On the Firing Line Part 15

"Good-morning, nurse," he said coolly. "You see I am better."

"Much better, Mr. Weldon," she a.s.sented cordially. He looked puzzled. "I thought we fellows in hospital had no names, nothing but numbers," he answered.

"It depends. When one meets an old friend, the number isn't quite the right name for him."

Turning slightly, he stared up at her with the impa.s.sive curiosity of a man just coming back from The Unknown. Then he shook his head.

"I am afraid--" he began slowly.

With a quick gesture, she took off her crisp white cap, uncovering a heavy pile of ink-black hair. "There!" she said, with a smile. "Does that make me look more natural, Mr. Weldon? I am Alice Mellen, Cooee Dent's cousin."

Instantly he put out his hand, sunburned still, but curiously thin.

The smile on his lips was the boyish, frank smile which Alice had seen and liked, that afternoon in the garden at home.

"What good angel brings you here?" he asked eagerly.

"No angel; merely the lady who rules over the household of Mars. I am glad to find you again, even if the Johannesburg hospital isn't a good place for a man. But you mustn't talk now. Later, we can make up for lost time."

Impetuously his fingers shut on a fold of her ap.r.o.n. Then his native instincts and his years of training a.s.serted themselves, and he let go once more. Nevertheless, his eyes were appealing.

"Don't go."

"But I must," she answered, her hands busy with her cap.

Her tone showed that, like himself, she too had learned the meaning of an order. He yielded to its quiet firmness.

"If you must. But, before you go, tell me this: have I been off my head?"

She nodded in a.s.sent.

He frowned.

"Sorry," he said briefly. "Please answer me honestly. Have I mumbled things and made a blasted fool of myself?"

It was still two days before he was allowed to talk to his own satisfaction. Then, one afternoon in her rest hour, Alice Mellen let him have his way and, seated by his cot, she answered tersely to a raking fire of terse questions.

"How long have I been here?"

"Just a week."

"How did I get here?"

"Hospital train from Krugersdorp."

"What for?"

"You had a touch of fever. We could treat you better here." Her replies were man-like in their brevity.

"Fever? I thought it was a Mauser bullet."

"It was. Your leg was not so bad; but the long ride and the exposure to the storm--"

He interrupted her.

"What do you know about my ride?" he asked.

Her answer showed that the woman was not lost in the nurse.

"Everybody knows of your ride. Even in these days of plucky deeds, we are proud of you."

He shook his head, though the color came into his cheeks, brown beneath their pallor.

"It was nothing. I did my duty."

"So Kruger Bobs has informed us."

"Kruger Bobs? Is he here?"

This time, she laughed outright.

"I should say he was. For a week, he has been sitting exactly in the path of the doctors, waiting for news. Twice he has been ordered off; but he merely hitches over to the other end of the steps and refuses to budge farther. We discovered him, the first night you were here, by having the bead surgeon fall headlong over him, as he went down the steps. Kruger Bobs doesn't show up well, on a dark night."

Weldon clasped his hands at the back of his head.

"If I thought you were using American slang, Miss Mellen, I should contradict you," he answered, with a touch of his old humor. "I can remember at least one dark night when Kruger Bobs made an excellent showing."

She nodded.

"We have bad a few Americans here before, Mr. Weldon. I think I understand."

"How long have you been here?" he asked, after a pause.

"Ten weeks."

"And you like it?"

"Why else should I be here?"

"From a sense of duty."

"Is that what brought you out?"

"No. My coming was inevitable. It seemed a part of me that I couldn't help."

"But you wished to come?" she queried.

"Of course. But that was only a Dart of it. I have wished to do things before, and have done them. This was quite different. It all seemed a part of Fate, and I walked through it, like a puppet with somebody else's hand pulling the strings." He paused and shook his head. "It is no use. I can't make you understand it. I acted freely and did just what I chose; but yet, all the time, I felt as if it had all been arranged for me, whole generations ago."