After Boswell's confidence concerning Anton Farwell, Priscilla's relation to the man who had befriended her, to life itself, became more vital and normal. The superficial conditions were dissipated by the knowledge that Boswell, in speaking so frankly to her, considered her a woman, not a child, and expected a woman's acceptance of duties and responsibilities. Besides this, Boswell himself took on new proportions. His whimsical oddities had been, for an hour, set aside. For a time he had permitted her to see and know him—the simple, good man he really was. In short, Priscilla could no longer play, could no longer make a defence of her shyness and ignorance; she realized that she must plunge into the whirlpool for which she had left the In-Place and she must do so at once.
Boswell might fantastically play at being ninety and permit her to lend her strength and youth to his use, but she never again could be deceived. He was assisting her for Farwell's sake. He liked her, found her entertaining, but intuitively she knew that in order to retain his respect and confidence she must fulfil her part.
For a week or so longer he and she went to operas and theatres together while final arrangements were being completed for her immediate admittance, on trial, to the finest private hospital in the city, to which was attached a training school of high repute.
Priscilla was both right and wrong about Boswell. He did appreciate and admire her insistence to begin her career. It was the only course for her to take; but he looked forward to the lonely, empty days without her with real concern.
He had, to a certain extent, grown used to the detachment and colourlessness of his life since Farwell had left it; but here, quite unexpectedly, a young and vital personality had entered in and had given him, in a crude, friendly way, to be sure, what his absent friend had given—the assurance that his deformity could not exclude him from the sweet humanity that was keen enough to recognize the soul of him. Sensitive, shrinking from suffering and publicity, the man found in Priscilla's companionship and confiding friendliness the deepest joy he had known since his great loss. He wished that he was ninety, indeed, and that his infirmity and wealth might secure for him this new interest that had taken him out of himself and caused his sluggish senses to revive. But he was not yet fifty. For all his handicaps he was still in fair health, and the best that he could hope for was that Priscilla, among her new duties, would remember him, come back to him, make his lonely home a retreat and comfort when her arduous duties permitted.
Those last few days of freedom and companionship were beautiful to them both. With pride and a certain complacency, Boswell saw that he had somewhat formed and developed Priscilla's tastes and judgment. She was no longer the ignorant girl she once had been. Music did not now move her to tears and a kind of dumb suffering. She began to understand, to control her emotions, and gain, through them, pleasure without pain.
"She laughs," Boswell thought, "more intelligently and discriminately when she sees a good farce."
All this was satisfying to them, but on a certain late-winter day it came to an end, and Priscilla, thrilling with a sense of achievement, entered St. Albans on probation.
What the weeks of doubt and preparation meant, no one, not even Boswell, ever knew. The old childish determination to suffer, in order to know, held true and unfaltering. The tortured nerves, after the first shocks, regained their poise and strength; the heavy work and strict discipline left the sturdy body like fine steel, although weariness often tested it sorely.
"'Tis not to dance, Priscilla Glenn," she often warned herself; "it is to suffer and know!"
Then she grimly set her strong, white teeth. With all the getting and relinquishing, however, she never forgot to laugh, and her courageous cheerfulness won for her more than she realized while she was learning the curves of her Road.
And then she was accepted. No one but herself had ever doubted her triumph, but when she first learned the verdict she was wild with delight and could hardly wait for her "hours off" to tell Boswell all about it.
She was "capped" at last. No hard-won crown was ever appreciated more than that white trifle which rested like a bit of snow upon the "rusty hair" of Priscilla Glenn.
Before the little mirror in her own bedchamber, on that first victorious day, she posed and confided to her appreciative reflection.
"So this is Priscilla Glenn of the In-Place?" she whispered. "I simply can't believe it! No one else would believe it either; and you are not the same. You never will be again what you once were."
The flush of excitement showed plainer now than of yore, for the clear, dark skin had taken on the delicacy of the city's tint. The eyes were deep and grave, for already they had witnessed the mystery of life and death. They had smiled down at pain-racked motherhood; had held, in calm courage, many an outgoing soul. Priscilla had a closer vision than she once had had when she dreamed her dreams of what lay beyond the Secret Portage and the Big Bay.
The reflection nodded acknowledgment to all that the excited brain affirmed. Then suddenly:
"Why, Priscilla Glenn, you are crying! And for—which?"
The quaint expression brought a smile.
"You are homesick, Priscilla Glenn, homesick for what you have never had! That's the matter with you. You want some one to go to and tell about this, but in all the world there isn't any one who could understand. You poor, poor dear! What would your father and mother think of you? There, now, never mind. You are only a—blue and white nurse. Even Master Farwell and Mr. Boswell could not understand; but a woman could. Some woman! She would know what it means to be free at last and have something, quite your own, with which to hew and cut your own road; yes, your own road, right along to—to the end, just as old Pine used to cut the new trails. It's the standing up straight at last on your own roots like the dear little white birch in the Place Beyond the Winds. A woman could understand, but no one else."
By some subtle power Priscilla had thought and talked her fancy far and away from the plain room of St. Albans. Her longing, her quaint "for which?" the memory of the Indian guide and the little white birch had performed a miracle. Through the excitement and elation stole the fantastic power of childhood. She was on her Road, bound for her Heart's Desire! No doubt, no misgiving, assailed the moment of joy. Forward, just a little beyond, success awaited her. The possibility of defeat was over forever. From now on, through weariness, toil, and perhaps suffering, she was going to her own. She had never realized the tense mental and physical strain through which she had passed; she did not realize it now, but with the relaxation came an almost dangerous exhilaration. The present, only so far as it verified the past, had no hold upon her; she let herself go.
Back again was she in Kenmore. It was springtime, and the red rocks and hemlocks shone and the water sparkled; she heard it lapping against the tiny islands, so glad was it to be free of the winter's grasp. Some one was dancing to the Spring's Call—a small, graceful thing with a bright red cape flying on the wind, the soft wind of the In-Place. There was music, too! Oh! how clearly it came rising and falling; and then, in the bare hospital room, the blue-clad nurse tripped this way and that, while memory held true to note and step!
Oh! It was on again, on again, that dear old dance. It dried the tears in the tender eyes and held the smile on the joyous lips. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the dance ceased, a flushed face confronted the reflection in the glass, and a low curtsey followed, while a reverent voice repeated as if in prayer:
"Skib, skib, skibble—de—de—dosh!"
The words came of their own volition; they were part and kin to the mood that held and swayed her. They were a pagan plea for guidance and protection in the opening life where wind and fury would beset her.
Suddenly words of everyday life found their way to her detached consciousness and recalled her to the present with almost cruel force.
"It's the little Canuck he wants! Just fancy! I heard him say so to—to Mrs. Thomas. Such injustice! But there the old Grenadier comes now. Hustle!"
Priscilla heard the scampering feet, then, after a moment's pause, the dignified advance of the superintendent. There was a tap on the door. The doors of some rooms, owing to discipline, were never tapped by Mrs. Thomas, but the reason that compelled her to show this courtesy to Priscilla also caused her to wish this young Canadian was a less serious person; one more prone to frivol in her "hours off," and not have, for her most intimate companion, the strange dwarf. She could have forgiven Priscilla Glenn if, having overdone her "late leave," she had crawled into a back window to escape punishment. It would have made her more understandable. As it was, Mrs. Thomas tapped!
"Come in, please," said Priscilla, and the large, handsome superintendent entered and sat down.
"I thought I would come and tell you," she said, trying to keep her professional expression while her maternal heart warmed to the girl, "that you have been highly honoured. There is to be a very important operation to-morrow at three o'clock. Doctor Ledyard is to perform it, assisted by his young partner. He has asked for several nurses, and he namedyou—singled you out. He has observed you; wishes to—use you. It's a great compliment, Miss Glynn." So often had Priscilla corrected, to no avail, the wrong pronouncing of her name, that she now accepted it without further demur. Flushing and trembling, she went close to Mrs. Thomas and held her hands out impulsively.
"All my glory is coming at once!" she faltered.
"Glory? Well, you are a queer girl. To stand for hours under that man's eye! You call it glory? Why, it is an honour because it isthat man, that eye; but as to glory! My dear Miss Glynn, I must insist that you go off this afternoon and play—somewhere. Then come back and get a good night's rest. The life of the richest man in New York will hang in the balance to-morrow, and not even the glorified nurse can afford to have a trembling hand when she passes up an instrument or wipes the perspiration from the surgeon's brow."
"Thank you, oh! thank you, Mrs. Thomas! Of course, if I were not so stupid I could make you understand how I feel. I seem to have found the right way, and everything is conspiring to tell me so. You see, I might not have qualified; some girls do not. No one might have noticed me; you might not have been so kind. Often I am rather lonely and ungrateful; but you must try to believe that I am—very happy now."
"I suppose"—Mrs. Thomas was holding the radiant young face with her clear, calm eyes—"I suppose you are one of those natures that craves success; cannot brook defeat. Life will deal harshly with you."
"I am willing to suffer. It is the learning I must have. It is the chance to learn that makes me so glad," Priscilla burst in, "and it's this sure feeling that I am on the right trail."
"There is a difference. But somehow the career of a nurse is so—well—difficult, and—hard," Mrs. Thomas went on. "I wonder how you can approach it with your enthusiasm undaunted after months of service."
"I do not know, but it seems my road to what is mine. It gets me so near people—when they most need me—are so glad to have me! There seems to be nothing between me—and them. I love it, oh! I love it, Mrs. Thomas!"
"See here, Miss Glynn, where are you going this afternoon?"
"I do not know; just—going."
"I wish—dear me! I do wish you could go somewhere; do something shockingly frivolous."
"No, I couldn't to-day. I feel like praying—or dancing. There's the most wonderful, singing feeling inside of me. That's why I do not need—fun as much as most of the girls do. You are very kind; I think I will go to your big, fine park and walk and walk. I'd like to see the sun set and the stars——"
"Now, Miss Glynn, unless you promise me to get under shelter before the stars come out I'll call the police. Some day you will learn that New York is not your Canadian hamlet."
Priscilla laughed gayly.
"Very well. I will take my walk and then go to my dear old friend. He'll be looking for me from his high window. He always stands there late afternoons, on the chance of my coming. He says it's a pleasure to feel you have something thatmaycome, even if you know it isn't coming just then."
Priscilla changed her clothing and set forth a half hour later for her walk and to meet with an adventure that changed the current of her thought materially. From that afternoon she was pressed and forced up her Road by a power that had taken her into control with definite purpose.
She went into the park at the lower entrance and walked rapidly to a high place that was a favourite with her. So peaceful and detached it was that she could generally think her thoughts, sing aloud a little song, and feel safe from intrusion. Being high and open, the sunlight rested longer there than it did below and misled one as to time.
There was a glorious sunset that evening, a golden, deep one, against which the bare trees, towers, and house roofs stood outlined black and sharp. It was like a burnished shield. It was a still day, with a gentle crispness in the air that stimulated while it did not chill.
"Everything is waiting. What for? what for?" Priscilla whispered sociably to herself. She was young, full of health and success. Of course she was waiting as the young do. And then something touched her cheek softly, and, looking down, she saw that her dark suit was covered with feathery snowflakes. So silently had they escaped a passing cloud that she was startled. She arose at once and was surprised to find, in the hollow below, that the paths were crusted and the electric lights gleamed yellow through a fluttering mist of flying snow. It was very beautiful, but it warned one to hasten, and besides it had grown quite dark.
There was a path, Priscilla knew it well, that led straight across the park to an entrance near Boswell's home, and she took it now at a rapid pace.
The beauty of the walk did not escape her, the exhilaration of the air acted like a cordial upon her, she seemed hardly to touch the ground as she ran on; and once she paused before setting her foot upon the lovely whiteness. As she hesitated some one stepped from the shadow of a clump of bushes and confronted her under the electric light.
"Can you tell me how to find the nearest way out? I'm lost."
Priscilla's heart gave one hard throb and stood still, it seemed for an hour, while an almost forgotten terror seized and held her. She was looking full upon Jerry-Jo McAlpin! A soiled and haggard shadow he was of what he once had been, but it was Jerry-Jo and no other.
"I—I did not mean to frighten you. Forgive me. I ain't going to hurt you, Miss. I——"
But Priscilla was gone before the sentence was finished. Gone before she knew whether the speaker had recognized her or not. Gone before—and then she stood still. She could not leave him to wander alone at night in that big, strange place. No matter what happened, she must treat him humanly, she, who knew the danger. She went back, her blood running like ice through her body; but Jerry-Jo McAlpin was not there. Priscilla waited, and once she spoke vague directions to the empty space, but no answering voice replied. Presently she controlled herself, and took to the path again, and reached John Boswell's house before he had left his window.
She did not tell of the encounter; she felt she must wait, but in her heart she knew that Jerry-Jo McAlpin was as surely on her trail as she was herself. Such things as that meeting did not happen to them of the In-Place unless for a purpose.
She had a wonderful evening with Boswell. They did not go out, and after dinner he read her some manuscript stories. Boswell had never before so intimately permitted her to come close to his work. She had seen stories of his in print, had heard plans for others, but before the fire in his study that night he read, among other things, "The Butterfly and the Beetle." So beautifully, so touchingly, had he pictured the little romance, of which Priscilla herself was part, that the tears fell from the girl's eyes while her lips were smiling at the tender humour. The undercurrent of meaning threw new light on the lonely life of the rich, but wretched man. The joy depicted in simple, friendly intercourse, the aspiration of the Beetle, the grateful appreciation for the plain, common happenings that in most lives were taken for granted, but which in his rose to monumental importance, endeared him to her anew. It brought back to her what Boswell had told her of his relations with Farwell Maxwell, her Anton Farwell. She could now, with her broader, more mature reason, understand the devotion the cripple had given the one man who, in the empty years, had taken him without reservation, had ignored his limitations, and had been his friend and comrade.
Suddenly she asked:
"Have you heard from—from Master Farwell lately?" The question startled Boswell.
"Yes. I had a letter yesterday. He has been ill. That squaw woman, Long Jean, took care of him. The letter sounded restless. There'll be trouble with Farwell before we get through. My letters are evidently lacking power, and your silence baffles him."
"Poor Master Farwell!"
"I fancy he thought Joan Moss would go to him. It has been hard work to build a barrier between him and her that could satisfy, now that he believes you have told her of his being among the living."
"What have you said to him all this time?"
Boswell shifted his position, and Priscilla saw the haggard, careworn look spread over his face. By sudden insight she realized that he looked old, pitiful, and far from well, and her heart filled with sympathy. The half-mystical life was telling upon him, becoming a burden.
"Oh, at first I said the surprise of knowing he lived had made her, made Joan Moss, ill. It took nearly six months to cover that, and I did some good writing during that period. Then I told him there were things to settle; then, fear for his safety overpowered her: dread of being tracked. And since then—well, since then there has been silence. Can you not understand? His pride has asserted itself at last. If she will not communicate with him herself, he will have none of me; none of you. Has he ever said a word about her to—you?"
"Never," Priscilla answered.
"But," Boswell went on, "I notice a change in him; an almost feverish impatience. I fear he doubts me—after all these years!"
"And when he knows?"
The man by the fire shrank deeper in his chair.
"When he knows?" he repeated. "Why, then he will have an opportunity to understand my life-long devotion, my gratitude, my love! That is all."
"For real emergencies," Doctor Ledyard once remarked to Helen Travers, "give me the nervous, high-strung women. They come through shock and danger better, they hold to a climax more steadily. Your phlegmatic woman goes to pieces because she hasn't imagination and vision enough to carry her over the present."
This reasoning caused him to select Priscilla Glenn for one of the most critical operations he had ever performed. Among the blue and white nurses of his knowledge this girl with the strange, uplifted expression of face; this girl who was actually on the lookout for experience and practice, and who seriously loved her profession, stood in a class by herself. He had long had his eye upon her, had meant to single her out. And now the opportunity had come.
Perhaps the most important man in business circles, certainly one of the richest men in the city, had come to that period of his life's career when he must pay toll for the things he had done and left undone in his past. The broad, common gateway gaped wide for him, and only one chance presented itself as a possible means of holding him back from the long journey he so shudderingly contemplated.
"One chance in ten?" he questioned.
"One—in——" Ledyard had hesitated.
"A hundred?"
"A thousand."
A breathless pause followed. Then:
"And if I do not take it, how long?"
"A week, a month; not longer."
"I'll take it."
"I'll have my partner——Would you care for any one else?" Ledyard asked.
"No. Since it must be, I put myself in your hands. I trust you above any one I know. Do your best for me, and in case I slip through your fingers I thank you now, and—good-bye."
Before any great event, or operation, Ledyard was supersensitive, highly wrought, and nervous. When he heard the announcement that day of the operation: "All is ready, sir!" he stepped, gowned and masked, into the operating-room, and was aware of a senseless inclination to ask some one—he did not know whom—to make less noise and to lower the shades. Then his eye fell, not on the dignified and serene head nurse, not on the other ghostly young forms in their places near the table, not on the anesthetist, nor young Travers, his partner, but on the nurse who stood a little apart, the girl he had selected in order to test her on a really great case. So radiant and inspired was Priscilla Glenn's face that it fairly shone in that grim place and positively had the effect of bringing Ledyard to the calmness that characterized his action once the necessity demanded.
"How is your patient, Doctor Sloan?" he asked the anesthetist.
"Fine, Doctor Ledyard. I'm ready when you are."
Then tense silence followed, broken only by the click of instruments and the curt, crisp commands. The minutes, weighted with concentration, ran into the hour. Not a body in that room was aware of fatigue or anxiety. A life was at stake, and every one knew it. It did not matter that the man upon the table was important and useful: had he been the meanest of the mean and in the same critical state, that steady hand, which guided the knife so scientifically and powerfully, would have worked the same.
The sun beat down upon the glass roof of that high room; the perspiration started to Ledyard's forehead and a nurse wiped it away.
From her place Priscilla Glenn watched breathlessly the scene before her. It seemed to her that she had never seen an operation before; had never comprehended what one could be. She realized the odds against which those two great men were battling, and her gaze rested finally, not on the head surgeon, but on his partner. Once, as if by some subtle attraction, he raised his eyes and met hers. Above the mask his glance showed kindly and encouragingly. He knew that some nurses lost their nerve when a thing stretched on as this did; he never could quite overlook the fact that nurses were women, as well, and he hated to see one go under. But this young nurse was showing no weakness. Travers saw that, after a moment, and dropped his eyes. But that glance had fixed Priscilla's face in his memory, and when, after the great man had been carried to his room with hope following him, when he could be left with safety to his private nurse, Travers came upon the girl standing by a deep window in the upper hall. He remembered her at once and stopped to say a pleasant word.
This was not the strictly proper thing to do, and Travers knew it. Ledyard was always challenging his undignified tendencies.
"Unless doctors and nurses can leave their sex outside their profession," was a pet epigram of Ledyard's, "they had better choose another."
But Travers had never been able to fulfil his partner's ideal.
"It was a wonderful operation," he said. "I hope it did not overtire you. You will get hardened after a while."
"I am not at all tired. Yes, it was—wonderful! I did not know any operation could be like that—I mean in the way that it was done. I have always been afraid of Doctor Ledyard before; all of us are; I shall never be again."
"May I ask why?"
Travers, being young and vital, was forgetting, for the moment, his professional air to a dangerous extent. He was noticing the strange coloured hair under the snowy cap, the poise of the head, the deep violet eyes in the richly tinted face.
"It was that—well, the look on his face after he had done all that he could—done it so wonderfully. That look was—a prayer! I shall never forget."
Travers gave a light laugh.
"It would be like Doctor Ledyard," he said with a peculiarly boyish ring in his voice, "to do his part first and pray afterward."
"But no one could ever be afraid of him again having once seen that look!"
"Miss Glynn," Travers replied; "they could! and yet thelookholds the fear in check."
Priscilla went early to bed that night. She had planned a visit to Boswell when her enthusiasm was at its height, but at the day's end she found herself so exhausted that she sought her room in a state bordering on collapse.
Sounds outside caught and held her attention; every sense was quiveringly alert and receptive; she was at the mercy of her subconscious self.
"Extry! extry!" bellowed a boy just below her window; "turribul accident on—de—extry! extry! Latest bulletin—Gordan Moffatt—big fin—cier—extry! extry!"
Priscilla sat up in bed and listened. So intimate had the insistent boy in the street become that she was drawn to him by a common bond of sympathy.
Slowly a luxurious sense of weariness overcame her and again she leaned back on her pillow and sank into a semiconscious sleep. Balanced between life and the oblivion, into which reason enters blindfolded, she made no resistance, but was swayed by every passing wave of thought, memory, and vision.
The voice outside merged presently into Jerry-Jo McAlpin's. So naturally did it do so that the girl upon the bed, rigid and pale, accepted the change with no surprise.
Jerry-Jo was asking her the way out! He was lost—lost. He wanted to get out of the darkness and the noise; he wanted to find his way back to the In-Place.
Yes, she would show him! There was no fear of him; no repulsion. She was very safe and strong, and she knew that it was wiser for Jerry-Jo to go back home.
Then suddenly she and he were transported from the bewildering city, talking in its sleep, to the sweet, fresh dimness of the Kenmore Green, where the steamer had left them. It was early, very early morning, not more than four o'clock, and the stars were bright and the hemlocks black, and the red rocks looked soft in the shadows, like pillows. And over the Green, loping and inquisitive, came Sandy McAdam's dog, Bounder. How natural and restful the scene was! Then it was Jerry-Jo, not Priscilla, who was leading. The half-breed with a gesture of friendliness was beckoning her on toward the mossy wood path leading to Lonely Farm. There was a definiteness about the slouching figure that forbade any pause at the White Fish Lodge or the master's dark and silent house. Priscilla longed to stop, but she hastened on, feeling a need for hurry.
Presently she saw the little house, her father's house, and there was a light shining from the kitchen window. Jerry-Jo, still preceding her, tapped on the outer door, but when the door fell open Jerry-Jo was gone! Alone, Priscilla confronted her father, and saw with surprise that he evidently expected her. While the look of hatred and doubt still rested in his eyes, there was also a look of dumb pity. No word was spoken. Nathaniel merely stepped aside and closed the door behind her. Then she began a strange, breathless hunt for something which, at first, she could not call by name; it evaded and eluded her. Something was missing; something she wanted desperately; but the rooms were horribly dark and lonely, and the stillness hurt her more and more.
At last she came back to her father and the warm, lighted kitchen.
"I cannot find—my mother," she said, and the reality set her trembling.
"Your—mother? I—I cannot find her, either. I thought she—followed you!"
Cold and shivering, Priscilla sat up in bed. Her teeth chattered and there were tears on her cheeks. They did not seem like her own tears. It was as if some one, bending over her, had let them fall from eyes seeking to find her in the dark.
"Mother!" moaned Priscilla, and with the word a yearning and craving for her mother filled every sense. By a magic that the divine only controls, poor Theodora Glenn in that moment was transformed and radiantly crowned with the motherhood she had so impotently striven to achieve in her narrowed, blighted life. The suffering of maternity, its denials and relinquishings she had experienced, but never its joy of realization, unless, as her spirit passed from the Place Beyond the Winds to its Home, it paused beside the little, narrow, white bed upon which Priscilla lay, and caught that name "Mother!" spoken with a sudden inspiration of understanding.
And that night, with only her grim husband and Long Jean beside her, Theodora escaped the bondage of life.
After the strange dream, Priscilla, awed and trembling, walked to the wide open window of her room. For some moments she stood there breathing fast and hard while the cruel clutch of superstition hurt and held her.
"Something has happened," she faltered, leaning upon the casement and looking down into the silent street, for the restless city had at last fallen to sleep. "Something in Kenmore!"
A red, pulsing planet, shining high over a nearby church tower, caught her eye and brought a throb of comfort to her—a tender thought of home.
"To-morrow, perhaps, a letter will come from Master Farwell; if not, I will write to him. I must know."
For two or three days things fell into such commonplace routine that the excitement of the big operation and the disturbing dream of the night lost their sharp, clear lines; became blurred and part of the web and woof of the hospital régime. There was little time for introspection or romancing and even the chance meeting with Jerry-Jo was relegated to the non-essentials. Of course he was in the city, but so were the Hornby boys and others from the In-Place. The whirlpool was a big and rushing thing, and if they who had once been neighbours caught a glimpse of each other from dizzy eddies, what did it matter? The possibility of second meetings was rare.
John Boswell had been sympathetic, to a certain degree, with Priscilla concerning the operation and her very evident pride in the part she had been permitted to take in it. With the instinctive horror that many have concerning sickness and suffering, he always made an effort to appear sympathetic when Priscilla grew graphic. Often this caused her to laugh, but she never doubted Boswell's sincere interest in her, personally. That she had overcome and achieved was a thing of real gratification to the lonely man; that she came to him naturally and eagerly, during her hours of freedom, was the only unalloyed joy of his present existence. Even Toky hailed her appearances now with frank pleasure, for she, and she alone, brought the rare, sweet smile to the master's face and gave a meaning to the artistic meals that were planned.
"I think, my Butterfly," Boswell often said to her, "that you have soared to glory through suffering and gore! But it is the soaring and the glory that matter, after all. Do not lay it up against your poor Beetle if he makes a wry face now and then. You are desperately dramatic, you know, but even in my shudders I do not lose sight of the fact that you are a very triumphant Butterfly."
Priscilla beamed upon him; the new light of well-poised serenity did not escape him.
"If I could only explain!" she once said to him as they sat facing each other across the table that Toky had laid so artistically. "When I feel the deepest my words seem shut in a cage; only a few get through the bars. I really believe people all feel the same about their little victories. It isn't the kind of victory; it is the sure realization that you are doingyourwork—the work you can do best. Why, sometimes I feel as if I were the big All Mother, and the sad, helpless, suffering folk weremydear children just looking to me—to me! And then I try to take the pain and fear from their faces by all the arts my profession has taught me and all the—thesomethingthat is in me, and—I tell you——"
Priscilla paused, while the shining light in her big eyes was brightened, rather than lessened, by the tears that gathered, then retreated.
"And for all this," Boswell broke in, "you are to get twenty-five per, or for a particular case, thirty-five per?"
They smiled broadly at each other, for their one huge, compelling joke loomed close.
"Well, sir, when one considers what two intelligent people, like you and me, did with Master Farwell's one hundred dollars, the future looks wonderfully rich! I shall soon be able to repay the loan with interest."
And then they talked a bit of Master Farwell and the In-Place, always skirting the depths gracefully, for Boswell never permitted certain subjects to escape his control. It was the half-playful, but wholly kind dignity that had won for him Priscilla's faith and dependence.
For a week or two after Gordon Moffatt's operation things went calmly and prosaically at the hospital. The rich man recovered so rapidly and satisfactorily that even the outside world took things for granted, and any items of news concerning him were to be found on the inside pages of the newspapers. During his convalescence Priscilla met Doctor Ledyard and Doctor Travers many times. Once, by some mysterious arrangement, she was assigned charge, in the rich man's room, while his own nurse was absent. For three days and nights she obeyed his impatient commands and reasoned with him when he confused his dependent condition with his usual domineering position.
"Damn me!" he once complained to Travers when he thought Priscilla was out of hearing; "that young woman you've given charge over me ought to have a bigger field for her accomplishments. She's a natural-born tyrant. I tried to escape her this morning; had got as far as one foot out of bed when she bore down upon me, calmly, devilishly calmly, pointed to my offending foot, and said: "Back, sir!" Then we argued a bit—I'm afraid I was a trifle testy—and finally she laid hands upon my ankle in the most scientific manner and had me on my back before I could think of the proper adjectives to apply to her impudence."
Travers laughed and looked beyond the sick man's bed to the bowed head of Priscilla as she bent over some preparation she was compounding in an anteroom. From a high window the sunlight was streaming down on the wonderful rusty-coloured hair. The girl's attitude of detachment and concentration held the physician's approving glance, but the wave of hair under the white cap and against the smooth, clear skin lingered in the memory of themanlong after he forgot Moffatt's amusing anecdote.
And then, because things were closing in upon Priscilla Glenn's little stage, something happened so commonplace in its character that its effect upon the girl was out of all proportion.
After a rather strenuous day she was sleeping heavily in her little white room when a sharp knock on her door brought her well-trained senses into action at once.
"There's been an accident, Miss Glynn." It was the superintendent who spoke. "Please report on Ward Five as soon as possible."
It was an insignificant accident; such a one as occurs shockingly often in our big cities. A large touring car, with seven passengers, rushing up a broad avenue with a conscientious man at the wheel, had overhauled a poor derelict with apparently no fixed purpose in his befuddled brain. In order to spare the fellow, the chauffeur had wheeled his car madly to one side, and, by so doing, had hit an electric-light pole, with the result that every one was more or less injured, the forlorn creature who had caused the excitement, most of all, for the over-turned machine had included him in its crushing destruction.
Four men and three women were carried to St. Albans and now occupied private rooms, while the torn and broken body of the unknown stranger lay in Ward Five, quite unconscious. He was breathing faintly, and, since they had made him clean and decent, he looked very young and wan as he rested upon the narrow, white bed.
Priscilla stood at the foot of the cot and read the chart which a former nurse had hurriedly made out; then she came around to the side and looked down upon—Jerry-Jo McAlpin!
She knew him at once. The deathlike repose had wiped away much that recent years had engraven on his face. He looked as Priscilla remembered him, standing in his father's boat, proudly playing the man.
For a moment the quiet girl grew rigid with superstitious fear. That deathlike creature before her filled her with unreasoning alarm. She almost expected him to open his black eyes and laughingly announce that he had found her at last! She longed to flee from the room before he had a chance to gain control of her. She breathed fast and hard, as she had that morning when his ringing jeer had stayed her feet as she ran from the Far Hill Place after the night of terror. Then sanity came to her relief and she knew, with a pitying certainty born of her training, that Jerry-Jo McAlpin could never harm her again. That he was a link between the past and the future she realized with strange sureness. He had always been that. He had made things happen; been the factor in bringing experiences to her. She, in self-preservation, would not claim any knowledge of him now; she would care for him and wait—wait until she understood just what part he was to play in her present experience. He might threaten all that she had gained for herself—her peace and security. Her only safeguard now was to ignore the personality before her and respond to the appeal of the "case."
Jerry-Jo was destined to become interesting before he slipped away. Known only as a number, since he had not been identified or claimed, he rapidly rose to importance. After three days of unconsciousness he still persisted, and while his soul wandered on the horizon, his body responded to the care given it and grew in strength. One doctor after another watched and commented on his chances, and in due time Doctor Travers, hearing of the case, stopped to examine it, and, in the interest of science, suggested an operation that might possibly return the poor fellow to a world that had evidently no place for him.
"It's worth trying," Travers said as he and Priscilla stood beside the bed. "We haven't found out anything concerning him, have we?"
Priscilla shook her head.
"Suppose he—well, suppose he had any claim upon you, would you take the chance of the operation for him?"
The deep, friendly eyes were fixed upon the girl. She coloured sharply, then went quite pale. There was a most unaccountable struggle, and Travers smiled as he thought how conscientious she was to feel any deep responsibility in a question he had asked, more in idle desire to make talk than for any other reason.
"Yes," she replied suddenly, as her head was lifted; "yes, I'd give him every chance."
Just then, in one of those marvellous flashes of regained consciousness, the man upon the bed opened his eyes and looked, first at Travers, then at Priscilla. Again his gaze shifted, gaining strength and meaning. From the far place where he had fared for days his mind, lighted by reason, was abnormally clear and almost painfully reinforced by memory. Then he laughed—laughed a long, shuddering laugh that drew the thin lips back from the white, fang-like teeth. Before the sound was finished the light faded from the black eyes and the grim silence shut in close upon the last quivering note.
"We'll take the chance," said Travers. And late that very afternoon they took it.
A week later Priscilla sat beside the man's bed, her right hand upon his pulse, her watch in her left. So intent was she upon the weak movement under her slim fingers that she had forgotten all else until a voice from a far, far distance seemingly, whispered hoarsely:
"So—so this is—you? I'm not dreaming? I wasn't dreaming before when—when he and you came?"
They had all been expecting this. The operation had been very successful, though it was not to give the patient back to life. They all knew that, too.
"Yes, Jerry-Jo, it's I."
There was no tremor in the low voice, only a determination to keep the world from knowing. Jerry-Jo was past hurting any one.
"The—lure got you, too?"
"Yes, the lure got me."
"I knew you that night in the dark—that night in the park—you ran from me. I was lost and—and starving!"
"I came back, Jerry-Jo. I did indeed."
"Have I been here—long?"
"Not very. Do not talk any more. You must rest. There is to-morrow, you know."
The poor fellow was too weak to laugh, but the long teeth showed for a moment.
"I must talk. Listen! Do they know here—about me? know my name?"
"No."
"Don't tell them. Don't tell any one. I have done something for you! They think, back there in Kenmore, that you are with me. I've written that—and schoolmaster hasn't let on. I haven't gone to the Hornbys here, because I stood by you. No one must know. See?"
"Yes, Jerry-Jo, I see. Please lie still now. It shall be as you wish. You have been—very good—for my sake!"
"I've starved and slept in dark holes—for you, and now you and him—have got to take care of me—or—I'll tell! I'll tell, as sure as God hears me!"
"We will take care of you, Jerry-Jo. There! there! I promise; and you know we of the In-Place stand by each other."
He was comforted at last, and fell into the deep sleep of exhaustion. Occasionally, in the days following, he opened his tired eyes and gave evidence of consciousness. He was drifting out calmly and painlessly, and all the coarseness and degeneracy of the half-breed seemed dropping by the way. Sometimes his glance rested on Doctor Travers's face, for the young physician was deeply interested in the case and was touched by the lonely, unclaimed fellow who had served science, but could derive no benefit in return. Often Jerry-Jo's dark eyes fell upon the pitying face of Priscilla Glenn with ever-growing understanding and kindliness. Sometimes in the long nights he clung to her like a child, for she was very good to him; very, very devoted.
One night, when all the world seemed sleeping, he whispered to her:
"You—you don't know, really?"
Priscilla thought he was wandering, and said gently:
"No, Jerry-Jo, really I do not know."
"What will you give me—if I tell you the biggest secret in the world?"
She had his head in the hollow of her arm; he was resting more calmly so. He had been feverish all day.
"What—can I give you, Jerry-Jo?"
The old, pleading look was in the dark eyes, but low passion had vanished forever.
"Could you—would you give me a kiss for the secret?"
"Yes, Jerry-Jo," and the kiss fell upon the white brow.
Could John Boswell have been there then he would have understood.
"You—you are crying! I feel a tear with the kiss!"
The quivering, broken smile smote Priscilla to the heart. The ward was deathly quiet; only the deep breathing of men closer to life than Jerry-Jo McAlpin broke the stillness.
"Why—do you cry?"
"You know, it's a bad habit of mine, Jerry-Jo."
"Yes. You—you cried on his book, you remember?"
"I remember."
"Do—you know where he is—now?"
"No. Do you?"
The head upon the strong, young arm moved restlessly.
"Yes—I know—and I'm—going to tell you! It's the biggest joke I ever knew. Just to think—that you don't know, and he doesn't know, and—and I do!"
A rattling, husky laugh shook the thin form dangerously. Every instinct of the nurse rose in alarm and defence.
"You must not talk any more, Jerry-Jo. Lie still. Come, let us think of the In-Place."
Priscilla slipped her arm from under the dark head, and took the wandering hands in hers. Her random words had power to hold and chain the weak mind.
"I'm going to tell you—where he is—but we'll go back to the In-Place. I want to tell you there, and—he'll come and find you. I'd like to do you both a good turn—for what you've done for me."
Then, after a pause and a gasping breath:
"It's growing dark, but there's Dreamer's Rock and Bleak Head!"
"And, Jerry-Jo," whispered Priscilla, "there's Lone Tree Island, don't you see? Your boat is coming around into the Channel. Please tell me—where he is, Jerry-Jo——"
Priscilla realized he was going fast, and the secret suddenly gripped her with strange power. She must have it; she must know!
"Please, Jerry-Jo, tell me where he is. I have wanted so to know! Listen! Can you not hear—the dear old sounds, the pattering of the soft little waves that the ice has let go free? There's the farm, the woods——" But Jerry-Jo was struggling to rise; his black eyes wide and straining, his thin arms outstretched.
"No!" he moaned hoarsely, and already he seemed far away. "I can't make the Channel. I'm headed for the Secret Portage and the Big Bay."
"Jerry-Jo! oh! tell me, where is he? Where is he?"
But Priscilla knew it was too late. She bent and listened at the still breast that was holding the secret close from her. Then, with a sense of having been baffled, defeated, and cruelly cheated, she dropped her wet face in her hands for a moment before she went to do her last duty for Jerry-Jo.
The following June Priscilla Glenn graduated. She and John Boswell grew quite merry over the event.
"I really can't let you spend anything on me," she said laughingly; "nothing more than the cost of a few flowers. I have the awful weight of debt upon me at the beginning of my career. One hundred dollars to Master Farwell, and——"
"The funeral expenses of that poor waif you were so interested in! My dear child, you are as niggardly with your philanthropies as you are with your favours. Why not be generous with me? And, by the way, can you tell me just why that young fellow appealed to you so? I daresay other 'unknowns' drift into St. Albans."
"He looked—you will think me foolish, Mr. Boswell—but he looked like some one I once knew in Kenmore."
The warm June day drifted sunnily into Boswell's study window. There was a fragrance of flowers and the note of birds. Priscilla, in her plain white linen dress, was sitting on the broad window seat, and Boswell, from his winged chair, looked at her with a tightening of the throat. There were times when she made him feel as he felt when Farwell Maxwell used to look at him before the shadow fell between them—the shadow that darkened both their lives.
"And that was why you had a—a Kenmore name graven on the stone?"
"Yes, Mr. Boswell, Jerry-Jo McAlpin. Jerry-Jo is dead, too, you know. They name living people after dead ones. Why not dead people?"
"Why, indeed? It's quite an idea. Quite an original idea. But as to my spending money on your graduation, a little more added to what you already owe me will not count, and, besides, there is that trifle left from Farwell's loan still to your credit."
"Now, Mr. Boswell, don't press me too close! I was a sad innocent when I came from the In-Place, and a joke is a joke, but you mustn't bank on it."
The bright head nodded cheerfully at the small, crumpled figure in the deep chair.
"After you live in New York three years, Mr. Boswell, you never mistake a shilling for a dollar, sir. But just because it is such a heavenly day—and between you and me, how much of that magic fund is left?"
"I've mislaid my account," Boswell replied, the look that Toky watched for stealing over his thin face; "but, roughly speaking, I should say that, with the interest added, about fifty dollars, perhaps a trifle more."
Priscilla threw back her head and laughed merrily.
"I can understand why people say your style is so absorbing," she said presently; "you make even the absurd seem probable."
"Who have you heard comment on my style?" Boswell leaned forward. He was as sensitive as a child about his work.
"Oh, one of the doctors at St. Albans told me that, to him, you were the Hans Christian Andersen of grown-ups. He always reads you after a long strain."
A flush touched the sallow cheeks, and the long, white fingers tapped the chair arms nervously.
"Well!" with a satisfied laugh, "I can prove the amount to your credit in this case without resorting to my style. Would you mind going into your old room and looking at the box that you will find on the couch?"
Priscilla ran lightly from the study, her eyes and cheeks telling the story of her delight.
The box was uncovered. Some sympathetic hand, as fine as a woman's, had bared the secret for her. No mother could possibly have thought out detail and perfection more minutely. There it lay, the gift of a generous man to a lonely girl, everything for her graduating night! The filmy gown with its touch of colour in embroidered thistle flowers; the slippers and gloves; even the lace scarf, cloud-like and alluring; the long gloves and silken hose.
Down beside the couch Priscilla knelt and pressed her head against the sacred gift. She did not cry nor laugh, but the rapt look that used to mark her hours before the shrine in Kenmore grew and grew upon her face.
"You will accept? You think I did well in my—shopping?"
Boswell stood in the doorway, just where a long path of late June sunlight struck across the room. For the girl, looking mutely at him with shining eyes, he was transfigured, translated. Only the great, tender soul was visible to her; the unasking, the kind spirit. Moved by a sudden impulse, Priscilla rose to her feet and walked to him with outstretched hands; when she reached him he took her hands in his and smiled up at her.
"I—I accept," she whispered with a break in her voice. "You have made me—happier than I have ever been in my life!"
Boswell drew her hands to his lips and kissed them.
"And you will come and see me in them"—Priscilla turned her eyes to the box—"when I—dance?"
"You are to dance?"
"We are all to dance."
"I have not seen you dance for many a day. If you dance as you once did there will be only you dancing. Yes, I will come."
And Boswell went. The exercises were held in the little chapel. From his far corner he watched the young women, in uniforms of spotless white, file to the platform for their diplomas. They all merged, for him, into one—a tall, lithe creature with burnished hair, coppery and fine, and an exalted face. Later, from behind the mass of palms and ferns in the dancing hall, he saw only one girl—a girl in white with the tints of the thistle flower matching the deep eyes.
And Priscilla danced. Some one, a young doctor, asked her, and fortunately for him he was a master hand at following. After a moment of surprise, tinged with excited determination, he found himself, with his brilliant partner, the centre of attraction.
"Look! oh, do look at the little Canuck!" cried a classmate.
"I never saw any one dance as she does"—it was Doctor Travers who spoke from the doorway beside Mrs. Thomas—"but once before. It's quite primeval, an instinct. No one can teach or acquire such grace as that."
Then, suddenly, and apropos of nothing, apparently:
"By the way, Mrs. Thomas, Miss Moffatt has been ordered abroad by Doctor Ledyard. He spoke to-day about securing a companion-nurse for her. She's not really ill, but in rather a curious nervous condition. I was wondering if——" His eyes followed Priscilla, who was nearing the cluster of palms behind which Boswell sat.
"Of course!" Mrs. Thomas smiled broadly; "Miss Glynn, of course! She's made to order. The girl has her way to make. She's been rather overdoing lately. I don't like the look in her eyes at times. She never asks for sympathy or consideration, you understand, but she makes every woman, and man, too, judging by that rich cripple, Mr. Boswell, yearn over her. She'd be the merriest soul on earth, with half a chance, and she's the most capable girl I have: ready for an emergency; never weary. Why, of course, Miss Glynn!"
"I'll speak to Doctor Ledyard to-night," said Travers.
Then, strangely enough, Travers realized that he was very tired. He excused himself, and, walking back through the dim city streets to the Ledyard home, he thought of Kenmore and the old lodge as he had not for years.
"I believe I'll run up there this summer," he muttered half aloud. "I'll take mother and urge Doctor Ledyard to join us. I would like to see how far I've travelled from the In-Place in—why it's years and years! All the way from boyhood to manhood."
But Ledyard changed the current of his desire. The older man was sitting in his library when Travers entered, and Helen Travers was in the deep window opening to the little garden space behind the house.
Time had dealt so gently with Helen that now, in her thin white gown, she looked even younger than in the Kenmore days, when her dress had been more severe.
"You're late," said Ledyard, looking keenly at him.
"Very late," echoed Helen, smiling. "I had dinner here and am waiting to be escorted home."
"She's refused my company. Where have you been, Dick?"
"I had to give out the diplomas, you know, at St. Albans."
"It's after eleven now, Dickie." Helen's gaze was full of gentle pride.
"I stopped for an hour to see those little girls play."
"The nurses?" Ledyard frowned. "Girls and nurses are not one and the same thing, to a doctor."
"Oh, come, come, dear friend!" Helen Travers went close to the two who were dearest to her in the world. "Do not be unmerciful. Being a woman, I must stand up for my sex. Did they play prettily, Dick? I'm sure they did not look as dear as they do in their uniforms."
"One did. She was—well, to put it concisely, she was a—dance!"
"Umph! That ruddy-headed one, I bet!" Ledyard turned on another electric light. "See here, Dick, do you think that girl could go abroad with Gordon Moffatt's daughter? Moffatt spoke about her. She rather impressed him while he was in St. Albans. She stood up against him. He never forgets that sort; he swears at it, but he trusts it. The old housekeeper is going along to keep the party in order, but a trained hand ought to go, too. The Moffatt girl has the new microbe—Unrest. It's playing the devil with her nerves. She's got to be jogged into shape."
"I think we could prevail upon Miss Glynn to go. She has her way to make. She's been rather——" Travers stopped short; he was quoting Mrs. Thomas too minutely.
"Rather what, Dick?" Helen had her head against her boy's shoulder.
"Hunting a job," he lied manfully. "Most of those girls are up against it once the training is over."
"And Dick," Helen raised her eyes, "Doctor Ledyard and I were talking of a trip abroad this summer for—ourselves. Will you come? We want the off-the-track places. Little by-products, you know. I'm hungry for—well, for detachment; but with those I love."
"Just the thing, little mother, just the thing!" The In-Place faded from sight. In its stead rose a lonely mountain peak that caught the first touch of day and held it longest. A little lake lay at its foot, and there was the old house where he and Helen had spent so much of the summer while he and she were abroad!
"Where does Miss Moffatt intend to go?" asked Travers.
"That's it. Her ideas at present are typical of her condition. 'Snip the cord that holds me,' she said to me to-day; 'beg father to give me a handful of blank checks and old Mousey'—that's what she calls the housekeeper—'buy a nice nurse for me in case I need one—a nice un-nurse-like nurse,' she stipulated—'and let me play around the world for a few months to see if I can find my real self hiding in some cranny; then I'll come back and be good!' The girl's a fool, but most girls are when they've been brought up as she has been. Moffatt is at his wits' end. Young Clyde Huntter is on the carpet just now. Think of that match! think of what it would mean to Moffatt! There are times when I regret the club and cliff-dwelling age where women are concerned."
"Now, now, my dear friend, please remember my sex."
Helen ran from Richard to Ledyard. "We're all fagged, and the June night is sultry. After all, girls, even women, should be allowed a mind of their own! Take me home, Dick, I'm deeply offended." She smiled and held out her hands.
"If they were all as sane as you, Helen," Ledyard's glance softened. "You are exceptional."
"Every woman is an exceptional something, good friend, if only an exceptional fool. I'm rather proud of Margaret Moffatt's determination to have her way, and that idea of finding herself in some cranny of the old world is simply beautiful. I wonder——"
"What, Helen?"
"I wonder if an old lady like me, a lady with hair turning frosty, might, by any possibility, findherreal self left back there—oh! ages, ages before—well, before things happened which she never understood?"
Ledyard's eyes grew moist, but he made no reply.
It was three days later that Priscilla Glenn received a note from Margaret Moffatt, but she had already been prepared for it by Doctor Ledyard and Mrs. Thomas.
"Since they think I need a nurse," the note ran, "will you call at eleven to-morrow and see if you consider me sufficiently damaged to require your care? From what father says, I am prepared to succumb to you at once. Both father and I like strong oppositions!"
The June weather had turned chilly after the brief spell of heat, and when Priscilla was ushered into Margaret Moffatt's private library she found a bright cannel coal fire in the little grate, beside which sat a tall, handsome girl in house gown of creamy white.
"And so you are—Miss Glynn?"
As a professional accepts a non de plume, Priscilla had accepted her name.
"Yes. And you are—Miss Moffatt?"
"Please sit down—no, not way off there! Won't you take this chair beside me? I'm rather an uncanny person, I warn you. If I do not like to have you close to me now, we could never get on—across the water! What belongs to me, and what I ought to have, is mine from the first. Besides, I want you to know the worst of me—for your own sake. Would you mind taking off your hat? You have the most cheerful hair I ever saw."
Priscilla laid her broad-brimmed hat aside and laughed lightly. She was as uncanny as Margaret Moffatt, but she could not have described the charm that drew her to the girl across the hearth.
"I'm rather a hopelessly cheerful person," she said, settling herself comfortably; "it's probably my chief virtue—or shortcoming."
"You know I am not a bit sick—bodily, Miss Glynn. It's positively ridiculous to have a nurse for me, but if I am to get my way with my father I must humour him. A dear old family servant is going with me. Father did want a private cook and guide, but we've compromised on—you! I do hope you'll undertake the contract. I'm not half bad when I have my way. Do you think, now that you have seen me for fifteen minutes, that you could—tolerate me; take the chance?"
"I should be very glad to be with you." Priscilla beamed.
"Your eyes are—blue, I declare! Miss Glynn, by all the laws of nature you should have eyes as dark as mine."
"Yes; an old nurse back in my Canadian home used to say I was made of the odds and ends of all the children my mother had and lost."
"What a quaint idea! I believe she was right, too. That will make you adaptable. Miss Glynn, let me tell you something, just enough to begin on, about myself—as a case. I'm tired to death of everything that has gone before; I do not fit in anywhere. I believe I'm quite a different person from what every one else believes; I've never had a chance to know myself; I've been interpreted by—by generations, traditions, and those who love me. I want to get far enough away to—get acquainted with myself, and then if I am what I hope I am, I will return like a happy queen and triumphantly enter my kingdom. If I am not worthy—well, we will not talk about that! Something, I may tell you some day, has suddenly awakened me. I'm rather blinded and deafened. I must have time. Can you bear with me?"
Margaret Moffatt leaned forward in her chair. Priscilla saw that her large brown eyes were tear-filled; the strong, white, outstretched hands trembling. A wave of sympathy, understanding, and great liking overwhelmed Priscilla, and she rose suddenly and stood beside the girl.
"I—think I was meant—to help you," she said so simply that she could not be misunderstood. "When do we—go?"
"Go? Oh! you mean on the hunt for myself?"
"Yes."
"Father has the refusal of staterooms on two steamers. Could you start in—a week? Or shall we say three weeks?"
"It will not take me a day to get ready. My uniforms——"
"Please, Miss Glynn, leave them behind. I'm sure you're just a nice girl besides being a splendid nurse. I want the nice girl with me."
"Very well. That may take two days longer."
"We'll sail, then, in a week. And will you—will you—will you accept something in advance, since time is so short?"
"Something——?"
"Yes. Your—your salary, you know."
"Oh, you mean money? I had forgot. I shall be glad to have some. I am very poor."
Again the simple, frank dignity touched Margaret Moffatt with pleasurable liking.
"It's to be a hundred and fifty dollars a month and all expenses paid, Miss Glynn."
"A hundred and fifty? Oh! I cannot——"
"Doctor Ledyard arranged it with my father. You see, they know what you are to undergo. I rather incline to the belief that they consider they are making quite a bargain. I hate to see you cover your hair. Somehow you seem to be dimming the sunshine. Good-bye until——"
"Day after to-morrow."
"I will send a check to St. Albans to-night, Miss Glynn."
And she did. A check for two hundred dollars with a box of yellow roses—Sunrise roses they were called.