Without a Home Part 59

Mrs. Wheaton was their companion now, and she soon gave the final touches to a delicate little supper, which, with some choice flowers, she had placed on the table. It was her purpose to wait upon them with the utmost respect and deference, but Mildred drew her into a chair, with a look that repaid the good soul a hundred times for all the past.

"Roger," she said gayly, "Mrs. Wheaton says you don't eat much.

You must make up for all the past this evening. I'm going to help you, and don't you dare to leave anything."

"Very well, I've made my will," he said, with a smiling nod.

"Oh, don't talk that way. How much shall I give the delicate creature, Mrs. Wheaton? Look here, Roger, you should not take your meals in a library. You are living on books, and are beginning to look like their half-starved authors."

"You are right, Miss Millie. 'Alf the time ven I come to take havay the thinks I finds 'im readin', and the wittles 'ardly touched."

"Men are such foolish, helpless things!" the young girl protested, shaking her head reprovingly at the offender.

"I must have some company," he replied.

"Nonsense," she cried, veiling her solicitude under a charming petulance. "Roger, if you don't behave better, you'll be a fit subject for a hospital."

"If I can be sent to your ward I would ask nothing better," was his quick response.

Again she was provoked at her rising color, for his dark eyes glowed with an unmistakable meaning. She changed the subject by saying, "How many pretty, beautiful, and costly things you have gathered in this room already! How comes it that you have been so fortunate in your selections?"

"The reason is simple. I have tried to follow your taste. We've been around a great deal together, and I've always made a note of what you admired."

"Flatterer," she tried to say severely.

"I wasn't flattering--only explaining."

"Oh dear!" she thought, "this won't do at all. This homelike house and his loneliness in it will make me ready for any folly. Dear old fellow! I wish he wasn't so set, or rather I wish I were old and wrinkled enough to keep house for him now."

Conscious of a strange compa.s.sion and relenting, she hastened her departure, first giving a wistful glance at the serene faces of those so dear to her, who seemed to say, "Millie, we have found the home of which you dreamed. Why are not you with us?"

Although she had grown morbid in the conviction that she could not, and indeed ought not to marry Roger, she walked home with him that night with an odd little unrest in her heart, and an unexpected discontent with the profession that heretofore had so fully satisfied her with its promise of independence and usefulness. Having spent an hour or two in her duties at the hospital, however, she laughed at herself as one does when the world regains its ordinary and prosaic hues after an absorbing day-dream. Then the hurry and bustle of the few days preceding her graduation almost wholly occupied her mind.

A large and brilliant company was present in the evening on which she received her diploma, for the Training School deservedly excited the interest of the best and most philanthropic people in the city. It was already recognized as the means of giving to women one of the n.o.blest and most useful careers in which they can engage.

Mildred's fine appearance and excellent record drew to her much attention, and many sought an introduction. Mr. Wentworth beamed on her, and was eloquent on the credit she had brought to him. Old Mr. Arnold and Mrs. Sheppard spoke to her so kindly and gratefully that her eyes grew tearful. Mrs. Wheaton looked on exultantly as the proudest and richest sought the acquaintance of the girl who had so long been like her own child.

But the first to reach and greet her when the formalities of the evening were over was her old friend who had been Miss Wetheridge.

"We have just arrived from a long absence abroad," she exclaimed, "and I'm glad and thankful to say that my husband's health is at last restored. For the first year or two he was in such a critical condition that I grew selfish in my absorption in his case, and I neglected you--I neglected everybody and everything. Forgive me, Mildred. I have not yet had time to ask your story from Mr.

Wentworth, but can see from the way he looks at you that you've inflated him with exultation, and now I shall wait to hear all from your own lips," and she made the girl promise to give her the first hour she could spare.

In spite of all the claims upon her time and attention, Mildred's eyes often sought Roger's face, and as often were greeted with a bright, smiling glance, for he had determined that nothing should mar her pleasure on this evening. Once, however, when he thought himself un.o.bserved, she saw a look of weariness and dejection that smote her heart.

When the evening was quite well advanced she came to him and said, "Won't you walk with me a little in this hallway, where we can be somewhat by ourselves? It so happens that I must go on duty in a few moments, and exchange this bright scene for a dim hospital ward; but I love my calling, Roger, and never has it seemed so n.o.ble as on this evening while listening to the physician who addressed us.

There is such a deep satisfaction in relieving pain and rescuing life, or at least in trying to do so; and then one often has a chance to say words that may bring lasting comfort. Although I am without a home myself, you do not blame me that I am glad it is my mission to aid in driving away shadows and fear from other homes?"

"I am homeless, too, Millie."

"You! in that beautiful house, with so many that you love looking down upon you?"

"Walls and furniture cannot make a home; neither can painted shadows of those far away. I say, Millie, how sick must a fellow be in order to have a trained nurse?"

She turned a swift, anxious glance upon him. "Roger, tell me honestly," she said, "are you well?"

"I don't know," he replied, in a low tone; "I fear I'll make you ashamed of me. I didn't mean to be so weak, but I'm all unstrung to-night. I'm losing courage--losing zest in life. I seem to have everything, and my friends consider me one of the luckiest of men.

But all I have oppresses me and makes me more lonely. When I was sharing your sorrows and poverty, I was tenfold happier than I am now. I live in a place haunted by ghosts, and everything in life appears illusive. I feel to-night as if I were losing you. Your professional duties will take you here and there, where I cannot see you very often."

"Roger, you trouble me greatly. You are not well at all, and your extreme morbidness proves it."

"I know it's very unmanly to cloud your bright evening, but my depression has been growing so long and steadily that I can't seem to control it any more. There, Millie, the lady superintendent is looking for you. Don't worry. You medical and scientific people know that it is nothing but a torpid liver. Perhaps I may be ill enough to have a trained nurse. You see I am playing a deep game,"

and with an attempt at a hearty laugh he said good-night, and she was compelled to hasten away, but it was with a burdened, anxious mind.

A few moments later she entered on her duties in one of the surgical wards, performing them accurately from habit, but mechanically, for her thoughts were far absent. It seemed to her that she was failing one who had never failed her, and her self-reproach and disquietude grew stronger every moment. "After all he has been to me, can I leave him to an unhappy life?" was the definite question that now presented itself. At last, in a respite from her tasks, she sat down and thought deeply.

Roger, having placed Mrs. Wheaton in a carriage, was about to follow on foot, when Mr. Wentworth claimed his attention for a time. At last, after the majority of the guests had departed, he sallied forth and walked listlessly in the frosty air that once had made his step so quick and elastic. He had not gone very far before he heard the sound of galloping horses, then the voices of women crying for help. Turning back he saw a carriage coining toward him at furious speed. A sudden recklessness was mingled with his impulse to save those in extreme peril, and he rushed from the sidewalk, sprang and caught with his whole weight the headgear of the horse nearest to him. His impetuous onset combined with his weight checked the animal somewhat, and before the other horse could drag him very far, a policeman came to his aid, dealing a staggering blow behind the beast's ear with his club, then catching the rein.

Roger's right arm was so badly strained that it seemed to fail him, and before he could get out of the way, the rearing horse he was trying to hold struck him down and trampled upon him. He was s.n.a.t.c.hed out from under the iron-shod hoofs by the fast gathering crowd, but found himself unable to rise.

"Take me to Bellevue," he said decisively.

The hospital was not far away, and yet before an ambulance could reach him he felt very faint.

Mildred sat in her little room that was part.i.tioned off from the ward. Her eyes were wide and earnest, but that which she saw was not present to their vision.

Suddenly there were four sharp strokes of the bell from the hospital gate, and she started slightly out of her revery, for the imperative summons indicated a surgical case which might come under her care.

There was something so absorbing in the character of her thoughts, however, that she scarcely heeded the fact that an ambulance dashed in, and that the form of a man was lifted out and carried into the central office. She saw all this obscurely from her window, but such scenes had become too familiar to check a deep current of thought.

When, a few moments later, the male orderly connected with the ward entered and said, "Miss Jocelyn, I've been down and seen the books, and accordin' to my reckonin' we'll have that case," she sprang up with alacrity, and began a.s.suring herself that every appliance that might be needed was in readiness. "I'm glad I must be busy," she murmured, "for I'm so bewildered by my thoughts and impulses in Roger's behalf, that it's well I must banish them until I can grow calm and learn what is right."

The orderly was right, and the "case" just brought in was speedily carried up on the elevator and borne toward the ward under her charge. With the celerity of well-trained hands she had prepared everything and directed that her new charge should be placed on a cot near her room. She then advanced to learn the condition of the injured man. After a single glance she sprang forward, crying,

"Oh, merciful Heaven! it's Roger!"

"You are acquainted with him then?" asked the surgeon who had accompanied the ambulance, with much interest.

"He's my brother--he's the best friend I have in the world. Oh, be quick--here. Gently now. O G.o.d, grant his life! Oh, oh, he's unconscious; his coat is soaked with blood--but his heart is beating.

He will, oh, he will live; will he not?"

"Oh, yes, I think so, but the case was so serious that I followed.

You had better summon the surgeon in charge of this division, while I and the orderly restore him to consciousness and prepare him for treatment."

Before he ceased speaking Mildred was far on her way to seek the additional aid.

When she returned Roger's sleeve had been removed, revealing an ugly wound in the lower part of his left arm, cut by the cork of a horseshoe, made long and sharp because of the iciness of the streets. A tourniquet had been applied to the upper part of the arm to prevent further hemorrhage, and under the administration of stimulants he was giving signs of returning consciousness.

The surgeon in charge of the division soon arrived, and every effort of modern skill was made in the patient's behalf. Bottles of hot water were placed around his chilled and blood-drained form, and spirits were injected hypodermically into his system. The fair young nurse stood a little in the background, trembling in her intense anxiety, and yet so trained and disciplined that with the precision of a veteran she could obey the slightest sign from the attendant surgeons. "He never failed me," she thought; "and if loving care can save his life he shall have it night and day."

At last Roger knew her, and smiled contentedly; then closed his eyes in almost mortal weariness and weakness. As far as he was able to think at all, he scarcely cared whether he lived or died, since Mildred was near him.

The physicians, after as thorough examination as was possible, and doing everything in their power, left him with hopeful words.