If a man with a good moral character, a tolerably decent reputation for good taste and respectability, no fool at his studies, no stain on his name, should go with her, help her, get her to give up certain daring things she had the name of doing—if such a fellow should give her the protection of his friendship and let the world see that he considered her respectable—wouldn't it help a lot? Wouldn't it stop people's mouths and make them see that Gila wasn't what they had been saying, after all?
It came to him that this would be a very pleasant mission, for his leisure hours during the rest of that winter. All thought of any danger to himself through such intercourse as he was suggesting to his thoughts had departed from his mind.
Half a mile away Gila was pouring tea for two extremely ardent youths who scarcely occupied half ofher mind. With the other half she was planning a little note which should bring Courtland to her side early in the week. She had no thoughts of God. She was never troubled with much pondering. She knew exactly what she wanted without thinking any further about it, and she meant to have it.
It was a great source of question with Courtland afterward, just why it should have been he that happened to carry that telegram over to the West Dormitory to Wittemore, instead of any one of a dozen other fellows who were in the office when it arrived and might just as well have gone. Did anything in this worldhappen, he wondered?
He could not tell why he had held out his hand and offered to take the message.
It was not because he was not trying hard, and studying for all he was worth, that "Witless Abner," as Wittemore had come to be called, had won his nickname. He worked night and day, plunged in a maze of things he did not quite understand until long after the rest of the class had passed them. He was majoring in sociology through the advice of a faddist uncle who had never seen him. He had told Abner's mother that sociology was the coming science, and Abner was faithfully carrying out the course of study he suggested. He was floundering through hours of lectures on the theory of the subject, and conscientiously working in the college settlement to get the practical side of things. He had the distressed look of a person with very short legs who is trying to keep up with a procession of six-footers, although there was nothing short about Abner. His legs were long, and his body was long, his arms were long, too long for most of his sleeves. His face was long, his nose and chin were painfully long, and wereaccompanied by a sensitive mouth that was always on the quiver with apprehension, like a rabbit's, and little light eyes with whitish eyelashes. His hair was like licked hay. There was absolutely nothing attractive about Wittemore except his smile, and he so seldom smiled that few of the boys had ever seen it. He had almost no friends.
He had apparently just entered his room when Courtland reached his door, and was stumbling about in a hurry to turn on the light. He stopped with his lips aquiver and a dart of fear in his eyes when he saw the telegram. Nobody but his mother would send him a telegram, and she would never waste the money for it unless there was something dreadful the matter. He looked at it fearfully, holding it in his hand and glancing up again at Courtland half helplessly, as if he feared to open it.
Then, with that set, stolid look of prodding ahead that characterized all Abner's movements he clumsily tore open the envelope.
"Your mother is dying. Come at once," were the terse, cruel words that he read, signed with a neighbor's initials.
The young man gave the gasp of a hurt thing and stood gaping up at Courtland.
"Nothing the matter, I hope," said Courtland, kindly, moved by the gray, stricken look that had come over the poor fellow's face.
"It's mother!" he gasped. "Read!" He thrust the telegram into Courtland's hand and sank down on the side of his bed with his head in his hands.
"Tough luck, old man!" said Courtland, with a kindly hand on the bowed shoulder. "But maybe it's only a scare. Sometimes people get better when they're pretty sick, you know."
Wittemore shook his head. "No. We've been expecting this, she and I. She's been sick a long time. I didn't want to come back this year! I thought she was failing! But she would have it! She'd got her heart so set on my graduating!"
"Well, cheer up!" said Courtland, breezily. "Very likely your coming will help her to rally again! What train do you want to get? Can I help you any?"
Wittemore lifted his head and looked about his room helplessly. It was plain he was dazed.
Courtland looked up the train, 'phoned for a taxi, went around the room gathering up what he thought would be necessities for the journey, while Wittemore was inadequately trying to get himself dressed. Suddenly Wittemore stopped short in the midst of his ineffective efforts and drew something out of his pocket with an exclamation of dismay.
"I forgot about this medicine!" he gasped. "I'll have to wait for the next train! Never mind that suit-case. I haven't time to wait for it! I'll go right up to the station as soon as I land this."
He seized his hat and would have gone out the door, but Courtland grabbed him by the arm.
"Hold on, old fellow! What's up? Surely you won't let anything keep you from your mother now."
"I must!" The words came with a moan of agony from the sensitive lips. "It's medicine for a poor old woman down in the settlement district. She's suffering horribly, and the doctor said she ought to have it to-night, but there was no one else to get it for her, so I promised. She's lying there waiting for it now, listening to every sound till I come. Mother wouldn't want me to come to her, leaving a woman suffering like that when I'd promised. I only came up here to get car fare so I could get there soonerthan walking. It took all the change I had to get the prescription filled."
"Darn you, Wittemore! What do you think I am? I'll take the medicine to the old lady—ten old ladies if necessary! You get your train! There's your suit-case. Have you got plenty of money?"
A blank look came over the poor fellow's face. "If I could find Dick Folsom I would have about enough. He owes me something. I did some copying for him."
Courtland's hand was in his pocket. He always had plenty of money about him. That had never been one of his troubles. He had been to the bank that day, fortunately. Now he thrust a handful of bills into Wittemore's astonished hands.
"There's fifty! Will that see you through? And I can send you more if you need it. Just wire me how much you want."
Wittemore stood looking down at the bills, and tears began to run down his cheeks and splash upon them. Courtland felt his own eyes filling. What a pitiful, lonely life this had been! And the fellows had let him live that way! To think that a few paltry greenbacks should bringtears!
A few minutes later he stood looking after the whirling taxi as it bore away Wittemore into the darkness of the evening street, his heart pounding with several new emotions. Witless Abner for one! What a surprise he had been! Would everybody you didn't fancy turn out that way if you once got hold of the key of their souls and opened the door?
Then the little wrapped bottle he held in his hand reminded him that he must hasten if he would perform the mission left for him and return in time for supper. There was something in his soul that would not let him wait until after supper. So he plunged forwardinto the dusk and swung himself on board a down-town car.
He had no small trouble in finding the street, or rather court, in which the old woman lived.
He stumbled up the narrow staircase, lighting matches as he went, for the place was dark as midnight. By the time he had climbed four flights he was wondering what in thunder Wittemore came to places like this for? Just to major in sociology? Didn't the nut know that he would never make a success in a thing like that? What was he doing it for, anyway? Did he expect to teach it? Poor fellow, he would never get a job! His looks were against him.
He knocked, with no result, at several doors for his old woman, but at last a feeble voice answered: "Come in," and he entered a room entirely dark. There didn't even appear to be a window, though he afterward discovered one opening into an air-shaft. He stood hesitating within the room, blinking and trying to see what was about him.
"Be that you, Mr. Widymer?" asked a feeble voice from the opposite corner.
"Wittemore couldn't come. He had a telegram that his mother is dying and he had to get the train. He sent me with the medicine."
"Oh, now ain't that too bad!" said the voice. "His mother dyin'! An' to think he should remember me an' my medicine! Well, now, what d' ye think o' that?"
"If you'll tell me where your gas is located I'll make a light for you," said Courtland, politely.
"Gas!" The old lady laughed aloud. "You won't find no such thing as gas around this part o' town. There's about an inch of candle up on that shelf. The distric' nurse left it there. I was thinkin' mebbe I'd get Mr. Widymer to light it fer me when he come, an' then thenight wouldn't seem so long. It's awful, when you're sufferin' to have the nights long."
He groped till he found the shelf and lit the candle. By degrees the flickering light revealed to him a small bare room with no furniture except a bed, a chair, a small stove, and a table. A box in the corner apparently contained a few worn garments. Some dishes and provisions were huddled on the table. The walls and floor were bare. The district nurse had done her level best to clear up, perhaps, but there had been no attempt at good cheer. A desolate place indeed to spend a weary night of suffering, even with an inch of candle sending weird flickerings across the dusky ceiling.
His impulse was to flee, but somehow he couldn't. "Here's this medicine," he said. "Where do you want me to put it?"
The woman motioned with a bony hand toward the table. "There's a cup and spoon over there somewhere," she said, weakly. "If you could go get me a pitcher of water and set it here on a chair I could manage to take it durin' the night."
He could see her better now, for the candle was flaring bravely. She was little and old. Her thin, white hair straggled pitifully about her small, wrinkled face, her eyes looked as if they had been burned almost out by suffering. He saw she was drawn and quivering with pain, even now as she tried to speak cheerfully. A something rebellious in him yielded to the nerve of the little old woman, and he put down his impatience. Sure he would get her the water!
She explained that the hydrant was down on the street. He took the doubtful-looking pitcher and stumbled out upon those narrow, rickety stairs again.
Way down to the street and back in that inky blackness! "Gosh! Thunder! The deuce!" (Hedidn't allow himself any stronger words these days.) Was this the kind of thing one was up against when one majored in sociology?
"I be'n thinkin'," said the old lady, quaveringly, when he stumbled, blinking, back into the room again with the water, "ef you wouldn't mind jest stirrin' up the fire an' makin' me a sup o' tea it would be real heartenin'. I 'ain't et nothin' all day 'cause the pain was so bad, but I think it'll ease up when I git a dose of the medicine, and p'r'aps I might eat a bite."
Courtland was appalled, but he went vigorously to work at that fire, although he had never laid eyes on anything so primitive as that stove in all his life. Presently, by using common sense, he had the thing going and a forlorn little kettle steaming away cheerfully.
The old woman cautioned him against using too much tea. There must be at least three drawings left, and it would be a long time, perhaps, before she got any more. Yes, there was a little mite of sugar in a paper on the table.
"There's some bread there, too—half a loaf 'most—but I guess it's pretty dry. You don't know how to make toast I 'spose," she added, wistfully.
Courtland had never made toast in his life. He abominated it. She told him how to hold it up on a fork in front of the coals and he managed to do two very creditable slices. He had forgotten his own supper now. There was something quite fresh and original in the whole experience. It would have been interesting to have told the boys, if there weren't some features about it that were almost sacred. He wondered what the gang would say when he told them about Wittemore! Poor Wittemore! He wasn't as nutty as they had thought! He had good in his heart! Courtland poured the tea, but the sugar-paper had proved quite emptywhen he found it; likewise a plate that had once contained butter.
The toast and tea, however, seemed to be quite acceptable without its usual accessories. "Now," he said, with a long breath, "is there anything else you'd like done before I go?—for I must be getting back to college."
"If you just wouldn't mind makin' a prayer before you go," responded the little old woman, wistfully, her feeble chin trembling with her boldness. "I be'n wantin' a prayer this long while, but I don't seem to have good luck. The distric' nurse, she ain't the prayin' kind; an' Mr. Widymer he says he don't pray no more since he's come to college. He said it so kind of ashamed-like I didn't like to bother him again; and there ain't anybody else come my way for three months back. You seem so kind-spoken and pleasant-like as if you might be related to a preacher, and I thought mebbe you wouldn't mind just makin' a little short prayer 'fore you go. I dunno how long it'll be 'fore I'll get a chancet of one again."
Courtland stood rooted to the floor in dismay. "Why,—I—" he began, growing red enough to be apparent even by the flickering inch of candle.
Suddenly the room which had been so empty seemed to grow hushed and full of breathless spectators, and One, waiting to hear what he would say—whether he would respond to the call. Before his alarmed vision there came the memory of that wall of smoke which had shut him in, and that Voice calling him by name and saying, "You shall be shown." Was this what the Presence asked of him? Was this that mysterious "doing His will" that the Book spoke about, which should presently give the assurance?
He saw the old woman's face glow with eagerness.It was as if the Presence waited through her eyes to see what he would do. Something leaped up in his heart in response and he took a step forward and dropped upon his knees beside the old wooden chair.
"I'm afraid I shall make a worse bungle of it than I did of the toast," he said, as he saw her folding her hands with delight. She smiled with serene assurance, and he closed his eyes and wondered where were words to use in such a time as this.
"Now I lay me" would not do for the poor creature who had been lying down many days and might never rise again; "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John" was more appropriate, but there was that uncertainty about it being a prayer at all. "Our Father"—Ah! He caught at the words and spoke them.
"Our Father which art"—but what came next? That was where he had always had to be prompted, and now, in his confusion, all the rest had fled from his mind. But now it seemed that with the words the Presence had drawn near, was standing close by the chair. His mind leaped forth with the consciousness that he might talk with this invisible Presence, unfold his own perplexities and restlessness, and perhaps find out what it all meant. With scarcely a hesitation his clear voice went on eagerly now:
"Our Father, which art in this room, show us how to find and know You." He could not remember afterward what else he said. Something about his own longing, and the old woman's pain and loneliness. He was not sure if it was really a prayer at all, that halting petition.
He got up from his knees greatly embarrassed; but more by the Presence to whom he had dared to speak thus for the first time on his own account, than by the little old woman, whose hands were still clasped inreverence, and down whose withered cheeks the tears were coursing. The smoky walls, the cracked stove, the stack of discouraged dishes, seemed to fade away, and the room was somehow full of glory. He was choking with the oppression of it, and with a kind of sinking at heart lest the prayer had been only an outbreak of his own desire to know what this Force or Presence was that seemed dominating him so fully these days.
The old woman was blessing him. She held out her hands like a patriarch: "Oh, that was such a beautiful prayer! I'll not forget the words all the night through and for many a night. The Lord Himself bless ye! Are you a preacher's son, perhaps?"
He shook his head; but he had no smile upon his face at the thought, as he might have had five minutes before.
"Well, then, yer surely goin' to be a preacher yerself?"
"No," he said; then added, thoughtfully, "not that I know of." The suggestion struck him curiously as one who hears for the first time that there is a possibility that he may be selected for some important foreign embassy.
"Well, then, yer surely a blessed child o' God Himself, anyhow, and this is a great night fer this poor little room to be honored with a pretty prayer like that!"
Scarcely hearing her, he said good night and went thoughtfully down the dark stairs, a strange sense of peace upon him. Curiously enough, while he felt that he had left the Presence up in that little dismal room, it yet seemed to be moving beside him, touching his soul, breathing upon him! He was so engrossed with this thought that it never occurred to him that he had given the old woman every cent he had in his pocket.He had forgotten entirely that he had been hungry. A great world-wonder was moving within his spirit. He could not understand himself. He went back with awe over the last few minutes and the strange new world into which he had been so suddenly plunged.
Scarcely noticing how he went, he got himself out of the intricacies of the court into a neighborhood a shade less poverty-stricken, and stood upon the corner of a busy thoroughfare in an utterly unfamiliar district, pausing to look about him and discover his whereabouts.
A little child with long, fair hair rushed suddenly out of a door on the side-street, eagerly pulling a ragged sweater about his small shoulders, and stood upon the curbstone, breathlessly watching the coming trolley. The car stopped, and a young girl in shabby clothes got out and came toward him.
"Bonnie! Bonnie! I've got supper all ready!" the child called in a clear, bird-like voice, and darted from the curb across the narrow side-street to meet her.
Courtland, standing on the corner in front of the trolley, saw, too late, the swift-coming automobile bearing down upon the child, its head-lights flaring on the golden hair. With a cry the young man sprang to the rescue, but the child was already crumpled up like a lily and the relentless car speeding onward, its chauffeur darting frightened, cowardly glances behind him as he plunged his machine forward over the track, almost in the teeth of the up-trolley. When the trolley was passed there was no sign of the car, even if any one had had time to look for it. There in the road lay the little, broken child, the long hair spilling like gold over the pavement, the little, still, white face looking up like a flower that has suddenly been torn from the plant.
The girl was beside the child almost instantly, dropping all her parcels; gathering him into her slender arms, calling in frightened, tender tones:
"Aleck! Darling! My little darling!"
The child was too heavy for her to lift, and she tottered as she tried to rise, lifting a frightened face to Courtland.
"Let me take him," said the young man, stooping and gathering him gently from her. "Now show me where!"
Into the narrow brick house from which he had run forth so joyously but a few short minutes before, they carried him, up two flights of steep stairs to a tiny room at the back of the hall.
The gas was burning brightly at one side, and something that sent forth a savory odor was bubbling on a little two-burner gas-stove. Courtland was hungry, and it struck his nostrils pleasantly as the door swung open, revealing a tiny table covered with a white cloth, set for two. There was a window curtained with white, and a red geranium on the sill.
The girl entered ahead of him, sweeping back a bright chintz curtain that divided the tiny room, and drew forth a child's cot bed. Courtland gently laid down the little inert figure. The girl was on her knees beside the child at once, a bottle in her hand. She was dropping a few drops in a teaspoon and forcing them between the child's lips.
"Will you please get a doctor, quick," she said, in a strained, quiet voice. "No, I don't know who; I've only been here two weeks. We're strangers! Bring somebody! anybody! quick!"
Courtland was back in a minute with a weary, seedy-looking doctor who just fitted the street. All the way he was seeing the beautiful agony of the girl's face. It was as if her suffering had been his own. Somehow he could not bear to think what might be coming. The little form had lain so limply in his arms!
The girl had undressed the child and put him between the sheets. He was more like a broken lily than ever. The long dark lashes lay still upon the cheeks.
Courtland stood back in the doorway, looking at the small table set for two, and pushed to the wall now to make room for the cot. There was just barely room to walk around between the things. He could almost hear the echo of that happy, childish voice calling down in the street: "Bonnie! Bonnie! I've got supper all ready!"
He wondered if the girl had heard. And there was the supper! Two blue-and-white bowls set daintily on two blue-and-white plates, obviously for the something-hot that was cooking over the flame, two bits of bread-and-butter plates to match; two glasses of milk; a plate of bread, another of butter; and by way of dessert an apple cut in half, the core dug out and the hollow filled with sugar. He took in the details tenderly, as if they had been a word-picture by Wells or Shaw in his contemporary-prose class at college. They seemed to burn themselves into his memory.
"Go over to my house and ask my wife to give you my battery!" commanded the doctor in a low growl.
Courtland was off again, glad of something to do. He carried the memory of the doctor's grizzled face lying on the little bared breast of the child, listening for the heart-beats, and the beautiful girl's anguish as she stood above them. He pushed aside the curious throng that had gathered around the door and were looking up the stairs, whispering dolefully and shaking heads:
"An' he was so purty, and so cheery, bless his heart!" wailed one woman. "He always had his bit of a word an' a smile!"
"Aw! Them ottymobbeels!" he heard another murmur. "Ridin' along in their glory! They'll be a day o' reckonin' fer them rich folks what rides in 'em! They'll hev to walk! They may even have to lie abed an' hev their wages get behind!"
The whole weight of the sorrow of the world seemed suddenly pressing upon Courtland's heart. How had he been thus unexpectedly taken out of the pleasant monotony of the university and whirled into this vortex of anguish! Why had it been? Was it just happen that he should have been the one to have gone to the old woman and made her toast, and then been called upon to pray, instead of Tennelly or Bill Ward or any of the other fellows? And after that was it again just coincidence that he should have happened to stand at that corner at that particular moment and been one to participate in this later tragedy? Oh, the beautiful face of the suffering girl! Fear and sorrow and suffering and death everywhere! Wittemore hurrying to his dying mother! The old woman lying on her bed of pain! But there had been glory in that dark old room when he left it, the glory of a Presence! Ah! Where was the Presence now? How couldHebear all this? The Christ! And could He not change it if He would—make the world a happy place instead of this dark and dreadful thing that it was? For the first time the horror of war surged over his soul in its blackness. Men dying in the trenches! Women weeping at home for them! Others suffering and bleeding to death out in the open, the cold or the storm! How could God let it all be? His wondering soul cried out, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here!"
It was the old question that used to come up in the class-room, yet now, strangely enough, he began to feel there was an answer to it somewhere; an answer wherewith he would be satisfied when he found it.
It seemed an eternity of thought through which he passed as he crossed and recrossed the street and was back in the tiny room where life waited on death. It was another eternity while the doctor worked again over the boy. But at last he stood back, shaking his head and blinking the tears from his kind, tired, blue eyes.
"It's no use," he said, gruffly, turning his head away. "He's gone!"
It was then the girl brushed him aside and sank to her knees beside the little cot.
"Aleck! Aleck! Darling brother! Can't you speak to your Bonnie just once more before you go?" she called, clearly, distinctly, as if to a child who was far on his way hence. And then once again pitifully:
"Oh, darling brother! You're all I had left! Let me hear you call me Bonnie just once more before you go to mother!"
But the childish lips lay still and white, and the lips of the girl looking down upon the little quiet form grew whiter also as she looked.
"Oh, my darling! You have gone! You will never call me any more! And you were all I had! Good-by!" And she stooped and kissed the boy's lips with a finality that wrung the hearts of the onlookers. They knew she had forgotten their presence.
The doctor stepped into the hall. The tears were rolling down his cheeks. "It's tough luck!" he said in an undertone to Courtland.
The young man turned away to hide the sudden convulsion that seemed coming to his own face. Then he heard the girl's voice again, lower, as if she were talking confidentially to one who stood close at hand.
"Oh Christ, will You go with little Aleck and seethat he is not afraid till he gets safe home? And will You help me somehow to bear his leaving me alone?"
The doctor was wiping away the tears with a great, soiled handkerchief. The girl rose calmly, white and controlled, facing them as if she remembered them for the first time.
"I want to thank you for all you've done!" she said. "I'm only a stranger and you've been very kind. But now it's over and I will not hinder you any longer."
She wanted to be alone. They could see that. Yet it wrung their hearts to leave her so.
"You will want to make some arrangements," growled the doctor.
"Oh! I had forgotten!" The girl's hand fluttered to her heart and her breath gave a quick catch. "It will have to be very simple," she said, looking from one to another of them anxiously. "I haven't much money left. Perhaps I could sell something!" She looked desperately around on her little possessions. "This little cot! It is new just two weeks ago and he will not need it any more. It cost twenty dollars!"
Courtland stepped gravely toward her. "Suppose you leave that to me," he said, gently. "I think I know a place where they would look after the matter for you reasonably and let you pay later or take the cot in exchange, you know, anything you wish. Would you like me to arrange the matter for you?"
"Oh, if you would!" said the girl, wearily. "But it is asking a great deal of a stranger."
"It's nothing. I can look after it on my way home. Just tell me what you wish."
"Oh, the very simplest there is!"—she caught her breath—"white if possible, unless it's more expensive. But it doesn't matter, anyway, now. There'll have to be aplacesomewhere, too. Some time I will take himback and let him lie by father and mother. I can't now. It's two hundred miles away. But there won't need to be but one carriage. There's only me to go."
He looked his compassion, but only asked, "Is there anything else?"
"Any special clergyman?" asked the doctor, kindly.
She shook her head sadly. "We hadn't been to church yet. I was too tired. If you know of a minister who would come."
"It's tough luck," said the doctor again as they went down-stairs together, "to see a nice, likely little chap like that taken away so. And I operated this afternoon on a hardened old reprobate around the corner here, that's played the devil to everybody, and he's going to pull through! It does seem strange. It ain't the way I should run the universe, but I'm thundering glad I 'ain't got the job!"
Courtland walked on through the busy streets, thinking that sentence over. He had a dim current of inner perception that suggested there might be another way of looking at the matter; a possibility that the wicked old reprobate had yet something more to learn of life before he went beyond its choices and opportunities; a conviction that if he were called to go he had rather be the little child in his purity than the old man in his deviltry.
The sudden cutting down of this lovely child had startled and shocked him. The bereavement of the girl cut him to the heart as if she had belonged to him. It brought the other world so close. It made what had hitherto seemed the big worth-while things of life look so small and petty, so ephemeral! Had he always been giving himself utterly to things that did not count, or was this a perspective all out of proportion, a distorted brain again, through nervous strain and over-exertion?
He came presently to a well-known undertaker's, and, stepping in, felt more than ever the borderland-sense. In this silent house of sadness men stepped quietly, gravely, decorously, and served you with courteous sympathy. What was the name of the man who rowed his boat on the River Styx? Yes! Charon! These wise-eyed grave men who continually plied their oars between two worlds! How did they look on life? Were they hardened to their task? Was their gentle gravity all acting? Did earthly things appeal to them? How could they bear it all, this continual settled sadness about the place! The awful hush! The tear-stained faces! The heavy breath of flowers! Not all the lofty marble arches, and beauty of surroundings, not all the soft music of hidden choirs and distant organ up in one of the halls above where a service was even then in progress, could take away the fact of death; the settled, final fact of death! One moment here upon the curbstone, golden hair afloat, eyes alight with joyous greeting, voice of laughter; the next gone, irrevocably gone, "and the place thereof shall know it no more," Where had he heard those words? Strange, sad house of death! Strange, uncertain life to live. Resurrection! Where had he caught that word in carven letters twined among lilies above the marble staircase? Resurrection! Yes, there would need to be if there was to be any hope ever in this world!
It was a strange duty he had to perform, strange indeed for a college boy to whom death had never come very close since he had been old enough to understand. It came to him to wonder what the fellows would say If they could see him here. He felt half a grudge toward Wittemore for having let him in for all this. Poor Wittemore! By this time to-morrow night Wittemore might be doing this same service for his own mother!
Death! Death! Death! Everywhere! It seemed as if everybody was dying!
He made selections with a memory of the girl's beautiful, refined face. He chose simple things and everything all white. He asked about details and gave directions so that everything would move in an orderly manner, with nothing to annoy. He even thought to order flowers, valley-lilies, and some bright rosebuds, not too many to make her feel under obligation. He took out his check-book and paid for the whole thing, arranging that the girl should not know how much it all really cost, and that a small sum might be paid by her as she was able, to be forwarded by the firm to him; this to make her feel entirely comfortable about it all.
As he went out into the street again a great sense of weariness came over him. He had lived—how many years had he lived!—in experience since he left the university at half past five o'clock? How little his past life looked to him as he surveyed it from the height he had just climbed. Life! Life was not all basket-ball, and football, and dances, and fellowships, and frats. and honors! Life was full of sorrow, and bounded on every hand by death! The walk from where he was up to the university looked like an impossibility. There was a store up in the next block where he was known. He could get a check cashed and ride.
He found himself studying the faces of the people in the car in a new light. Were they all acquainted with sorrow? Yes, there were more or less lines of hardship, or anxiety, or disappointment on all the older faces. And the younger ones! Did all their bright smiles and eagerness have to be frozen on their lips by grief some day? When you came to think of it life was a terrible thing! Take that girl now, Miss Brentwood—Miss R.B. Brentwood the address had been. Thename her brother had called her fitted better, "Bonnie." What would life mean to her now?
It occurred to him to wonder if there would be any such sorrow and emptiness of life for any one if he were gone. The fellows would feel badly, of course. There would be speeches and resolutions, a lot of black drapery, and all that sort of thing in college, but what did that amount to? His father? Oh yes, of course he would feel it some, but he had been separated from his father for years, except for brief visits in vacations. His father had married a young wife and there were three young children. No, his father would not miss him much!
He swung off the car in front of the university and entered the dormitory at last, too engrossed in his strange new thoughts to remember that he had had no supper.
"Hello, Court! Where the deuce have you been? We've looked everywhere for you. You didn't come to the dining-hall! What's wrong with you? Come in here!"
It was Tennelly who hauled him into Bill Ward's room and thumped him into a big leather study-chair.
"Why, man, you're all in! Give an account of yourself!" he said, tossing his hat over to Bill Ward, and pulling away at his mackinaw.
"P'raps he's in love!" suggested Pat from the couch where he was puffing away at his pipe.
"P'raps he's flunked his Greek exam.," suggested Bill Ward, with a grin.
"He looks as if he'd seen a ghost!" said Tennelly, eying him critically.
"Cut it out, boys," said Courtland, with a weary smile. "I've seen enough. Wittemore's called home. His mother's dying. I went an errand for him downin some of his slums and on the way back I just saw a little kid get killed. Pretty little kid, too, with long curls!"
"Good night nurse!" said Pat from his couch. "Say, that is going some!"
"Ferget it!" ejaculated Bill Ward, coming to his feet. "Had your supper yet, Court?"
Courtland shook his head.
"Well, just you sit still there while I run down to the pie-shop and see what I can get."
Bill seized his cap and mackinaw and went roaring off down the hall. Courtland's eyes were closed. He hadn't felt so tired since he left the hospital. His mind was still grappling with the questions that his last two hours had flung at him to be answered.
Pat sat up and put away his pipe. He made silent motions to Tennelly, and the two picked up the unresisting Courtland and laid him on the couch. Pat's face was unusually sober as he gently put a pillow under his friend's head. Courtland opened his eyes and smiled.
"Thanks, old man," he said, and gripped his hand understandingly. There was something in Pat's face he had never noticed there before. As he dropped his eyelids shut he had an odd sense that Pat and Tennelly and the Presence were all taking care of him. A sick fancy of worn-out nerves, of course, but pleasant all the same.
Down the hall a nasal voice twanged at the telephone, shouting each answer as though to make the whole dormitory hear. Then loud steps, a thump on the door as it was flung open:
"Court here? A girl on the 'phone wants you, Court. Says her name is Miss Gila Dare."
The messenger had imitated Gila Dare's petulant childish accent to perfection. At another time the three young men would have shouted over it. Now they looked at one another in silence.
"Sha'n't I go and get a message for you, Court?" asked Tennelly. For Courtland's face was ashen gray, and the memory of it lying in the hospital was too recent for him not to feel anxious about his friend. He had only been permitted to return to college so quickly under strict orders not to overdo.
"No, I guess I'll go," said Courtland, indifferently, rising as he spoke.
They listened anxiously to his tones as he conversed over the 'phone.
"Hello!... Yes!... Yes!... Oh! Good evening!... Yes.... Yes.... No-o-o—it won't be possible!... No, I've just come in and I'm pretty well 'all in.' I have a lot of studying yet to do to-night. This is exam. week, you know.... No, I'm afraid not to-morrow night either.... No, there wouldn't be a chance till the end of the week, anyway.... Why, yes, I think I could by that time, perhaps—Friday night? I'll let you know.... Thank you. Good-by!"
The listeners looked from one to the other knowingly. This was not the tone of one who had "fallen" very far for a girl. They knew the signs. He had actually been indifferent! Gila Dare had not conquered him soeasily as Bill Ward had thought she would. And the strange thing about it was that there was something in the atmosphere that night that made them feel they weren't so very sorry. Somehow Courtland seemed unusually close and dear to them just then. For the moment they seemed to have perceived something fine and high in his mood that held them in awe. They did not "kid" him when he came back to them, as they would ordinarily have done. They received him gravely, talking together about the examination on the morrow, as if they had scarcely noticed his going.
Bill Ward came back presently with his arms laden with bundles. He looked keenly at the tired face on the couch, but whistled a merry tune to let on he had not noticed anything amiss.
"Got a great spread this time," he declared, setting forth his spoils on two chairs alongside the couch. "Hot oyster stew! Sit by, fellows! Cooky wrapped it up in newspapers to keep it from getting cold. There's bowls and spoons in the basket. Nelly, get 'em out! Here, Pat, take that bundle out from under my arm. That's celery and crackers. Here's a pail of hot coffee with cream and sugar all mixed. Lookout, Pat! That's jelly-roll and chocolate éclairs! Don't mash it, you chump! Why didn't you come with me?"
It was pleasant to lie there in that warm, comfortable room with the familiar sights all around, the pennants, the pictures, the wild arrangements of photographs and trophies, and hear the fellows talking of homely things; to be fed with food that made him begin to feel like himself again; to have their kindly fellowship all about him like a protection.
They were grand fellows, each one of them; full of faults, too, but true at heart. Life-friends he knew, for there was a cord binding their four hearts togetherwith a little tenderer tie than bound them to any of the other fellows. They had been together all the four years, and if all went well, and Bill Ward didn't flunk anything more, they would all four go out into the world as men together at the end of that year.
He lay looking at them quietly as they talked, telling little foolish jokes, laughing immoderately, asking one another anxiously about a tough question in the exam. that morning, and what the prospects were for good marks for them all. It was all so familiar and beloved! So different from those last three hours amid suffering and sorrow! It was all so natural and happy, as if there were no sorrow in the world. As if this life would never end! But he hadn't yet got over that feeling of the Presence in the room with them, standing somewhere behind Pat and Tennelly. He liked to feel the consciousness of it in the back of his mind. What would the fellows say if he should try to tell them about it? They would think he was crazy. He had a feeling that he would like to be the means of making them understand.
He told them gradually about Wittemore; not as he might have told them directly after seeing him off, nor quite as he had expected to tell them. It was a little more full; it gave them a little kinder, keener insight into a character that they had hitherto almost entirely condemned and ignored. They did not laugh! It was a revelation to them. They listened with respect for the student who had gone to his mother's dying bed. They had all been long enough away from their own mothers to have come to feel the worth of a mother quite touchingly. Moreover, they perceived that Courtland had seen more in Wittemore than they had ever seen. He had a side, it appeared, that was wholly unselfish, almost heroic in a way. They had never suspected him of itbefore. His long, horse-like face, with the little light china-blue eyes always anxious and startled, appeared to their imaginations with a new appeal. When he returned they would be kinder to him.
"Poor old Abner!" said Tennelly, thoughtfully. "Who would have thought it! Carrying medicine to an old bedridden crone! And was going to stick to his job even when his mother was dying! He's got some stuff in him, after all, if he hasn't much sense!"
Courtland was led to go on talking about the old woman, picturing in a few words the room where she lay, the pitifully few comforts, the inch of candle, the tea without sugar or milk, the butterless toast! He told it quite simply, utterly unaware, that he had told how he had made the toast. They listened without comment as to one who had been set apart to a duty undesirable but greatly to be admired. They listened as to one who had passed through a great experience like being shut up in a mine for days, or passing unharmed through a polar expedition or a lonely desert wandering.
Afterward he spoke again about the child, telling briefly how he was killed. He barely mentioned the sister, and he told nothing whatever of his own part in it all. They looked at him curiously, as if they would read between the lines, for they saw he was deeply stirred, but they asked nothing. Presently they all fell to studying, Courtland with the rest, for the morrow's work was important.
They made him stay on the couch and swung the light around where he could see. They broke into song or jokes now and then as was their wont, but over it all was a hush and a quiet sympathy that each one felt, and none more deeply than Courtland. There had never been a time during his college life when he had felt so keenly and so finely bound to his companionsas this night; when he went at last to his own room across the hall, he looked about on its comforts and luxuries with a kind of wonder that he had been selected for all this, while that poor woman down in the tenement had to live with bare walls and not even a whole candle! His pleasant room seemed so satisfying! And there was that girl alone in her tiny room with so little about her to make life easy, and her beautiful dead lying stricken before her eyes! He could not get away from the thought of her when he lay down to rest, and in his dreams her face of sorrow haunted him.
It was not until after the examinations the next afternoon that he realized that he was going to her again; had been going all the time, indeed! Of course he had been but a passing stranger, but she had no one, and he could not let her be in need of a friend. Perhaps—Why, he surelyhada responsibility for her when he was the only one who had happened by and there was no one else!
She opened the door at his knock and he was startled by the look of her face, so drawn and white, with great dark circles under her eyes. She had not slept nor wept since he saw her, he felt sure. How long could human frame endure like that? The strain was terrible for one so young and frail. He found himself longing to take her away somewhere out of it all. Yet, of course, there was nothing he could do.
She was full of quiet gratitude for what he had done. She said she knew that without his kind intercession she would have had to pay far more. She had been through it too recently before and understood that such things were expensive. He rejoiced that she judged only by the standards of a small country place, and knew not city prices, and therefore little suspected how very much he had done to smooth her way. Hetold her of the preacher he had secured that afternoon by telephone—a plain, kindly man who had been recommended by the undertaker. She thanked him again, apathetically, as if she had not the heart to feel anything keenly, but was grateful to him as could be.
"Have you had anything to eat to-day?" he asked, suddenly.
She shook her head. "I could not eat! It would choke me!"
"But you must eat, you know," he said, gently, as if she were a little child. "You cannot bear all this. You will break down."
"Oh, what does that matter now?" she asked, pitifully, with her hand fluttering to her heart again and a wave of anguish passing over her white face.
"But we must live, mustn't we, until we are called to come away?"
He asked the question shyly. He did not understand where the thought or words came from. He was not conscious of evolving them from his own mind.
She looked at him in sad acquiescence. "I know," she said, like a submissive child; "and I'll try, pretty soon. But I can't just yet. It would choke me!"
Even while they were talking a door in the front of the hall opened, and an untidy person with unkempt hair appeared, asking the girl to come into her room and have a bite. When she shook her head the woman said:
"Well, then, child, go out a few minutes and get something. You'll not last the night through at this rate! Go, and I'll stay here until you come back."
Courtland persuaded her at last to come with him down to a little restaurant around the corner and have a cup of tea—just a cup of tea—and with a weary look, as if she thought it was the quickest way to getrid of their kindness, she yielded. He thought he never would forget the look she cast behind her at the little, white, sheet-covered cot as she passed out the door.
It was an odd experience, taking this stranger to supper. He had met all sorts of girls during his young career and had many different experiences, but none like this. Yet he was so filled with sympathy and sorrow for her that it was not embarrassing. She did not seem like an ordinary girl. She was set apart by her sorrow. He ordered the daintiest and most attractive that the plain menu of the little restaurant afforded, but he only succeeded in getting her to eat a few mouthfuls and drink a cup of tea. Nevertheless it did her good. He could see a faint color coming into her cheeks. He spoke of college and his examinations, as if she knew all about him. He thought it might give her a more secure feeling if she knew he was a student at the university. But she took it all as a matter that concerned her not in the least, with that air of aloofness of spirit that showed him he was not touching more than the surface of her being. Her real self was just bearing it to get rid of him and get back to her sorrow alone.
Before he left her he was moved to tell her how he had seen the little child coming out to greet her. He thought perhaps she had not heard those last joyous words of greeting and would want to know.
The light leaped up in her face in a vivid flame for the first time, her eyes shone with the tears that sprang mercifully into them, and her lips trembled. She put out a little cold hand and touched his coat-sleeve:
"Oh, I thank you! That is precious," she said, and, turning aside her head, she wept. It was a relief to see the strained look break and the healing tears flow. He left her then, but he could not get away from thethought of her all night with her sorrow alone. It was as if he had to bear it with her because there was no one else to do so.
When he left her he went and looked up the minister with whom he had made brief arrangements over the telephone the night before. He had to confess to himself that his real object in coming had been to make sure the man was "good enough for the job."
The Rev. John Burns was small, sandy, homely, with kind, twinkling red-brown eyes, a wide mouth, an ugly nose, and freckles; but he had a smile that was cordiality itself, and a great big paw that gripped a real welcome.
Courtland explained that he had come about the funeral. He felt embarrassed because there really wasn't anything to say. He had given all necessary details over the 'phone, but the kind, attentive eyes were sympathetic, and he found himself telling the story of the tragedy. He liked the way the minister received it. It was the way a minister should be to people in their need.
"You are a relative?" asked Burns as Courtland got up to go.
"No." Then he hesitated. For some reason he could not bear to say he was an utter stranger to the lonely girl. "No, only a friend," he finished. "A—a—kind of neighbor!" he added, lamely, trying to explain the situation to himself.
"A sort of a Christ-friend, perhaps?" The kind, red-brown eyes seemed to search into his soul and understand. The homely, freckled face lit with a rare smile.
Courtland gave the man a keen, hungry look. He felt strangely drawn to him and a quick light of brotherhood darted into his eyes. His fingers answered the friendly grasp of the other as they parted, and he wentout feeling that somehowtherewas a man that was different; a man he would like to know better and study carefully. That man must have had some experience! He must know Christ! Had he ever felt the Presence? he wondered. He would like to ask him, but then how would one go about it to talk of a thing like that?
He threw himself into his studies again when he got back to the university, but in spite of himself his mind kept wandering back to strange questions. He wished Wittemore would come back and say his mother was better! It was Wittemore that had started all this queer side-track of philanthropy; that had sent him off to make toast for old women and manage funerals for strange young girls. If Wittemore would get back to his classes and plod off to his slums every day, with his long horse-like face and his scared little apologetic smile, why, perhaps his own mind would assume its normal bent and let him get at his work. And with that he sat down and wrote a letter to Wittemore, brief, sympathetic, inquiring, offering any help that might be required. When it was finished he felt better and studied half the night.
He knew the next morning as soon as he woke up that he would have to go to that funeral. He hated funerals, and this would be a terrible ordeal, he was sure. Such a pitiful little funeral, and he an utter stranger, too! But the necessity presented itself like a command from an unseen force, and he knew that it was required of him—that he would never feel quite satisfied with himself if he shirked it.
Fortunately his examination began at eight o'clock. If he worked fast he could get done in plenty of time, for the hour of the funeral had been set for eleven o'clock.
Tennelly and Pat stood and gazed after him aghastwhen, on coming out of the class-room where he had taken his examination, he declined their suggestion that they all go down to the river skating for an hour and try to get their blood up after the strain so they could study better after lunch.
"I can't! I'm going to that kid's funeral!" he said, and strode up the stairs with his arms full of books.
"Good night!" said Pat, in dismay.
"Morbid!" ejaculated Tennelly. "Say, Pat, I don't guess we better let him go. He'll come home 'all in' again."
But when they found Bill Ward and went up to try and stop Courtland he had departed by the other door and was half-way down the campus.
It was all very neat and beautiful in the little, third-story back room. The gas-stove and other things had disappeared behind the calico curtain. Before it stood the small white coffin, with the beautiful boy lying as if he were asleep, the roses strewn about him, and a mass of valley-lilies at his feet. The girl, white and calm, sat beside him, one hand resting across the casket protectingly.
Three or four women from the house had brought in chairs, and some of the neighbors had slipped in shyly, half in sympathy, half in curiosity. The minister was already there, talking in a low tone in the hall with the undertaker.
The girl looked up when Courtland entered and thanked him for the flowers with her eyes. The women huddled in the back of the room watched him curiously and let no flicker of an eyelash pass without notice. They were like hungry birds ready to pounce on any scrap of sentiment or suspicion that might be dropped in their sight. The doctor came stolidly in and went and stood beside the coffin, looking down for a minute as if he were burning remedial incense in his soul, and then turned away with the frank tears running down his tired, honest face. He sat down beside Courtland. The stillness and the strangeness in the bare room were awful. It was only bearable to look toward the peace in the small, white, dead face; for the calm on the face of the sister cut one to the heart.
The minister and the undertaker stepped into the room, and then it seemed to Courtland as if One other entered also. He did not look up to see. He merely had that sense of Another. It stayed with him and relieved the tension in the room.
Then the voice of the minister, clear, gentle, ringing, triumphant, stole through the room, and out into the hall, even down through the landings, where were huddled some of the neighbors come to listen:
"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me: Write—Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth ... But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.... For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words."
Courtland listened attentively. The words were utterly new to him. If he had heard them before on the few occasions when he had perforce attended funerals, they had never entered into his consciousness. They seemed almost uncannily to answer the desolating questions of his heart. He listened with painful attention. Most remarkable statements!
"But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept!"
He glanced instinctively around where it seemed that the Presence had entered. He could not get away fromthe feeling that He stood just to the left of the minister there, with bowed head, like a great one whose errand and presence there were about to be explained. It was as if He had come to take the little child away with Him. Courtland remembered the girl's prayer the night the child died: "Go with little Aleck and see that he is not afraid till he gets safe home." He glanced up at her calm, tearless face. She was drinking in the words. They seemed to give strength under her pitiless sorrow.
"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death!"
Courtland heard the words with a shock of relief. Here had he been under the depression of death—death everywhere and always! threatening every life and every project of earth! And now this confident sentence looking toward a time when death should be no more! It came as something utterly new and original that there would be a time when no one should, ever fear death again because death would be put out of existence! He had to look at it and face it as something to be recognized and thought out, a thing that was presenting itself for him to believe; as if the Christ Himself were having it read just for him alone to hear; as if those huddled curious women and the tearful doctor, and the calm-faced girl were not there at all, only Christ and the little dead child waiting to walk into another, realer life, and Courtland, there on the threshold of another world to learn a great truth.
"But some will say, How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?"
Courtland looked up, startled. The very thought that was dawning in his mind! The child, presently to lie under the ground and return to dust! How could there be a resurrection of that little body after years,perhaps? How could there be hope for that wide-eyed sister with the sorrowful soul?
"Thou fool, that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain."
He listened through the wonderful nature-picture, dimly understanding the reasoning; on to the words:
"So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."
He looked at the child lying there among the lilies, those spirituelle blossoms so ethereal and perfect that they almost seem to have a soul. Was that the thought, then? The little child laid under the earth like the bulb of the lily, to see corruption and decay, would come forth, even as the spirit of the lilies came up out of the darkness and mold and decay of their tomb under-ground, and burst into the glory of their beautiful blossoms, the perfection of what the ugly brown bulb was meant to be. All the possibilities come to perfection! no accident or stain of sin to mar the glorified character! a perfect soul in a perfect, glorified body!
The wonder of the thought swelled within him, and sent a thrill through him with the minister's voice as he read:
"So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!"
If Courtland had been asked before he came therewhether he believed in a resurrection he might have given a doubtful answer. During the four years of his college life he had passed through various stages of unbelief along with a good many of his fellow-students. With them he had made out a sort of philosophy of life which he supposed he believed. It was founded partly upon what hewantedto believe and partly upon what he couldnotbelieve, because he had never been able to reason it out. Up to this time even his experience with the Presence had not touched this philosophy of his which he had constructed like a fancy scaffolding inside of which he expected to fashion his life. The Presence and his partial surrender to its influence had been a matter of the heart, and until now it had not occurred to him that his allegiance to the Christ was incompatible with his former philosophy. The doctrine of the resurrection suddenly stood before him as something that must be accepted along with the Christ, or the Christ was not the Christ! Christwasthe resurrection if He was at all! Christhadto be that,hadto have conquered death, or He would not have been the Christ; He would not have been God humanized for the understanding of men unless He could do God-like things. He was not God if He could not conquer death. He would not be a man's Christ if He could not come to man in his darkest hour and conquer his greatest enemy; put Himself up against death and come out victorious!
A great fact had been revealed to Courtland: There was a resurrection of the dead, and Christ was the hope of that resurrection! It was as if he had just met Christ face to face and heard Him say so; had it all explained to him fully and satisfactorily. He doubted if he could tell the professor in the Biblical Literature class how, because perhapshehadn't seen the Christ that way;but others understood! That white, strained face of the girl was not hopeless. There was the light of a great hope in her eyes; they could see afar off over the loneliness of the years that were to be, up to the time when she should meet the little brother again, glorified, perfected, stainless!
It suddenly came to Courtland to think how Stephen Marshall would look with that glorified body. The last glimpse he had had of him standing above the burning pit of the theater with the halo of flames about his head had given him a vision. A great gladness came up within him that some day he would surely see Stephen Marshall again, grasp his hand, make him know how he repented his own negative part in the persecution that had led him to his death; make him understand how in dying he had left a path of glory behind and given life to Paul Courtland.
In the prayer that followed the minister seemed as though he were talking with dear familiarity to One whom he knew well. The young man, listening, marveled that any dared come so near, and found himself longing for such assurance and comradeship.
They took the casket out to a quiet place beyond the city, where the little body might rest until the sister wished to take it away.
As they stood upon that bleak hillside, dotted over with white tombstones, the looming city in the distance off at the right, Courtland recognized the group of spreading buildings that belonged to-his university. He marveled at the closeness of life and death in this world. Out there the busy city, everybody tired and hustling to get, to learn, to enjoy; out here everybody lying quiet, like the corn of wheat in the ground, waiting for the resurrection time, the call of God to come forth in beauty! What a difference it would make in theworking, and getting, and hustling, and learning, and enjoying if everybody remembered how near the lying-quiet time might be! How unready some might be to lie down and feel that it was all over! How much difference it must make what one had done with the time over there in the city, when the stopping time came! How much better it would be if one could live remembering the Presence, always being aware of its nearness! To live Christ! What would that mean? Was he ready to surrender a thought like that?
The minister, it appeared, had a very urgent call in another direction. He must take a trolley that passed the gate of the cemetery and go off at once. It fell to Courtland to look after the girl, for the doctor had not been able to leave his practice to take the long ride to the cemetery. She, it seemed, did not hear what they said, nor care who went with her.
Courtland led her to the carriage and put her in. "I suppose you will want to go directly back to the house?" he said.
She turned to him as if she were coming out of a trance. She caught her breath and gave him one wild, beseeching look, crying out with something like a sob: "Oh, how can Ievergo back to that roomnow?" And then her breath seemed suddenly to leave her and she fell back against the seat as if she were lifeless.
He sprang in beside her, took her in his arms, resting her head against his shoulder, loosened her coat about her throat, and chafed her cold hands, drawing the robes closely about her slender shoulders, but she lay there white and without a sign, of life. He thought he never had seen anything so ghastly white as her face.
The driver came around and offered a bottle of brandy. They forced a few drops between her teeth, and after a moment there came a faint flutter of hereyelids. She came to herself for just an instant, looked about her, realized her sorrow once more, and dropped off into oblivion again.
"She's in a bad way!" murmured the driver, looking worried. "I guess we'd better get her somewheres. I don't want to have no responsibility. My chief's gone back to the city, and the other man's gone across the to West Side. I reckon we'd better go on and stop at some hospital if she don't come to pretty soon."
The driver vanished and the carriage started at a rapid pace. Courtland sat supporting his silent charge in growing alarm, alternately chafing her hands and trying to force more brandy between her set lips. He was relieved when at last the carriage stopped again and he recognized the stone buildings of one of the city's great hospitals.