The Miracle Man Part 23

"I don't want to be crazy--I don't know what I want," said Helena petulantly. Her chin went into her hands, and she stared wide-eyed at the breaking surf. "I wonder what it all means?" she murmured, with a mirthless little laugh.

Her thoughts began to run riot. What _did_ it all mean? What was this faith? There was, there _must_ be something in it. There was the Holmes boy--suppose it _was_ only some nervous disorder--well, something had risen superior to whatever it was and had _cured_ him. There was Naida Thornton--true, she was ill again--her heart, Mr. Thornton had said--but she could still walk, a thing she had not been able to do for a long time until she came to Needley.

Helena laughed again--oh, it was a good game! The Doc had made no mistake about that--but then, when it came to planting anything the Doc rarely did make a mistake. Fancy fifty thousand dollars in one haul!

_Fifty thousand in one haul!_ The bank had sent her a pa.s.sbook with that amount to her credit. And that was only the beginning--hardly anybody had come yet, and already there was several hundred dollars more in real money that she had handed over to Madison from the offering box.

Money! They'd have more money than they'd know what to do with before they got through--there was nothing the matter with the game--all there was to do was to play it to a finish. And there wasn't the slightest risk about it--everything was given voluntarily. Oh, the game was all right--but somehow she wasn't happy--not nearly so happy as she had been in New York, even in lean periods when she and the Doc had been pressed for money. But, anyway, then they had been together, and fought, and laughed, and loved, and quarrelled through flush times and bad.

Maybe that was it! The Doc! Of course, she loved him--she had loved him ever since she had known him. There was no secret about that--she loved him fiercely, pa.s.sionately, more than she loved anything else in the world, with all the love she was capable of--more than he loved her--he seemed to accept her, too often, so casually, so indifferently, so much as a matter of course. He was so confidently and complacently sure of her--and she was not at all sure of him. She was only sure that he was quite right in being sure--she couldn't help loving him if she tried.

She had hardly seen anything of him since that night in the Roost before he had left for Needley--and he hadn't seemed to care much whether she did or not. That talk about playing the game and taking no chances was all bosh--there had been plenty of chances where it wouldn't have hurt the game any. Perhaps the little jolt she had given him last night, turning the tables a little, would wake him up a bit. Perhaps, as the Flopper had said, he would come out to-night, and--

"Helena! Helena!"

Helena sat suddenly upright--the noise of the surf m.u.f.fled the sound of the voice, but that was probably Doc now--she could hear footsteps running from the direction of the cottage. Deliberately, Helena leaned back again against the rock, took out a cigarette and with no attempt to shade the flame of the match, rather to use it as a challenging beacon, held it to the cigarette--but for the second time she flung both match and cigarette hurriedly away. It wasn't Madison at all--it was only the Flopper.

"Say!" gasped the Flopper, blowing hard. "Why can't youse answer when yer called? Wot you tryin' ter do--light a bonfire ter save yer voice?

Say, youse wanter get a wiggle on--beat it--quick! Dey're after you."

"What?" cried Helena sharply, jumping to her feet. "After me? Who? What do you mean?"

"I dunno," said the Flopper with sudden imperturbability--and evidently quite pleased with the agitation he had caused. "He talks like his mouth was full, an' he's got a scare t'rown inter him so's his teeth have got de jiggles."

Helena caught the Flopper's arm and shook him angrily.

"What are you talking about--what is it?" she demanded fiercely.

"It's de porter from de private car," said the Flopper, wriggling away from her. "He drove out here. De lady's on de toboggan--sick. She's askin' fer youse an'--"

Helena waited for no more. She raced to the cottage and around to the front. A wagon was standing before the porch; the negro porter on the seat.

"What is it, Sam?" she called anxiously, as she came up. "Is Mrs.

Thornton seriously ill?"

"Yas--yas'um, miss," Sam answered excitedly. "I done feel in mah bones she's gwine to die. Miss Harvey she done tole me to get a team an' drive foh you-all like de debbil."

Without waste of words, Helena clambered in beside him.

"Then drive," she said shortly. "Drive as fast as you can."

At first, as they drove along, Helena plied Sam with questions--and then lapsed into silence. The man did not know very much--only that Mrs.

Thornton had been taken suddenly ill, and that the nurse had sent him on the errand that had brought him to the cottage. A turmoil of conflicting emotions filled Helena's mind, obtruding upon her anxiety, for she had grown to care a great deal for Naida Thornton--this was a complication that Doc Madison must know about--Thornton had left that morning and was already far away--the newspaper men, or some of them at least, were still in the town--and there were so many things else--they all came crowding upon her, as she clung to her seat in the jolting wagon. But Doc must know--that rose a paramount consideration. It seemed an age, an eternity before they stopped finally at the station.

She sprang out and turned to Sam.

"Sam," she directed hurriedly, "you go back to the Congress Hotel and get Mr. Madison. Mr. Madison is a friend of Mr. Thornton's, you know. Go about it quietly--you needn't let any one know what you came for. You can tell Mr. Madison what the trouble is--and tell him that I sent you, and that I am here. Do you understand?"

"Yas'um, mum," said Sam impressively. "Just you done leab all that to me, missy."

Across the track on the siding, the private car was dimly lighted, the window curtains down. Helena crossed the track and mounted the steps. As she reached the platform, Miss Harvey, who had evidently heard her coming, opened the door and drew her quietly inside.

A glance at the nurse's face brought a sudden chill to Helena's heart.

Miss Harvey, capable, controlled, grave, smiled at her a little sadly.

"I sent for you, Miss Vail," she said in a low tone, "because Mrs.

Thornton has been asking for you incessantly ever since the attack came on three-quarters of an hour ago."

"You mean," said Helena, "that--that there is--"

"No hope," the nurse completed. "I am afraid there is none--it is her heart. The condition has been aggravated by her activity during the last few days since she has been able to walk--though I have done everything within my power to keep her quiet." Miss Harvey laid her hand on Helena's arm. "There is one thing, Miss Vail, I feel that I must say to you, in justice both to you and to myself, before you see her. Whatever my personal ideas may be of what has taken place here, my professional duty as a nurse demanded that I send for a doctor at once, and I want you to know that is what I did, though I have not been successful in getting one. There is no doctor here, so I telegraphed; but the doctor at Barton's Mills is away."

"Yes," said Helena mechanically.

"I just wanted you to understand," said Miss Harvey. "Will you come and see Mrs. Thornton now?"

"Does she know," whispered Helena, as she followed the nurse down the corridor of the car, "does she know that--how ill she is?"

"Yes," Miss Harvey answered simply. She stopped before a compartment door, opened it softly, and, stepping aside, motioned Helena to enter.

A little cry rose to Helena's lips that she choked back somehow, and a mist for a moment blinded her eyes--then she was kneeling beside the bra.s.s bed, and was holding in both her own the hand that was stretched out to her.

"Helena--dear--I am so glad you came," said Mrs. Thornton faintly. "I--I am not going to get better, and there are some things I want to say to you."

"Oh, but you are," returned Helena quickly, smiling bravely now. "You mustn't say that."

Mrs. Thornton shook her head.

"Dear," she said, "I know. And I know that what I have to say I must say quickly." Her voice seemed to grow suddenly stronger with a great earnestness. "Listen, dear. This must not make any difference to this wonderful work that has just begun here. I was cured of my hip disease--perfectly cured--no one can deny that--this is my own fault, I have overdone it--I would not listen to reason--to do what I have done in the last few days, when for a year and a half I had never moved a step, was more than my heart could stand. I should have been more quiet--but I was so glad, so happy--and I wanted to tell everybody--I wanted all the world to know, so that others could find the joy that I had found."

She paused--and Helena sought for words that, somehow, would not come.

The nurse was bending over the bed on the other side, and Mrs. Thornton turned her head toward Miss Harvey now. She smiled gently, as though to rob her words of any possible hurt.

"Nurse, I want--to be alone with Miss Vail for just a moment."

Miss Harvey, doubtful, hesitated.

"Only for a moment," pleaded Mrs. Thornton. "You can stay just outside the door."

Reluctantly, Miss Harvey complied, and left the room.

Mrs. Thornton pressed Helena's hand tightly.

"Listen, dear--this must not make any difference. It--it is the one thing that will make me happy now--to know that. I--I have written a little note to Robert about it, to be given to him. Oh, if I could only have lived to help--I should have tried so hard to be worthy to have a part in it. Not like you, dear, with your sweetness and n.o.bleness, for G.o.d seems to have singled you out for this--but just to have had a little part. How wonderful it would have been, bringing peace and health and gladness where only sorrow and misery was before, and--and--"

Mrs. Thornton's eyes closed, and she lay for a moment quiet.

A blackness seemed to settle upon Helena--and how cold it was! She s.h.i.+vered. Her dark eyes, wide, tearless now, stared, startled, dazed, at the white face on the pillow crowned with its ma.s.s of golden hair. Her sweetness! Her n.o.bleness! Helena's lips half parted and her breath came in quick, fierce, little gasps--it seemed as though she had been struck a blow that she could not quite understand because somehow it had numbed her senses--only there was a hurt that curiously, strangely seemed to mock as it stabbed with pain.