very quietly all evening, eating no dinner, and talking very little. Telephone messages from "the members" came thick and fast, with offers of all kinds of tempting viands, and callers came streaming to the door. But Father Daniels next door turned them every one away.
"He can't talk any more," he said in his abrupt, yet kindly way. "He's just worn out talking to this bunch,—that's all that ails him."
Next day the doctor came again, gave another examination, and said there was some little congestion in the lungs.
"Just do as I have told you,—keep the windows up, drink a lot of fresh milk, and eat all the raw eggs you can choke down."
"He won't eat anything," said Carol.
"Let him fast then, and he'll soon be begging for raw eggs. I'll see you again to-morrow."
When he returned next day there was a little shadow in the kind eyes. David lay on the cot, smiling, and Carol stood beside him.
"How do you feel to-day?"
"Oh, just fine," came the ready answer.
But the shadow in the doctor's eyes deepened.
"The meanest part of a doctor's work is handing out death blows to hope," he said. "But you two are big enough to take a hard knock without flinching, and I won't need to beat around the bush. Mr. Duke, you have tuberculosis."
David winched a little and Carol clutched his hand spasmodically, yet they smiled quickly, comfortingly into each other's eyes.
"That does not mean that your life is fanning out, by any means," continued the doctor in his easy voice. "We've got a grip on the disease now. You are getting it right at the start and you stand a splendid chance. Your clean life will help. Your laughing wife will help. Your confidence in a Divine Doctor will help. Everything is on your side. If you can, I think I should go out west somewhere,—to New Mexico, or Arizona. It is low here, and damp,—lots of people chase the cure here, and find it, but it is easier out there where the air is light and fine and the temperature is even, and where doctors specialize on lungs."
"Yes, yes, indeed, we shall go right away," declared Carol feverishly. "Yes, indeed."
"Keep on with my treatment while you are here. And get out as soon as you can. Stay in bed all the time, and don't bother with many visitors. I don't need to tell you the minor precautions. You both have brains. Be sure you use them. Now, don't get blue. You've still got plenty to laugh at, Mrs. Duke. And I give you fair warning, when you quit laughing there's the end of the fight. You haven't any other weapon strong enough to beat the germs."
It was hard indeed for Carol to see anything to laugh at just that moment, but she smiled, rather wanly, at the doctor when he went away.
There was silence between them for a moment.
At last, she leaned over him and whispered breathlessly, "Maybe it is really a good thing, David. You did need a vacation, and now you are bound to get it."
David smiled at her persistent philosophy of optimism.
Again there was silence. Finally, with an effort he spoke. "Carol, I—I could have thanked God for letting us know this two years ago. Then you would have escaped."
"David, don't say that. Just this minute I was thanking Him in my heart because we didn't know until we belonged to each other."
She lifted her lips to him, as she always did when deeply moved, and instinctively he lowered his to meet them. But before he touched her he stopped, stricken by a bitter thought, and pushed her face away almost roughly.
"Oh, Carol," he cried, "I can't. I can never kiss you again. I have loved to touch you, always. I have loved your cool, sweet, powdery skin, and your lips,—I have always thought of your lips as a crimson bow in a pale pink cloud,—I—I have loved to touch you. I have always adored your face, the look of it as well as the feel of it. I havelovedto kiss you."
Carol slipped an arm beneath his head and strove to pull his hand away from his face.
"Go on and do it," she whispered passionately. "I am not afraid. You kissed me yesterday and it didn't hurt me. Kiss me, David,—I don't care if I do get it."
He laughed at her then, uncertainly, brokenly, but he laughed. "Oh, no you don't, my lady," he said. "You've got to keep strong and well to take care of me. You want to get sick so you'll get half the petting."
Like a flash came the revelation of what her future was to be. "Oh, of course," she cried, in a changed voice. "Of course we must be careful,—I forgot. I'll have to keep very strong and rugged, won't I? Indeed, I will be careful."
Then they sat silent again.
"Out west," he said at last dreamily. "Out west. I've always wanted to go west. Not just this way, but—maybe it is our chance, Carol."
"Of course it is. We'll just rest and play a couple of months, and then come back better than ever. No, let's get a church out there and stay forever. That will be Safety First. Isn't it grand we have that money in the bank, David? Think how solemn it would be now if we were clear broke, as we were before we decided to economize and start a bank-account."
David nodded, smiling, but the smile was grave. The little bank-account was very fine, but to David, lying there with the wreck of his life about him, the outlook was solemn in spite of it.
"Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three,—for goodness' sake!—fifty-four, fifty-five." Carol looked helplessly at her dusty hands and mopped her face desperately with her forearm.
David, watching her from the bed in the adjoining room, gave way to silent laughter, and she resumed her solemn count.
"Forty-six, forty—"
"Fifty-six," he called. "Don't try any trickery on me."
"Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty." She sighed audibly. "Sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four—sixty-four perfectly fresh eggs," she announced, turning to the doorway and frowning at her husband, who still laughed. "Sixty-four perfectly fresh eggs, all laid yesterday."
"Now, I give you fair warning, my dear, I am no cold storage plant, and you can't make me absorb any sixty-four egg-nogs daily just to even up the demand with the supply. I drank seven yesterday, but this is too much. You must seek another warehouse."
"You are very clever and facetious, Davie, really quite entertaining. But what am I to do with sixty-four fresh eggs?"
"And I may as well confess frankly that I consider a minister's wife distinctly out of her sphere when she tries to corner the fresh egg market, particularly at the present price of existence. It isn't scriptural. It isn't orthodox. I am surprised at you, Carol. It must be some more Methodism cropping out. I never knew a Presbyterian to do it."
"And as for milk—"
"There you go again,—milk. Worse and worse. Yesterday I had milk toast, and milk custard, and fresh milk, and buttermilk. And here you come at me again first thing to-day. Milk!"
"Seven whole quarts have arrived this morning,—bless their darling old hearts."
"The cows?"
"The parishioners," Carol explained patiently. "Ever since the doctor said fresh milk and eggs, we've been flooded with milk and—"
"Pelted with eggs. But you can't pelt any sixty-four eggs down me."
"David," she said reproachfully, "I must confess that you don't sound very sick. The doctor says, 'Take him west,' and I am taking you if I ever get rid of these eggs. But I do think it would be more appropriate to take you to a vaudeville show where you might coin some of this extravagant humor. There's a market for it, you know."
"Here comes Mrs. Sater, with a covered basket," announced David, glancing from the window. "I just wonder if the dear kind woman is bringing me a few fresh eggs. You know the doctor advised me to eat fresh eggs, and—"
Carol clutched her curly head in despair. "Cock-a-doodle-doo," she crowed.
"You mean, 'Cut-cut-cut-ca-duck-et,'" reproved David.
Mrs. Sater paused outside the manse door in blank astonishment. Dear, precious David so terribly ill, and poor little Carol getting ready to take him away to a strange and awful country, and the world full of sadness and weeping and gnashing of teeth, and yet—from the open windows of the manse came the clear ring of Carol's laughter, followed closely by David's deeper voice. What in the world was there to laugh at, since tuberculosis had rapped at the manse door?
They were young, of course, and they were still in love,—that helped. And they had the deathless courage of the young and loving. But Mrs. Sater bet a dollar she wouldn't waste any time laughing if tuberculosis were stalking through her home.
"Come in," said Carol, in answer to her second ring. "We saw you from the window, but I was laughing so I was ashamed to open the door. David's so silly, Mrs. Sater. Since he isn't obliged to strain his mental capacity by thinking up sermons, he has developed quite a funny streak. Oh, did you bring us some nice fresh eggs? How dear of you. Yes, the doctor said he must eat lots of them."
"They were just laid yesterday," said Mrs. Sater complacently. "And I said to myself, 'Nice fresh eggs like these are too good for anybody less than a preacher.' So I brought them. There's just half a dozen,—he ought to eat that many in one day."
"Oh, yes, easily. He is very fond of egg-nog."
David sputtered feebly among the pillows. "Oh, easily," he echoed helplessly.
"I knew a woman that ate eighteen eggs every day," said Mrs. Sater encouragingly. "She got well and weighed two hundred and thirty pounds, and then she had apoplexy and died."
David turned on Carol reproachfully. "There you see! That's what comes of eating raw eggs." Then he added suspiciously, "Maybe you knew it before and have been enticing me to raw eggs on purpose."
Both Carol and David seized this silly pretext to relieve their feelings, and laughed so heartily that good Mrs. Sater was quite concerned for them. She had heard it sometimes affected folks like that,—a great nervous or mental shock. She looked at them very anxiously indeed.
"Are you selling your furniture pretty well?" she asked nervously.
"Oh, just fine. Mr. Barker at the drug store has promised to fumigate everything after we are gone, so we won't scatter any germs in our wake." Carol spoke hurriedly, her heart swelling with pity as she saw the sudden convulsive clutching of David's hands beneath the covers. "Mr. Daniels has a list of 'who bought what,' and will see that everything is delivered in good shape. Only, we take the money ourselves in advance. Now look at this chair, Mrs. Sater,—a lovely chair," she rattled, thinking wretchedly of that contraction of David's hands and the darkening of his eyes. "A splendid chair. It isn't sold yet. It cost us eight seventy-five one year ago, and we are selling it for the mere pittance of five dollars even,—we make it even because we haven't any change. A most beautiful chair, an article to grace any home, a constant reminder of us, a chair in which great men have sat,—Mr. Daniels, and Mr. Baldwin, and the horrible gas collector who has made life wretched for every one in the Heights, and—all for five dollars, Mrs. Sater. Can you resist it?"
Carol's voice took on a new ring as she saw the shadow leave David's eyes, and his lips curve into laughter again.
"Well, I swan, Mrs. Duke, if you don't beat all. Yes, I'll take that chair. It may not be worth five dollars, but you are."
Carol ostentatiously collected the five dollars, doubled it carefully into a tiny bit, and tied it in the corner of her handkerchief.
"My money, Mr. David Arnold Duke, and I shall buy candy and talcum with it."
Then she ran into the adjoining room to answer the telephone.
Mrs. Sater looked about her hesitatingly and leaned forward.
"David," she said in a low voice, "Carol ought to go home to her father. It's dangerous for her to stay with you. Everybody says so. Make her go home until you are well. She may get it too if she goes along. They'll take good care of you at the Presbyterian hospital out there, you a minister and all."
The laughter, the light, left David's face at the first word.
"I know it," he said in a heavy voice. "I have told her to go home. But she won't even talk it over. She gets angry if I mention it. Every one tells me it is dangerous,—but Carol won't listen."
"Just until you get well, you know."
"I shall never get well unless she is with me. But I am trying to send her away. What can I do? I can't drive her off." His hands closed and then relaxed, lying helplessly on the covers.
When Carol returned she looked suspiciously from the stern white face on the pillow to the disturbed one of her caller.
"David is tired, Mrs. Sater," she said gently. "Let's go out in the other room and visit. I have made him laugh too much to-day, and he is weak. Come along and maybe I can sell you some more furniture." Then to David, brightly, "It was Mrs. Adams, David, she wanted to know if we needed any nice fresh eggs." She flashed a smile at him and his lips answered, but his eyes were mute. Carol looked back at him from the doorway, questioning, but finally followed Mrs. Sater into the next room.
"Mrs. Sater, you will excuse me now, won't you?" she said. "But I have a feeling that David needs me. He looks so tired. You will come in again, and—"
"Certainly, my dear, David first by all means. Run right along. And if you need any more fresh eggs, just let me know."
"Yes, thank you, yes."
"Carol," whispered the kindly woman earnestly, "why don't you go home and stay with your father until David is better? They will take such good care of him at the hospital, and he will need you when he is well, and it isn't safe, Carol, it positively is not safe. Why won't you do as he tells you?"
Carol stood up, very straight and very tall. "Mrs. Sater," she said, "you know I am an old-fashioned Methodist. And I believe that God wanted David to have me in his illness, when he is idle. If He hadn't, the illness would have come before our marriage. But I think God foresaw it coming and thought maybe I could do David good when he was laid aside. I know I am a silly little goose, but David loves me, and is happy when I am with him, and enjoys me more than anything else in the world. I am going with him. I know God expects me to do my part."
And Mrs. Sater went away, after kissing Carol's cheek, which already was paling a little with anxiety.
Carol ran back to David and sat on the floor beside him, pulling his hand from beneath the cover and kissing the white, blue-veined fingers. She crooned and gurgled over him as a mother over a little child, but did not speak until at last he turned to her and said abruptly:
"Carol, won't you go home until I get well? Please dear, for my sake."
Carol kissed the thumb once more and frowned at him. "You want to flirt with the nurses when you get out there, and are trying to get me out of the road. Every one says nurses are dangerous."
"Carol, please."
"Mrs. Sater has been talking to you. Oh, I knew it. She is a nice, kind, Christian woman, and loves us both, but, David, why doesn't God teach some people to mind their own business? She is a good Christian, I know, dear, but I do believe there is still a little work of grace to be done in her."
David smiled a little, sadly.
"Carol, it would break my heart if you got this from me."
"I won't get it. They will teach us how to be careful and sanitary, and take proper precautions, and things like that. I am going to be very, very careful. Why, honey, I won't get it. But, David, I would rather get it than go away and leave you. I couldn't do that. I should never be happy again if I left you when you were needing me."
David turned his face to the wall. "Maybe, dear," he said very gently, "maybe it would be better if you did go home,—better for me. I need perfect rest you know, and we talk and laugh so much and have such good times together. I don't know, possibly I might get well faster—alone."
For a long moment Carol gazed at him in horror. "David," she gasped. "Don't say that. Dear, I will go home if it makes you worse to have me. I will do anything. I only want to help you. But I will be very nice and quiet, like a mouse, and never say a word, and not laugh once, if you take me with you. David, do I make you feel sicker? Does my chatter weary you? I thought I was helping to amuse you."
"Carol, I can't lie like that even to send you away from me. Maybe I ought to, but I can't. Why, sweetheart, you are the only thing left in the world. You are the world to me now. Dear, I said it for your sake, not for mine, Carol, never for mine."
Slowly the smiles struggled through the anguish in her face, and she resumed her kissing of his fingers.
"Silly old goose," she murmured; "big old silly goose. Just because he's a preacher he wants to boss all the time. Can't boss me. I won't be bossed. I like to boss myself. I won't let my beautiful old David go off out there to flirt with the nurses and Indian girls and whoever else is out there. I should say not. I'll stick right along, and whenever a woman turns our way, I'll shout, 'Married! He is mine!'"
"Silly old goose," she murmured.[Illustration: "Silly old goose," she murmured.]
"Silly old goose," she murmured.[Illustration: "Silly old goose," she murmured.]
David laughed at her passionate discussion to herself.
"Besides, I have been learning a lot of things. I've been talking to the doctor privately when you couldn't hear."
"Indeed!"
"Oh, yes, and we are great friends. He says if we just live clean, white, sanitary lives, I am safe. I must keep strong and fat, and the germs can't get a start. And he has been telling me lots of nice things to do. David, I know I can help you. The doctor said so. He says I must be happy and gay, and be positively sure you will be well again in time, and I can do you more good than a tonic. Yes, he said that very thing, Doctor O'Hara did. Now please beg my pardon, and maybe I'll forgive you."
David promptly did, and peace was restored.
A committee of brotherly ministers was sent out from the Presbytery to find how things were going in the little manse in the Heights. Very gently, very tenderly they made their inquiries of Carol, and Carol answered frankly.
"With the furniture money we have six hundred dollars," she told them, rather proudly.
"That's just fine. It will take you to Albuquerque and keep you straight for a few months, and by that time we'll have things in hand back here. You know, Mrs. Duke, you and David belong to us and we are going to see you through. And then when it is all over we'll get him a church out there,—why, everything is going splendidly. Now remember, it may be a few months, or it may be ten years, but we are back of you and we are going to see you through. Don't ever wonder where next month's board is to come from. It will come. It isn't charity, Mrs. Duke. It is just the big brotherhood of the church, that's all. We are going to be your brothers, and fathers, and—mothers, too, if you will have us."
The devoted mansers rallied around them, weeping over them, giving them good advice along with other more material, but not more helpful, assistance and declaring they always knew David was too good to live. And when Carol resentfully assured them that David was still very much alive, and maybe wasn't as good as they thought, they retaliated by suggesting that her life was in no danger on that score.
On the occasion of Doctor O'Hara's last visit, Carol followed him out to the porch.
"You haven't presented your bill," she reminded him. "And it's a good thing for you we are preachers or we might have slipped away in the night."
"I haven't any bill against you," he said, smiling kindly down at her.
Carol flushed. "Doctor," she protested. "We expected to pay you. We have the money. We don't want you to think we can't afford it. We knew you were an expensive doctor, but we wanted you anyhow."
He smiled again. "I know you have the money, but, my dear little girl, you are going to need every cent of it and more too before you get rid of this specter. But I couldn't charge David anything if he were a millionaire. Don't you understand,—this is the only way we doctors have of showing what we think of the big work these preachers are doing here and there around the country?"
"But, doctor," said Carol confusedly, "we are—Presbyterians, you know—we are Protestants."
The doctor laughed. "And I am a Catholic. But what is your point? David is doing good work, not my kind perhaps, and not my way, but I hope, my dear, we are big enough and broad enough to take off our hats to a good worker whether he does things just our way or not."
Carol looked abashed. She caught her under lip between her teeth and kept her eyes upon the floor for a moment. Finally she faced him bravely.
"I wasn't big or broad,—not even a little teensy bit," she said honestly. "I was a little, shut-in, self-centered goose. But I believe I am learning things now. You are grand," she said, holding out her slender hand.
The doctor took it in his. "Carol, don't forget to laugh when you get to Albuquerque. You will be sick, and sorry, and there will be sobs in your heart, and your soul will cry aloud, but—keep laughing, for David is going to need it."
Carol went directly to her husband.
"David, I am learning lots of perfectly wonderful things. If I live to be a thousand years old,—oh, David, I believe by that time I can love everybody on earth, and have sympathy for all and condemnation for none; and I will really know that nearly every one in the world isvery good, and those that are not areprettygood."
David burst into laughter at her words. "Poorly expressed, but finely meant," he cried. "Are you trying to become the preacher in our family?"
"All packed up and ready to start," she said thoughtfully, "and to-morrow night we leave our darling little manse, and our precious old mansers and turn cowboy. Aren't you glad you didn't send me home?"
In a little white cottage tent, at the end of a long row of minutely similar, little white cottage tents, sat David and Carol in the early evening of a day in May, looking wistfully out at the wide sweep of gray mesa land, reaching miles away to the mountains, blue and solemn in the distance.
"Do—do you feel better yet, David?" Carol asked at last, desperately determined to break the menacing silence.
David drew his breath. "I can't seem to notice any difference yet," he replied honestly. "It doesn't look much like Missouri, does it?"
"It is pretty,—very pretty," she said resolutely.
"Carol, be a good Presbyterian and tell the truth. Do you wish you had gone home, to green and grassy Iowa?"
"David Duke, I am at home, and here is where I want to be and no place else in the world. It is big and bleak and bare, but— You are going to get well, aren't you, David?"
"Of course I am, but give me time. Even Miracle Land can't transform weakness to health in two hours."
"I must go over to the office. Mrs. Hartley said she wanted to give me some instructions."
Carol rose quickly and stepped outside the cottage.
Crossing the mesa she met three men who stopped her with a gesture. They were of sadly similar appearance, tall, thin, shoulders stooped, hair dull and lusterless, eyes dry and bright. Carol thought at first they were brothers, and so they were,—brothers in the grip of the great white plague.
"Are you a lunger?" ejaculated one of them in astonishment, noting the light in her eyes and the flush in her cheeks.
"A—lunger?"
"Yes,—have you got the bugs?"
"The bugs!"
"Say, are you chasing the cure?"
"Of course not," interrupted the oldest of the three impatiently. "There's nothing the matter with her, except that she's a lunger's wife. Your husband is the minister from St. Louis, isn't he?"
"Yes,—I am Mrs. Duke."
"I am Thompson. I used to be a medical missionary in the Ozarks. How is your husband?"
"Oh, he is doing nicely," she said brightly,—the brightness assumed to hide the fear in her heart that some day David might look like that.
Thompson laughed disagreeably. "Sure, they always do nicely at first. But when the bugs get 'em, they're gone. They think they're better, they say they are getting well,—God!"
Carol looked at him with questioning reproach in the shadowed eyes. "It does not hurt us to hope, at least," she said gently. "It does no harm, and it makes us happier."
"Oh, yes," came the bitter answer. "Sure it does. But wait a few years. Bugs eat hope and happiness as well as lungs."
Carol quivered. "You make me afraid," she said.
"Thompson is an old croak," interrupted one of the younger men, smiling encouragement. "Don't waste your time on him,—talk to me. He is such a grouch that he gives the bugs a regular bed to sleep in. He'd have been well years ago if he hadn't been such a chronic kicker. Cheer up, Mrs. Duke. Of course your husband will get along. Got it right at the start, didn't you?"
"Oh, yes, right at the very start."
"That's good. Most people fool around too long and then it's too late, and all their own fault. Sure, your husband is all right. It's too bad Thompson can't die, isn't it? He's got too mean a disposition to keep on living with white folks."
"Oh, I shouldn't say that," disclaimed Carol quickly. "He—he is just not quite like the people I have known. I didn't know how to take him. He was only joking of course." She smiled forgivingly at him, and Thompson had the grace to flush a little.
"I am Jimmy Jones," said the second man. "I was a bartender in little old Chi. Far cry from a missionary to a bartender, but I'll take my chances on Paradise with Thompson any day."
"A—a bartender." Carol rubbed her slender fingers in bewilderment.
"I am Arnold Barrows, formerly a Latin professor.Amo, mas, mat," said the third man suddenly. "I am looking for my Paradise right here on earth, and I am sorry you are married. My idea of Paradise is a girl like you and a man like me, and everything else go hang."
Carol drew herself up as though poised for flight, a startled bird taking wing.
Thompson and Jones laughed at her horrified face, but the professor maintained his solemn gravity.
"He is just a fool," said the bartender encouragingly. "Don't bother about him. It is not you in particular, he is nuts on all the girls. Cheer up. We're not so bad as we sound. I have a cottage near you. Tell the parson I'll be in to-morrow to give him the latest light on the bonfires in perdition. I know all about them. Tell him we'll organize a combination prayer-meeting; he can lead the prayer and I'll give advanced lessons in bunny-hugs and fancy-fizzes."
"Good night,—good night,—good night," gasped Carol.
Forgetting her errand to the office, she rushed back to David, to safety, to the sheltering folds of the little white cottage tent.
He questioned her curiously about her experience, and although she tried to evade the harsher points, he drew every word from her reluctant lips.
"Lunger,—and bugs,—and chasers,—it doesn't sound nice, David."
"But maybe it is the best thing after all. We are not used to it yet, but I suppose it is better for them to take it lightly and laugh and be funny about it. They have to spend a lifetime with the specter, you know,—maybe the joking takes away some of the grimness."
Carol shivered a little.
"Aren't you going to the office?"
"No, I am not. If Mrs. Hartley wants to see me, she can come here. I am scared, honestly. Let's do something. Let's go to bed, David."
It was a two-roomed cottage, a thin canvas wall separating the rooms. There were window-flaps on every side, and conscientiously Carol left them every one upraised, although she had goose-flesh every time she glanced into the black wall of darkness outside the circle of their lights, a wall only punctuated by the yellow rays of light here and there, where the more riotous guests of the institution were dissipating up to the wicked hour of nine o'clock.
"Good night, David,—you will call me if you want anything, won't you?" And Carol leaped into bed, desperately afraid a lizard, or a scorpion or a centipede might lie beneath in wait for unwary pink toes once the guarding lights were out.
This was the land where health began,—the land of pure light air, of clear and penetrating sunshine, the land of ruddy cheeks and bounding blood. This was the land which would bring color back to the pale face of David, would restore the vigor to his step, the ring to his voice. It was the land where health began.
She must love it, she would love it, she did love it. It was a rich, beautiful, gracious land,—gray, sandy, barren, but green with promise to Carol and to David, as it had been to thousands of others who came that way with a burden of weakness buoyed by hope.
A shrill shriek sounded outside the tent,—a dangerous rustling in the sand, a crinkling of dead leaves in the corners of the steps, a ring, a roar, a wild tumult. Something whirled to the floor in David's room, papers rattled, curtains flapped, and there was a metallic patter on the uncarpeted floor of the tent. Carol gave an indistinct murmur of fear and burrowed beneath the covers.
It was David who threw back the blankets and turned on the lights. Just a sand-storm, that was all,—a common sand-storm, without which New Mexico might be almost any other place on earth. David's Bible had been whirled from the window-ledge, and fine sand was piling in through the screens.
Carol withdrew from the covers most courageously when she heard the comforting click of the electric switch, and the reassuring squeak of David's feet on the floor of the room.
"Everything's all right," he called to her. "Don't get scared. Will you help me put these flaps down?"
Carol leaped from her bed at that, and ran to lower the windows. Then she sat by David's side while the storm raged outside, roaring and piling sand against the little tent.
After that, to bed once more, still determinedly in love with the land of health, and praying fervently for morning.
Soon David's heavy breathing proclaimed him sound asleep. But sleep would not come to Carol. She gazed as one hypnotized into the starry brightness of the black sky as she could see it through the window beside her. How ominously dark it was. Softly she slipped out of bed and lowered the flaps of the window. She did not like that darkness. After the storm, David had insisted the windows must be opened again,—that was the first law of lungers and chasers.
She was cold when she got back into bed, for the chill of the mountain nights was new to her. And an hour later, when she was almost dozing, footsteps prowled about the tent, loitering in the leaves outside her western window. David was sleeping, she must not interfere with a moment of his restoring rest. She clasped her hands beneath the covers, and moistened her feverish lips. If it were an Indian lurking there, his deadly tomahawk upraised, she prayed he might strike the fatal blow at once. But the steps passed, and she climbed on her knees and lowered the flaps on the side where the steps sounded.
Later, the sudden tinkle of a bell across the grounds startled her into sitting posture. No, it wasn't David, after all,—somebody else,—some other woman's David, likely, ringing for the nurse. Carol sighed. How could David get well and strong out here, with all these other sick ones to wring his heart with pity? Were the doctors surely right,—was this the land of health?
Again footsteps approached the tent, stirring up the dry sand, and again Carol held her breath until they had passed. Then she grimly closed the windows on the third side of her room, and smiled to herself as she thought, "I'll get them up again before David is awake."
But she crept into bed and slept at last.
Early, very early, she was awakened by the sunlight pouring upon the flaps at the windows. It was five o'clock, and very cold. Carol wrapped a blanket about her and peeked in upon her husband.
"Good morning," she greeted him brightly. "Isn't it lovely and bright? How is my nice old boy? Nearly well?"
"Just fine. How did you sleep?"
"Like a top," she declared.
"Were you afraid?"
"Um, not exactly," she denied, glancing at him with sudden suspicion.
"Did the wind blow all your flaps down?"
"How did you know?"
"Oh, I was up long ago looking in on you. We'll get a room over in the Main Building to-day. It costs more, but the accommodations are so much better. We are directly on the path from the street, so we hear every passing footstep."
Carol blushed. "I am not afraid," she insisted.
"We'll get a room just the same. It will be easier for you all the way around."
Carol flung open the door and gazed out upon the land of health. The long desolate mesa land stretched far away to the mountains, now showing pink and rosy in the early sunshine. The little white tents about them were as suggestively pitiful as before. There were no trees, no flowers, no carpeting grass, to brighten the desolation.
Bare, bleak, sandy slopes reached to the mountains on every side. David sat up in bed and looked out with her.
"Just a long bare slope of sand, isn't it?" she whispered. "Sand and cactus,—no roses blooming here upon the sandy slopes."
"Yes, just sandy slopes to the mountains,—but Carol, they are sunny,—bare and bleak, but still they are sunny for us. Let's not lose sight of that."