"They say Rash's father and mother didn't want him in the world, and I sometimes wish they'd had their way. If he wasn't here—or if he was dead—I believe I could be happier. I shouldn't be forever worrying about him. I shouldn't have him on my mind. I often wonder if it's—if it's love I feel for him—or only an agonizing sense of responsibility."

The door being open Walter Wildgoose waddled to the threshold, where he stood with his right hand clasped in his left. "Mr. Steptoe at Mr. Allerton's to speak to Miss Barbara on the telyphone, please."

Barbara gasped. "Oh, Lord! I wonder what it is now!"

Left to herself Miss Walbrook resumed her scanning of the paper, but she resumed it with the faintest quiver of a smile on her thin, cleanly-cut lips. It was the kind of smile which indicates patient hope, or the anticipation of something satisfactory.

"Oh!"

The exclamation was so loud as to be heard all the way from the telephone, which was in another part of the house. Miss Walbrook let the paper fall, sat bolt upright, and listened.

"Oh! Oh!"

It was like a second, and repeated, explosion. Miss Walbrook rose to her feet; the paper rustled to the floor.

"Oh! Oh!"

The sound was that which human beings make when the thing told them is more than they can bear. Barbara cried out as if someone was beating her with clubs, and she was coming to her knees.

She was not coming to her knees. When her aunt reached her she was still standing by the little table in the hall which held the telephone, on which she had hung up the receiver. She supported herself with one hand on the table, as a woman does when all she can do is not to fall senseless.

"It's—it's Rash," she panted, as she saw her aunt appear. "Somebody has—has killed him."

Miss Walbrook stood with hands clasped, like one transfixed. "He's dead?—after all?"

Barbara nodded, tearlessly. She could stammer out the words, but no more. "Yes—all but!"

* * * * *

In the flat at Red Point there was another and dissimilar breakfast scene. For the first time in her life Letty was having coffee and toast in bed. The window was open, and between the muslin curtains, which puffed in the soft May wind, she could see the ocean with steamers and ships on it.

The room was tiny, but it was spotless. Everything was white, except where here and there it was tied up with a baby-blue ribbon. Anything that could be tied with a baby-blue ribbon was so tied.

Letty thought she had never seen anything so dainty, though her experienced eye could detect the fact that nothing had really cost money. As an opening to the career on which she had embarked the setting was unexpected, while the method of her treatment was bewildering. In the black recesses of her heart Miss Henrietta Towell might be hiding all those feline machinations which Mrs. Judson Flack had led Letty to believe a part of the great world's stock-in-trade; but it couldn't be denied that she hid them well. Letty didn't know what to make of it. "There's quite a trick to it," Steptoe had warned her; but the explanation seemed inadequate to the phenomena.

Sipping her coffee and crunching her toast she was driven to ponder on the ways of wickedness. She had expected them to be more obvious. All her information was to the effect that an unprotected girl in a world of males was a lamb among lions, a victim with no way of escape. That she was a lamb among lions, and a victim with no way of escape, she was still prepared to believe; only the preliminaries puzzled her. Instead of being crude, direct, indelicate, they were subtle and misleading. After twenty-four hours in Miss Towell's spare room there was still no hint of anything but coddling.

"You see, my dear," Miss Towell had said, "if I don't nurse you back to real 'ealth, him that gave you the thimble might be displeased with me."

It was not often that Miss Towell dropped an h or added one; but in moments of emotion early habit was too strong for her.

Coming into the room now, on some ermine's errand of neatness, she threw a glance at Letty, and said: "You don't look like a Rashleigh, do you, dear? But then you never can tell anything about families from looks, can you?"

It was her nearest approach as yet to the personal, and Letty considered as to how she was to meet it. "I'm not a Rashleigh—not really—only by—by marriage. Rashleigh isn't my real name. It's—it's the name I'm going by in pictures."

"Oh!"

Miss Towell's exclamation was the subdued one of acquiescence. She knew that ladies in pictures often preferred names other than their own, and if Letty was not a Rashleigh it "explained things." That is, it explained how anyone called Rashleigh could be wandering about in this friendless way, though it made 'Enery Steptoe's intervention the more mysterious. It was conceivable that he might act on behalf of a genuine Rashleigh, however out at elbow; but that he should take such pains for a spurious one, and go to the length of sending the sacred silver thimble as a pledge, rendered the situation puzzling.

Schooled by her religious precepts to taking her duties as those of a minute at a time Miss Towell made no effort to force the girl's confidence, and especially since Letty, like most young people in trouble, was on her guard against giving it. So long as she preferred to be shut up within herself, shut up within herself she should remain. Miss Towell felt that, for the moment at least, her own responsibility was limited to making the child feel that someone cared for her.

At the same time she couldn't have been a lonely woman with a love-story behind her without the impulse to dwell a little longingly on the one romantic incident in her experience. Though it had never come to anything, the fact that it had once opened its shy little flower made a sweet bright place to which her thoughts could retire.

The references came spasmodically and without context, as the little white lady busied herself in waiting on Letty or in the care of her room.

"I haven't seen him since a short time after the mistress went away."

Letty felt herself coloring. Though not prudish there were words she couldn't get used to. Besides which she had never thought that Steptoe.... But Miss Towell pursued her memories.

"It always worried him that I should hold views different from his but I couldn't submit to dictation, now, could I, dear?"

Once more Letty felt herself awkwardly placed. The only interpretation she could put on Miss Towell's words referring to moral reformation on her hostess's part she said, as non-committally as might be: "He's a good deal of a stickler."

"He's been so long in a high position that he becomes—well, I won't be 'arsh—but he becomes a little harbitrary. That's where it was. He was a little harbitrary. With a mistress who allowed him a great deal of his own way—well, you can hardly blame him, can you, dear?"

Letty forced herself to accept the linguistic standard of the world. "I suppose if she hadn't allowed him a great deal of his own way he'd have looked somewhere else."

"That he could easily have done. He had temptations enough—a man like him. Why, dear, there was a lady in Park Avenue did everything she could that wasn't positively dishonorable to win him away——"

"He must have been younger and better looking than he is now," Letty hazarded, bluntly.

"Oh, it wasn't a question of looks. Of course if she'd considered that, why, any foolish young fellow—but she knew what she would have got."

Not being at her ease in this kind of conversation, and finding the effort to see Steptoe as Lothario difficult, Letty became blunt again. "He must have had an awful crush on the first one."

"It wasn't her exactly; it was the boy."

"Oh, there was a boy?"

"Why of course, dear! Didn't you know that?"

"Whose boy was it?"

"Why, the mistress's boy; but I don't think he——" Letty understood the pronoun as applying to Steptoe—"I don't think he ever realized that he wasn't his very own." Straightening the white cover on the chest of drawers Miss Towell shook her head. "It was a sad case."

"What made it sad?"

"A lovely boy he was. Had a kind word for everyone, even for the cat. But somehow his father and mother—well, they were people of the world, and they hadn't wanted a child, and when he came—and he so delicate always—I could have cried over him."

Letty's heart began to swell; her lip trembled. "I know someone like that myself."

"Do you, dear? Then I'm sure you understand."

Partly because the minute was emotional, and partly from a sense that she needed to explain herself, Letty murmured, more or less indistinctly: "It's on his account that I'm here."

Failing to see the force of this Miss Towell was content to say: "I'm glad you were led to me, dear. There's always a power to shepherd us along, if we'll only let ourselves be guided."

To Letty the moment had arrived when plainness of speech was imperative. Leaning across the tray, which still stood on her lap, she gazed up at her hostess with eager, misty eyes. "He said you'd teach me all the ropes."

Miss Towell paused beside the bed, to look inquiringly at the tense little face. "The ropes of what, dear?"

"Of what—" it was hard to express—"of what you—you used to be yourself. You don't seem like it now," she added, desperately, "but you were, weren't you?"

"Oh, that!" The surprise was in the discovery that an American girl of Letty's age could entertain so sensible a purpose. "Why, of course, dear! I'll tell you all I know, and welcome."

"There's quite a trick to it, isn't there?"

"Well, it's more than a trick. There are two or three things which you simply have to be."

"Oh, I know that. That's what frightens me."

"You needn't be afraid, once you've made up your mind to it." She leaned above the bed to relieve Letty of the tray. "For instance—you don't mind my asking questions do you?"

"Oh, no! You can ask me anything."

"Then the first thing is this: Are you pretty good as a needle-woman?"

Letty was astounded. "Why—why you don't have to sew, do you?"

"Certainly, dear. That's one of the most important things you'd be called on to do. You'd never get anywhere if you weren't quick with your needle and thread. And then there'd be hair-dressing. You have to know something about that. I don't say that you must be a professional; but for the simpler occasions—after that there's packing. That's something we often overlook, and where French girls have us at a disadvantage. They pack so beautifully."

Letty was entirely at sea. "Pack what?"

"Pack trunks, dear."

"What for?"

"For travel; for moving from town to country; or from country to town; or making visits; you see you're always on the go. Oh, it's more than a trick; it's quite an art; only—" She smiled at Letty as she stood holding the tray, before carrying it out—"only, I shouldn't have supposed you'd be thinking of that when you act in moving pictures."

"I—I thought I might do both."

"Now, I should say that that's one thing you couldn't do, dear. If you took up this at all you'd find it so absorbing——"

"And you're very unhappy too, aren't you? I've always heard you were."

"Well, that would depend a good deal on yourself. There's nothing in the thing itself to make you unhappy; but sometimes there are other women——"

Letty's eyes were flaming. "They say they're awful."

"Oh, not always. It's a good deal as you carry yourself. I made it a point to keep my position and respect the position of others. It wasn't always easy, especially with Mary Ann Courage and Janie Cakebread; but——"

Letty's head fell back on the pillow. Her eyes closed. A merry-go-round was spinning in her head. Where was she? How had she come there? What was she there for? Where was the wickedness she had been told to look for everywhere? Having gone in search of it, and expected to find it lying in wait from the first minute of passing the protecting door, she had been shuffled along from one to another, with exasperating kindness, only to be brought face to face with Jane Cakebread and Mary Ann Courage at the end.

Miss Towell having borne away the tray, Letty struggled out of bed, and put on the woollen dressing gown thrown over a chair by the bedside. This was no place for her. Beehive Valley was not far off, and her forty-five cents would more than suffice to take her there. She would see the casting director. She would get a job. With food to eat and a place to sleep as a starting point she would find her own way to wickedness, releasing the prince in spite of all the mishaps which kept her as she was.

But she trembled so that having wrapped the dressing gown about her she was obliged to sit down again. She would have to be crafty. She must get this woman to help her with her dressing, without suspecting what she meant to do. How could she manage that? She must try to think.

She was trying to think when she heard the ring of the telephone. It suggested an idea. Some time—not this time, of course—when the telephone rang and the woman was answering it, she, Letty, would be able to slip away. The important thing was to do her hair and get her clothes on.

"Yes?... Yes?" There was a little catch to the breath, a smothered laugh, a smothered sigh. "Oh, so this is you!... Yes, I got it.... Seeing it again gave me quite a turn.... I never expected that you'd keep it all this time, but.... Yes, she's here.... No; she didn't come exactly of her own accord, but I—I found her.... I could tell you about it easier if you were—it's so hard on the telephone when there's so much to say—but perhaps you don't care to.... Yes, she's quite well—only a little tired—been worked up somehow—but a day or so in bed.... Oh, very sensible ... and she wants me to teach her how to be a lady's maid...."

So that was it! Steptoe had been treacherous. Letty would never believe in anyone again. She could make these reflections hurriedly because the voice at the telephone was silent.

"Oh!"

It was the same exclamation as that of Barbara Walbrook, but in another tone—a tone of distress, sharp, sympathetic. Pulling the dressing gown about her, frightened, tense, Letty knew that something had gone wrong.

"Oh! Oh!... last night, did you say?... early this morning...."

Letty crept to where her hostess was seated at the telephone. "What is it?"

But Miss Towell either didn't hear the question or was too absorbed to answer it. "Oh, 'Enery, try to remember that God is his life—that there can be no death to be afraid of when——"

Letty snatched the receiver from the other woman's hands, and fell on her knees beside the little table. "Oh, what is it? What is it? It's me; Letty! Something's happened. I've got to know."

Amazed and awed by the force of this intrusion Miss Towell stood up, and moved a little back.

Over the wire Steptoe's voice sounded to Letty like the ghost of his voice, broken, dead.

"I think if I was madam I'd come back."

"But what's happened? Tell me that first."

"It's Mr. Rash."

"Yes, I know it's Mr. Rash. But what is it? Tell me quickly, for God's sake."

"'E's been 'it."

Her utterance was as nearly as possible a cry. "But he hasn't been killed?"

"Madam'd find 'im alive—if she 'urried."

When Letty rose from her knees she was strong. She was calm, too, and competent. She further surprised Miss Towell by the way in which she took command.

"I must hurry. They want me at once. Would you mind helping me to dress?"



Chapter XXV

"The queer thing about it, miss," Steptoe was saying to Barbara, "is that I didn't 'ear no noise. My winder is just above the front door, two floors up, and it was open. I always likes an open winder, especially when the weather begins to get warm—makes it 'ealthier like, and so——"

"Yes, but tell me just how he is."

"That's what I'm comin' to, miss. The minute I see what an awful styte we was in, I says, Miss Walbrook, she'll 'ave to know, I says; and so I called up. Well, as I was a-tellin you, miss, I couldn't sleep all night, 'ardly not any, thinkin of all what 'ad 'appened in the 'ouse, in the course of a few months, as you might sye—and madam run awye—and Mr. Rash 'e not 'ome—and it one o'clock and lyter. Not but what 'e's often lyter than that, only last night I 'ad that kind of a feelin' which you'll get when you know things is not right, and you don't 'ardly know 'ow you know it."

"Yes, Steptoe," she interposed, eagerly; "but is he conscious now? That's what I want to hear about."

Steptoe's expression of grief lay in working up to a dramatic climax dramatically. He didn't understand the hurried leaps and bounds by which you took the tragic on the skip, as if it were not portentous. In his response to Miss Walbrook there was a hint of irritation, and perhaps of rebuke.

"I couldn't sye what 'e is now, miss, as the doctor and the nurse is with 'im, and won't let nobody in till they decides whether 'e's to live or die." Rocking himself back and forth in his chair he moaned in stricken anticipation. "If 'e goes, I shan't be long after 'im. I may linger a bit, but the good Lord won't move me on too soon."

Barbara curbed her impatience to reach the end, going back to the beginning. "Well, then, was it you who found 'im?"

"It was this wye, miss. Knowin' 'e wasn't in the 'ouse, I kep' goin' to my winder and listenin'—and then goin' back to bed agyne—I couldn't tell you 'ow many times; and then, if you'd believe it I must 'ave fell asleep. No; I can't believe as I was asleep. I just seemed to come to, like, and as I laid there wonderin' what time it was, seems to me as if I 'eard a kind of a snore, like, not in the 'ouse, but comin' up from the street."

"What time was that?"

"That'd be about 'alf past one. Well, up I gets and creeps to the winder, and sure enough the snore come right up from the steps. Seems to me, too, I could see somethink layin' there, all up and down the steps, just as if it 'ad been dropped by haccident like. My blood freezes. I slips into my thick dressin' gown—no, it was my thin dressin' gown—I always keeps two—one for winter and one for summer—and this spring bein' so early like——"

"But in the end you got down stairs."

"If I didn't, miss, 'ow could I 'a' found 'im? I ain't one to be afryde of dynger, not even 'ere in New York, where you can be robbed and murdered without 'ardly knowin' it—and the police that slow about follerin' up a clue——"

"And what happened when you'd opened the front door?"

"I didn't open it at once, miss. I put my hear to the crack and listened. And there it was, a long kind of snore, like—only it wasn't just what you'd call a snore. It was more like this." He drew a deep, rasping, stertorous breath. "Awful, it was, miss, just like somebody in liquor. 'It's liquor,' I says, and not wantin' to be mixed up in no low company I wasn't for openin' the door at all——"

"But you did?"

"Not till I'd gone 'alf wye upstairs and down agyne. I'm like that. I often thinks I'll not do a thing, and then I'll sye to myself, 'Now, perhaps I'd better, and so it was that time. 'E's out, I says, and who knows but what 'e's fell in a fynt like?' So back I goes, and I peeps out a little bit—just my nose out, as you might sye, not knowin' but what if there was low company——"

"When did you find out who it was?"

"I knowed the 'at, like. It was that 'at what 'e bought afore 'e bought the last one. No; I don't know but what 'e's bought two since 'e bought that one—a soft felt, and a cowboy what he never wore but once or twice because it wasn't becomin'. You'll 'ave noticed, miss, that 'e 'ad one o' them fyces what don't look well in nothink rakish—a real gentleman's fyce 'e 'ad—and them cowboy 'ats——"

"Well, when you saw that hat, what did you do?"

"For quite a spell I didn't do nothink. I was all blood-curdled, as you might sye. But by and by I creeps out, and down the steps, and there 'e was, all 'uddled every wye——"

His lip trembled. In trying to go on he produced only a few incoherent sounds. Reaching for his handkerchief, he blew his nose, before being able to say more.

"Well, the first thing I says to myself, miss, was, Is 'e dead? It was a terrible thing to sye of one that's everythink in the world to me; but seein' 'im there, all crumpled up, with one leg one wye, and the other leg another wye, and a harm throwed out 'elpless like—well, what was I to think? miss—and 'im not aible to sye a word, and me shykin' like a leaf, and out of doors in my thin dressin' gown—if I'd 'ad on my thick one I wouldn't 'a' felt so kind of shymeful like——"

"You might have known he wasn't dead when you heard him breathing."

"I didn't think o' that. I thought as 'e was. And when I see 'is poor harm stretched out so wild like I creeps nearer and nearer, and me 'ardly aible to move—I felt so bad—and I puts my finger on 'is pulse. Might as well 'ave put it on that there fender. Then I looks at 'is fyce and I see blood on 'is lip and 'is cheek. 'Somethink's struck 'im,' I says; and then I just loses consciousness, and puts back my 'ead, as you'll see a dog do when 'e 'owls, and I yells, 'Police!'"

"Oh, you did that, did you?"

"I'm ashymed to sye it, miss, but I did; and who should come runnin' along but the policeman what in the night goes up and down our beat. By that time I'd got my 'and on 'is 'eart, and the policeman 'e calls out from a distance, 'Hi, there! What you doin' to that man?' Thought I was murderin' 'im, you see. I says, 'My boy, 'e is, and I'm tryin' to syve 'is life.' Well, the policeman 'e sees I'm in my dressin' gown, and don't look as if I'd do 'im any 'arm, so 'e kind o' picks up 'is courage, and blows 'is whistle, and another policeman 'e runs up from the wye of the Havenue. Then when there's two of 'em they ain't afryde no more, so that the first one 'e comes up to me quite bold like, and arsks me who's killed, and what's killed 'im, and I tells 'im 'ow I was layin' awyke, with the winder open, and Mr. Rash bein' out I couldn't sleep like——"

"How long did they let him lie there?"

"Oh, not long. First they was for callin' a hambulance; but when I tells 'em that 'e's my boy, and lives in my 'ouse, they brings 'im in and we lays 'im on the sofa in the libery, and I rings up Dr. Lancing, and——"

But something in Barbara snapped. She could stand no more. Not to cry out or break down she sprang to her feet. "That'll do, Steptoe. I know now all I need to know. Thank you for telling me. I shall stay here till the doctor or the nurse comes down. If I want you again I'll ring."



Lashing up and down the drawing-room, wringing her hands and moaning inwardly, Barbara reflected on the speed with which Nemesis had overtaken her. "If he wasn't here—or if he was dead," she had said, "I believe I could be happier." As long as she lived she would hear the curious intonation in Aunt Marion's voice: "He's dead?—after all?" It was in that after all that she read the unspeakable accusation of herself.

Waiting for the doctor was not long. On hearing his step on the stair Barbara went out to meet him. "How is he?" she asked, without wasting time over self-introductions.

"It's a little difficult to say as yet. The case is serious. Just how serious we can't tell to-day—perhaps not to-morrow. I find no trace of fracture of the cranium, or of laceration of the brain; but it's too soon to be sure. Dr. Brace and Dr. Wisdom, who've both been here, are inclined to think that it may be no more than a simple concussion. We must wait and see."

Relieved to this extent Barbara went on to explain herself. "I'm Miss Walbrook. I was engaged to Mr. Allerton till—till quite recently. We're still great friends—the greatest friends. He had no near relations—only cousins—and I doubt if any of them are in New York as late in the season as this—and even if they are he hardly knows them——"

The doctor, a cheery, robust man in the late thirties, in his own line one of the ablest specialists in New York, had a foible for social position and his success in it. Even now, with such grave news to communicate, he couldn't divest himself of his dinner-party manner or his smile.

"I've had the pleasure of meeting Miss Walbrook, at the Essingtons' dinner—the big one for Isabel—and afterwards at the dance."

"Oh, of course," Barbara corroborated, though with no recollection of the encounter. "I knew it was somewhere, but I couldn't quite recall—So I felt, when the butler called me up, that I should be here——"

"Quite so! quite so! You'll find Miss Gallifer, who's with him now, a most competent nurse, and I shall bring a good night nurse before evening." The professional side of the situation disposed of, he touched tactfully on the romantic. "It will be a great thing for me to know that in a masculine household like this a woman with knowledge and authority is running in and out. The more you can be here, Miss Walbrook, the more responsibility you'll take off my hands."

"May I be in his room—and help the nurse—or do anything like that?"

"Quite so! quite so! I'm sure Miss Gallifer, who can't be there every minute of the time, you understand, will be glad to feel that there's someone she can trust——"

"And he couldn't know I was there?"

"Not unless he returned unexpectedly to consciousness, which is possible, you understand——"

Her distress was so great that she hazarded a question on which she would not otherwise have ventured. "Doctor, you're a physician. I can speak to you as I shouldn't speak to everyone. Suppose he did return unexpectedly to consciousness, and found me there in the room, do you think he'd be—annoyed?"

It was the sort of situation he liked, a part in the intimate affairs of people of the first quality. "As to his being annoyed I can't say. It might be the very opposite. What I know is this, that in the coming back of the mind to its regular functions inhibitions are often suspended——"

"And you mean by that——?"

"That the first few minutes in which the mind revives are likely to be minutes of genuine reality. I don't say that the mind could keep it up. Very few of us can be our genuine selves for more than flashes at a time; but a returning consciousness doesn't put on its inhibitions till——"

"So that what you see in those few minutes you can take as the truth."

"I should say so. I'm not in a position to affirm it; but the probabilities point that way."

"And if there had been, let us say, a lesser affection, something of recent origin, and lower in every way——"

"I think that until it forged its influence again—if it ever did—you'd see it forgotten or disowned."

She tried to be even more explicit. "He's perfectly free, in every way. I broke off my engagement just to make him free. The—the other woman, she, too, has—has left him——"

"So that," he summed up, "if in those first instants of returning to the world you could read his choice you'd be relieved of doubts for the future."

Having made one or two small professional recommendations he was about to go when Barbara's mind worked to another point. "You know, he's been very excitable."

"So I've understood. I go a good deal to the Chancellors'. You know them, of course. I've heard about him there."

"Well, then, if he got better, is there anything we could do about that?"

"In a general way, yes. If you're gentle with him——"

"Oh, I am."

"And if you try to smooth him down when you see him beginning to be ruffled——"

"That's just what I do, only it seems to excite him the more."

"Then, in that case, I should say, break the conversation off. Go away from him. Let him alone. Let him work out of it. Begin again later."

"Ye-es, only—" she was wistful, unconvinced—"only later it's so likely to be the same thing over again."

He dodged the further issue by running up to explain to the nurse Miss Walbrook's position in the house, and as helper in case of necessity. By the time he had come down again Barbara's anguish was visible. "Oh, doctor, you think he will get better, don't you?"

He was at the front door. "I hope he will. Quite—quite possibly he will. His pulse isn't very strong as yet, but—Well, Dr. Brace and Dr. Wisdom are coming for another consultation this afternoon; only his condition, you understand, is—well, serious."

Barbara divined the malice beneath Steptoe's indications, as he conducted her upstairs. "That was the lyte Mrs. Allerton's room; that's the front spare room; and that's our present madam's room—when she's 'ere—heach with its barth. I'm sure if Miss Walbrook was inclined to use the front spare room I'd be entirely welcome, and 'ave put in clean towels, and everythink, a-purpose."

When Rash's door was pointed out to her she tapped. Miss Gallifer opened it, receiving her colleague with a great big hearty smile. Great, big, and hearty were the traits by which Miss Gallifer was known among the doctors. Healthy, skilful, jolly, and offhand, she carried the issues of life and death, in which she was at home, with a lightness which made her easy to work with. Some nurses would have resented the intrusion of an outsider—professionally speaking—like Miss Walbrook; but to Miss Gallifer it was the more the merrier, even in the sickroom. The very fact of coming to close quarters with the type she knew as a "society girl" added spice to the association.

For the first few seconds Barbara found her breeziness a shock. She had expected something subdued, hushed, funereal. Miss Gallifer hardly lowered her voice, which was naturally loud, or quieted her manner, which, when off duty, could be boisterous. It was not boisterous now, of course; only quick, free, spontaneous. Then Barbara saw the reason.

There was no need to lower the voice or quiet the manner or soften the swish of rustling to and fro, in presence of that still white form composed in the very attitude of death. If Barbara hadn't known he was alive she wouldn't have supposed it. She had seen dead men before—her father, two brothers, other relatives. They looked like this; this looked like them. She said this to herself, and not he, because it seemed the word.

But by the time she had moved forward and was standing by the bed Miss Gallifer's businesslike tone became a comfort. You couldn't take such a tone if you thought there was danger; and in spite of the hemming and hawing of the doctors Miss Gallifer didn't think there was.

"Oh, I've seen lots of such cases, and I say it's a simple concussion. Old Wisdom, he doesn't know anything. I wouldn't consult him about an accident to a cat. Laceration of the brain is always his first diagnosis; and if the patient didn't have it he'd get it to him before he'd admit that he was wrong."

Barbara put the question in which all her other questions were enfolded. "Then you think he'll get better?"

"I shouldn't be surprised."

"Would you be surprised—the other way?"

"I think I should—on the whole. Pulse is poor. That's the worst sign." She picked up the hand lying outside the coverlet and put her finger-tips to the wrist, doing it with the easy nonchalant carelessness with which she might have seized an inanimate object, yet knowing exactly what she was about. "H'm! Fifty-six! That's pretty low. If we could get it above sixty—but still!" Dropping the hand with the same indifference, yet continuing to know what she was about, Miss Gallifer tossed aside the index of the pulse as wholly non-convincing. "I've known cases where the pulse would go down till there was almost no pulse at all, and yet it would come up again."

"So that you feel——?"

"Oh, he'll do. I shouldn't worry—yet. If he wasn't going to pull through there would be something——"

"Something to tell you?"

"Well, yes—if you put it that way. I most always know with a patient. It isn't anything in his condition. It's more like a hunch. There's often the difference between a doctor and a nurse. The doctor goes by what he sees, the nurse by what she feels. Nine times out of ten the doctor'll see wrong and the nurse'll feel right—and there you are! You can't go by doctors. A lot of guess-work gumps, I often think; and yet the laity need them for comfort."

Making the most of all this Barbara asked, timidly: "Is there anything I could do?"

"Well, no! There isn't much that anyone can do. You've just got to wait. If you're going to stay——"

"I should like to."

"Then you can be somewhere else in the house so that I could call you—or you could sit right here—whichever you preferred."

"I'd rather sit right here, if I shouldn't be in the way."

"Oh, when you're in the way I'll tell you."

On this understanding Barbara sat down, in a small low armchair not far from the foot of the bed. Miss Gallifer also sat down, nearer to the window, taking up a book which, as Barbara could see from the "jacket" on the cover, bore the title, The Secret of Violet Pryde. It was clear that there was nothing to be done, since Miss Gallifer could so easily lose herself in her novel.

Not till her jumble of impressions began to arrange themselves did Barbara realize that she was in Rash's room, surrounded by the objects most intimate to his person. Here the poor boy slept and dressed, and lived the portion of his life which no one else could share with him. In a sense they were rifling his privacy, the secrecy with which every human being has in some measure to surround himself. She recalled a day in her childhood, after her parents and both her brothers had died, when their house with its contents was put up for sale. She remembered the horror with which she had seen strangers walking about in the rooms sanctified by loved presences, and endeared to her holiest memories. Something of that she felt now, as Miss Gallifer threw aside her book, sprang lightly to her feet, hurried into Rash's bathroom, and came out with a towel slightly damped, which she passed over the patient's brow. She was so horribly at ease! It was as if Rash no longer had a personality whose rights one must respect.

But he might get better! Miss Gallifer believed that he would! Barbara clung to that as an anchor in this tempest of emotions. If he got better he would open his eyes. If he opened his eyes it would be, for a little while at least, with his inhibitions suspended. If his inhibitions were suspended the thing he most wanted would be in his first glance; and if his first glance fell on her....



Chapter XXVI

Waiting was becoming dreamlike. She didn't find it tedious, or over-fraught with suspense. On the contrary, it was soothing. It was a little trance-like, too, almost as if she had been enwrapped in Rash's stillness.

It was so strange to see him still. It was so strange to be still herself. Of her own being, as of his, she had hardly any concept apart from the high winds of excitement. Calm like this was new to her, and because new it was appeasing, wonderful. It was not unlike content, only the content which comes in sleep, to be broken up by waking. Somewhere in her nature she liked seeing him as he was, helpless, inert, with no power of enraging her by being restive to her will. It was, in its way, a repetition of what she had said that morning: "If he wasn't here—or if he was dead!" Longing for peace, her stormy soul seemed to know by instinct the price she would have to pay for it. For peace to be possible Rash must pass out of her life, and the thought of Rash passing out of her life was agony.

While Miss Gallifer was downstairs at lunch Barbara had the sweet, unusual sense of having him all to herself. She had never so had him in their hours together because the violence of their clashes had prevented communion. Seated in this silence, in this quietude, she felt him hers. There was no one to dispute her claim, no one whose claim she had in any way to recognize as superior. Letty's claim she had never recognized at all. It was accidental, spurious. Letty herself didn't put it forth—and even she was gone. If Rash were to open his eyes he would see no one but herself.

She was sorry when Miss Gallifer came back, though there was no help for that; but Miss Gallifer was obtrusive only when she chatted or moved about. For much of the time she pursued the secret of Violet Pryde with such assiduity that the room became quiescent, and communion with Rash could be re-established.

The awesome silence was disturbed only by the turning of Miss Gallifer's pages. It might have been three o'clock. Once more Barbara was lost in the unaccustomed hush, her eyes fixed on the white face on the pillow, in almost hypnotic restfulness. The pushing open of the door behind was so soft that she didn't notice. Miss Gallifer turned another page.

It was the sense that someone was in the room which made Barbara glance over her shoulder and Miss Gallifer look up. A little gray figure in a battered black hat stood just within the door. She stood just within the door, but with no consciousness of anything or anyone in the room. She saw only the upturned face and its deathlike fixity.

With slow, spellbound movement she began to come forward. Barbara, who had never seen the Letty who used to be, knew her now only by a terrified intuition. Miss Gallifer was entirely at a loss, and somewhat indignant. The little gray vagrant was not of the type she had been used to treating with respect.

"What are you doing here?" she asked quickly, as soon as speech came to her.

Letty didn't look at her, or remove her eyes from the face on the pillow. A woman in a trance could not have spoken with greater detachment or self-control. "I came—to see."

"Well, now that you've seen, won't you please go away, before I call the police?"

Of this Letty took no notice, going straight to the bedside, while Miss Gallifer moved toward Barbara, who stood as she had risen from her chair.

"Do you know who she is?" Miss Gallifer asked, with curiosity greater than her indignation.

Barbara nodded. "Yes, I know who she is. I thought she'd—disappeared."

"Oh, they never disappear for long—not that kind. What had I better do? Is she anything—to him?"

Barbara was saved the necessity of answering because Letty, who was on the other side of the bed, bent over and kissed the feet, as she had kissed them once before.

"Is she dotty?" Miss Gallifer whispered. "Ought I to take her by the shoulders and put her out the door? I could, you know—a scrap of a thing like that."

Barbara whispered back. "I can't tell you who she is, but—but I wouldn't interfere with her."

"Oh, the doctor'll do that. He'll not——"

But Letty raised herself, addressing the nurse. "Is he—dead?"

Miss Gallifer's tone was the curt one we use to inferiors. "No, he's not dead."

"Is he going to die?"

"Not this time, I think."

Letty looked round her. "Well, I'll just sit over here." She went to a chair at the back of the room, in a corner on a line with the door. "I won't give any trouble. The minute he begins to—to live I'll go."

It was Barbara who arranged the matter peaceably, mollifying Miss Gallifer. Without explaining who Letty was she insisted on her right to remain. If Miss Gallifer was mystified, it was no more than Miss Towell was, or anyone else who touched the situation at a tangent. To that Barbara was indifferent, while Letty didn't think of it.

In rallying her forces Barbara's first recollection had been, "I must be a sport." With theoretical sporting instincts she knew herself the kind of sport who doesn't always run true to form. Hating meanness she could lapse into the mean, and toward Letty herself had so lapsed. That accident she must guard against. The issues were so big that whatever happened, she couldn't afford to reproach herself. Self-reproach would not only magnify defeat but poison success, since, if she availed herself of her advantages, no success would ever prove worth while.

For her own sake rather than for Letty's she made use of the hour while the doctors were again in consultation to explain the possibilities. She would have the whole thing clearly understood. Whether or not Letty did understand it she wasn't quite sure, since she seemed cut off from thought-communication. She listened, nodded, was docile to instructions, but made no response.

To be as lucid as possible Barbara put it in this way: "Since you've left him, and I've broken my engagement he'll be absolutely free to choose; and yet, you must remember, we may—we may both lose him."

That both should lose him seemed indeed the more probable after the consultation. All the doctors looked grave, even Dr. Lancing. His dinner-party manner had forsaken him as he talked to Barbara, his emphasis being thrown on the word "prepared." It was still one of those cases in which you couldn't tell, though so far the symptoms were not encouraging. He felt himself bound in honor to say as much as that, hoping, however, for the best.

Closing the front door on him Barbara felt herself shaken by a frightful possibility. If he never regained consciousness that would "settle it." The suspense would be over. Her fate would be determined. She would no longer have to wonder and doubt, to strive or to cry. No longer would she run the risk of seeing another woman get him. She would find that which her tempestuous nature craved before everything—rest, peace, release from the impulse to battle and dominate. Not by words, not so much as by thought, but only in wild emotion she knew that, as far as she was concerned, it might be better for him to die. If he lived, and chose herself, the storm would only begin again. If he lived and chose the other....

But as to that she could see no reasonable prospect. She had only to look at Letty, shrinking in her corner of the bedroom, to judge any such mischance impossible. She was so humble; so negligible; so much a bit of flotsam of the streets. She had an appeal of her own, of course; but an appeal so lowly as to be obscured by the wayside dust which covered it. What was the flower to which Rash had now and then compared her? Wasn't that what he called it—the dust flower?—that ragged blue thing of byways and backyards, which you couldn't touch without washing your hands afterwards. No, no! Not even the legal tie which nominally bound them could hold in the face of this inequality. It would be too grotesque.

The hours passed. The night nurse was now installed, and was reading Keith Macdermot's Destiny. She was one of those tall, slender women whom you see to be all bone. As businesslike as Miss Gallifer, and quite as detached, Miss Moines was brisk and systematic. It being her habit to subdue a household to herself before she entered on her duties her eyes regarded Miss Walbrook and Letty with the startled glance of a horse's.

For before going Miss Gallifer had given her a hint. "You'll have to do a lot of side-stepping here. This is the famous House of Mystery. You'll find two nuts upstairs—that's what I'd call them if they were men—but they're women—girls, sort of—and you've just got to leave them alone. One's a high-stepper—regular society—was engaged to the patient and now acts as if she'd married him; and the other—well, perhaps you can make her out; I can't. Seems a little off. May be the poor castaway, once loved, and now broken-hearted but faithful, you read about in books. Anyhow, there they are, and you'd best let them be. It won't be for more than—well, I give him twenty-four hours at the most. I begin to think that for once old Wisdom is right. Good-looker too, poor fellow, and can't be more than thirty-five. I wonder what could have happened? I suppose they'll go into that at the inquest."

But Miss Moines was too systematic to have companions in the room without marshaling them to some form of duty. They needed to eat; they needed to sleep. Now and then someone had to go out on the landing and comfort or reassure Steptoe, who sat on the attic stairs like a grief-stricken dog.

Letty was the first to consent to go and lie down. She did so about nine o'clock, extracting a promise that whatever happened she would be called at twelve. If there was any change in the meantime—but that, Miss Moines assured her, was understood in all such ride-and-tie arrangements. At twelve Letty was to return and Barbara lie down till three, with the same proviso in case of the unexpected. But, so to put it, the unexpected seemed improbable, in view of that rigid form, and the white, upturned face.

"And yet," Miss Moines confided to Barbara, "I don't think he's as far gone as they think. Miss Gallifer only changed her mind when they talked her round. A doctor just sees the patient in glimpses, whereas a nurse lives with him, and knows what he can stand."

About eleven Miss Moines closed Keith Macdermot's Destiny, and took the pulse. She nodded as she did so, with a slight exclamation of triumph. "Ah, ha! Fifty-eight! That's the first good sign. It may not mean anything, but——"

Barbara was too exhausted to feel more than a gleam of comfort. The lassitude being emotional rather than physical Miss Moines detected it easily enough, and sent her to rest before the hour agreed upon. She went the more willingly, since the pulse had risen and hope could begin once more.

On the stairs Steptoe raised his bowed head, with a dazed stare. Seeing Miss Walbrook he stumbled to his feet.

"'Ow is 'e now, miss?"

She told him the good news.

"Ah, thank God! Perhaps after all 'E'll spare 'im."

Steptoe informed Letty, who right on the stroke of midnight returned to her post. "Pulse gone up two of them degrees, madam. 'E's goin' to pull through!"

To Letty this was a signal. On going to rest in the little back spare room she had thrown off her street things, worn during all the hours of watching, and put on the dressing gown she had left there a few nights earlier. She was still wearing it, but at Steptoe's news she went back again. On passing him the second time she was clad in the old gray rag and the battered hat in which it would be easier to escape. Steptoe said nothing; but he nodded to himself comprehendingly.

A clock struck two. Miss Moines was hungry. Expecting to be hungry she had had a small tray, with what she called a "lunch," placed for her in the dining-room. Had there been immediate danger she would not have left her post; but with Letty there she saw no harm in taking ten or fifteen minutes to conserve her strength.

For the first time in all those hours Letty was alone with him. Not expecting to be so left she was at first frightened, then audacious. Except for the one time when she had approached the bedside and kissed his feet she had remained in her corner, watching with the silent, motionless intentness of a little animal. Her eyes hardly ever left the white face; but at this distance even the white face was dim.

Now she was possessed by a great daring. She would steal to the bedside again. Again she would see the beloved features clearly. Again she would have the amazing bliss of kissing the coverlet that covered the dear feet. When Miss Moines returned she would be back again in her corner, as if she had never left it. If the pulse rose higher, if there was further hope, if he seemed to be reviving, she could slip away in the confusion of their joy.

She rose and listened. The house was as still as it had been at other times when she had listened in the night. She glided to the bed.

He lay as if he had been carved in stone, propped up with pillows to make breathing easier, his arms outside the coverlet. He was a little as he had been on the morning when she had passed her hand across his brow. As then, too, his hair rose in tongues of diabolic flame.

She was near him. She was bending over him. She was bending not above his feet, but above his head. She knew how mad she was, but she couldn't help herself. Stooping—stooping—closer—closer—her lips touched the forked black mane of his hair.

She leaped back. She leaped not only because of her own boldness, but because he seemed to stir. It was as if this kiss, so light, so imperceptible, had sent a galvanic throbbing through his frame. She herself felt it, as now and then in winter she had felt an electric spark.

Her sin had found her out. She was terrified. He lay just as he had lain before—only not quite—not quite! His arms were not just as they had been; the coverlet was slightly, ever so slightly, disturbed. The nurse would see it and know that....

There was a stirring of a hand. It was so little of a stirring that she thought her eyes must have deceived her when it stirred again—a restless toss, like a muscular contraction in sleep. She was not alarmed now, only excited, and wondering what she ought to do. She ought to run to the head of the stairs and call Miss Moines, only that she couldn't bring herself to leave him.

Then, as she stood in her attitude of doubt, the eyes opened and looked at her. They looked at her straight, and yet glassily. They looked at her with no gladness in the look, almost with no recognition. If anything there was a kind of sickness there, as if the finding her by his bedside was a disappointment.

"I know what it is," she said to herself. "He wants—her."

But the eyes closed again. The face was as white, the profile as rigid, as ever.

She sped to Barbara, who was lying on a couch in the front spare room. "Come! He woke up! He wants you!"

Back in the bedroom she effaced herself. They were all there now—Barbara, Steptoe, and Miss Moines.

"It's what he would do," Miss Moines corroborated, "if he was coming back."

Letty had told part of what she had seen, but only part of it. The rest was her secret. The little mermaid's kiss had left the prince as inanimate as before; hers had brought him back to life!

It was the moment to run away. Miss Moines had said that having once opened his eyes he would open them again. When he did he mustn't find her there. They were all so intent on watching that this was her opportunity.

They were all so intent—but Steptoe. She was buttoning her jacket when she saw his eyes steal round in her direction. A second later he had tiptoed back into the hall, and closed the door behind him.

It was vexing, but not fatal. He had probably gone for something. While he was getting it she would elude him. One thing was certain—she couldn't face the look of disappointment in those sick dark eyes again. She opened the door. She shut it noiselessly behind her. Steptoe wasn't there, and the way was free.

Barbara stood just where Letty had described herself as standing when the eyes had given her that glassy stare. To herself she seemed to stand there for ever, though the time could be counted in minutes. The pounding of her heart was like a pulsating of the house.

The eyes opened again. They opened, first wearily, and then with a fretful light which seemed to be searching for what they couldn't find.

Barbara stood still.

There was another stirring of the hand, irritated, impatient. A little moan or groan was distinctly of complaint. The eyes having rolled hither and thither helplessly, the head turned slowly on the pillow so as to see the other side of the room.

"He's looking for something that he misses," Miss Moines explained, wonderingly. "What do you suppose it can be?"

"He wants—her."

Barbara found her at the street door, pleading with Steptoe, who actually held her by the arm. The loud whisper down the stairs was a cry as well as a command.

"Come!"

At the bedroom door they parted. With a light instinctive push Barbara forced Letty to go back to the spot on which she had stood earlier. She herself went to the other side of the bed, only to find that the head, in which the eyes were closed again, was now turned that way.

As if aware that some mysterious decision was approaching Miss Moines kept herself in the background. Steptoe had hardly advanced from the threshold. Neither of the women by the bedside seemed to breathe.

When the eyes opened for the third time the intelligence in them was keener. On Barbara they rested long, quietly, kindly, till memory came back.

With memory there was again that restless stirring, that complaining moan. Once more, slowly, distressfully, the head turned on the pillow.

On Letty the long, quiet, kindly regard lay as it had lain on Barbara. They waited; but in the look there was no more than that.

From two hearts two silent prayers were going up.

"Oh, God, end it somehow—and let me have peace!"

"Oh, God, make him live again—and give them to each other!"

Then, when no one was expecting it, a faint smile quivered on the lips, as if the returning mind saw something long desired and comforting. Faintly, feebly, unsteadily, the hands were raised toward the dust flower. The lips moved, enough to form dumbly the one word, "Come!"

The invitation was beyond crediting. Letty trembled, and shrank back.

But from the support of the pillow the whole figure leaned forward. The hands were lifted higher, more firmly and more longingly. Strength came with the need for strength. A smile which was of life, not death, beamed on the features and brought color to the face which had all these hours seemed carved in stone.

"He'll do now," the nurse threw off, professionally. "He'll be up in a few days."

It was Barbara who gave the sign to both Steptoe and Miss Moines. By the imperiousness of her gesture and her uplifted head she swept them out before her. If she was leaving all behind her she was leaving it superbly; but she wasn't leaving all. Back of her tumultuous passions a spirit was crying to her spirit, "Now you'll get what you want far more than you want this—rest from vain desire."

Letty approached the bedside slowly, as if drawn by an enchantment. To the outstretched hands she stretched out hers. The door was closed, and once more she was alone with him.

But neither saw that for the space of a few inches the closed door was opened again, and that an old profile peered within. Then, as slowly, slowly, slowly, Letty sank on her knees, bowing her head on the hands which drew her closer, and closer still, a pair of old lips smiled contentedly.

When the head drew back, the door was closed again.

THE END



Transcriber's Notes:

Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved as printed in the original book except for the following changes.

Page 38: burred to blurred (her appearance struck him simply as blurred)

Page 207: musn't to mustn't (They mustn't rush things.)

Page 264: unbridgable to unbridgeable (The gulf had always been there, yawning, unbridgeable,)

Missing/extra quote marks were silently corrected, however, punctuation has not been changed to comply with modern standards. Inconsistency in hyphenation and accented words has also been retained.

Two deviations in paragraph-ending punctuation in the original book should be noted: on Page 14, the paragraph beginning, "Within, a toy entry led...." and on Page 42, "There was that about him...." Both paragraphs end with a comma and have been retained, although throughout the book a colon was used to end these types of paragraphs in which dialogue immediately followed.

THE END