  Produced by Al Haines. [image] "It's a storm!" he cried. (See page The A ROMANCE of TODAY By ILLUSTRATED BY LOTHROP COPYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL Published May 7, 1901. Norwood Press: To WHOSE LIVES AUTHOR'S NOTE The comparatively unknown rendering of the verse from the RubÁiyÁt of Omar KhÁyyÁm, quoted on the succeeding page, is to be found in the first edition of Fitzgerald's translation of the Persian poem.
PERMISSION to use the poem, "The Potter's Wheel," which appears on the next page, was granted by the owners of the English copyright of Browning's works through Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., London, and by the American publishers of Browning, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. The
CONTENTS The clay takes shape The break in the clay The Potter's touch LIST of ILLUSTRATIONS PROLOGUE The POTTER PROLOGUE The Lieutenant's small daughter was swinging on the railing of the drawbridge that spanned the moat. Her companions, two boys, questioned each other with their eyes. "She says she won't come," said the elder in what he fondly believed to be an undertone. "She says she won't play—" "I never did! So there!" The small girl wheeled about suddenly and descended from her perch and stamped her foot; her long, straight hair of an indefinite brown, shaken by the tempest the boy's words had awakened. "No; but you won't," said Rob, promptly. There was an ominous silence; but instead of the tirade the anxious watchers expected, a tear appeared on Cary's little nose and quietly dropped into the waters of the moat. Cary was nothing if she was not a bundle of contradictions. Johnny shuffled nervously from one foot to the other, but Rob grew impatient. "Well, are you coming?" he asked after the pause in which he had vainly waited for Cary to smile again. "No, I'm tired. I hate walking, too," said Cary peevishly. "'Course not—to walk," said Rob, scornfully. "We can steal Lieutenant Burden's boat." "You wouldn't dare," said Cary, but her voice was tremulous with eagerness, and the tears she had forgotten to wipe away were still shining on her cheeks. "Wouldn't I, though! Come along and see!" Cary balanced herself carefully on one foot and considered. It wasn't well to let Rob think she didn't have to be persuaded. He had been so cross too. "I haven't got my sunbonnet," she began. "And I've forgotten the gun I put it in." "I'd just as lieve hunt for it," said Johnny, politely. "That's just like a girl! You don't need the old thing—anyway I thought you hated it," retorted Rob, who did not fill the role of pleader. "'Course Mammy Amy is 'way—gone for a week to see her grandbaby. I don't s'pose I really need my pinafore either—if I go!" The Lieutenant's small daughter hesitated to watch the effect of the words. Rob apparently was not to be moved, so she buried her pride and backed up to Johnny. "Please undo me," she said, calmly, and the older boy struggled manfully with the holes and buttons. "I'll be right back—quick as a wink," and she flew over the drawbridge back to the fort, her long hair and short dress blowing in the wind. She hid the pinafore under her arm, and when she reached the circle of the parade ground, she sidled up to one of the great guns captured in the war, and surreptitiously poked the gingham roll down its mouth. Clothes were a necessary evil, but sunbonnets and pinafores were the worst and most evil things of all—and not to be endured when Mammy Amy was not around, and the big show guns offered such a safe and charming hiding place. It only needed coolness and care to accomplish the feat without detection. Of course, a thing once buried in the heart of one of the big guns was lost forever—which was just as well, thought Cary, being one less to bother her—since it was one thing to force the articles down into the big black mouths and another to extract the sunbonnets and pinafores, even if she could have remembered which particular gun held which particular thing—which she could never do. She hurried back to the drawbridge, and the sentry, who adored every inch of the "Post Baby," stood at "attention" and saluted her with a twinkle in his eye as she passed him. Cary slowed her walk and inclined her head graciously in greeting. "Good evenin', Jones," she said, innocently. Then she rejoined the boys. "Well, are you really ready?" said Rob, a bit crossly. The Lieutenant's small daughter did not deign to notice him. "I think," she said, condescendingly, "if I go, I'll go 'round by the road way—it's shorter." The "road way" was a good deal longer, but it was out of the reach of Cary's father and the fort. She wiped her dry eyes on one of Johnny's handkerchiefs—Johnny always had more than one, while Rob and herself frequently went "shares" on a stolen or a borrowed one—and then she raced Rob to the end of the drawbridge. Cary's conscience was troubling her. She told herself it was her stomach and the lemon pie she had appropriated from the pantry shelf, but it was undoubtedly her conscience, mingled with a fear that papa-lieutenant or some of the other officers might loom in sight and inquiring into the project, carry her off. Ahead, thirteen-year old Johnny was moralizing. "Perhaps we oughtn't to take her—she's so little." "She's seven," said Rob, "and what's going to hurt her?" He kept his eyes away from the over-clouding sky. "I don't know—" said the cautious Johnny, "but—" "I guess we can take care of a small girl like her. You're thirteen and I'm eleven." At the water edge, conscience spoke once more but was overruled when at Johnny's question as to the judiciousness of her going, Rob declared she was afraid. "I ain't afraid, so there! Robby Trevelyan! My papa never said I couldn't go!" Cary majestically slipped into the stolen boat, and seated herself in the bow. Johnny took the rudder and Rob the oars. The boy was as much at home on the sea as he was in his bed at night. Indeed, more so, since he hated the one and loved the other with all the passionate strength of a coast-child's heart. He had been born in inland England, but had lived most of his life in western Scotland where the great rocks rise boldly along the coast—that coast intersected by numerous sea-lochs, bounded by hills and separated from each other by mountainous peninsulas. The burden of the deep sea's song of eternal restlessness had become the controlling passion of the boy's life. The wild freedom of wild living things appealed to him and fear was a word unknown. Not a nearby cliff he had not climbed; not a nearby, darkened cave, formed by the overhanging rocks, he had not explored. The Scottish folk forgot he was an English lad as his skiff became a familiar feature of the western sea-bound landscape. There was scarcely a Scottish boy of double his age who could outstrip him in swimming, and when the hated books had been laid to one side and the tutor had gone away for the summer months, old Mactier, a retainer of his father's, had taken the child in charge, carrying him over to the moorland country and teaching him the meaning and the use of firearms. His mother had at first protested, but Trevelyan had only laughed. "Let the boy alone," he said, and he gloried with old Mactier at the lad's stocky build, firm muscles and enduring fearlessness, knowing that in her secret heart his wife remembered the traditions of her Scottish clan, and was glad. Then Trevelyan's wife had died. The home on western, rock-bound Scotland had been closed, until the boy should grow to man's estate and enter on his mother's heritage. Trevelyan sent the boy to his sister—Johnny's mother—living in east Scotland, and then returned to England. The sudden loss, the still more sudden change from the wild free life lived on the western coast to the quietness of the life lived by the Stewarts, told upon the child. Mercifully, his healthy training was stronger than the inroads made by childish grief, but his mind was ill at ease and homesick. He hated the flatness of this new eastern country—the low and shelving coast. This was not Scotland to him. It was not the Scotland he had known. It was not Mactier's Scotland—and his. His aunt was kind—overkind, her own children sometimes thought when she sat out all their bedtime hour on the foot of Robert's bed, instead of theirs—but "auntie" couldn't understand. All the three children were kind but they couldn't quite understand either. Johnny was undoubtedly the best, but Johnny loved books as passionately as Rob hated them, and would listen to his father discuss politics by the hour, if he only had the chance. Robert loathed politics. Then one day Johnny's mother had a talk with her husband. It ended in her giving up a London season and starting with Johnny and Trevelyan's boy, for America. A long promised visit to a life friend, who had married a United States officer, was the excuse. It was not until years after, when Trevelyan's little son had grown to manhood that he knew the real reason for that sudden ocean voyage. The change had the desired effect. He met new people. He saw new things. He watched new customs. He knew Cary. But the wistfulness for Mactier was in the boy's eyes now as he looked over Johnny's head in front of him, to the long stretch of low sand country he was leaving. He pulled with long, even strokes. Cary was talkative. "Is this—" she waved her arms intending to designate the new sweep of coast line and of water, "all this I mean—is it like England or Scotland?" "Something," said Johnny slowly. "It's really quite like home—my home," he added quickly, seeing that his younger cousin had stopped rowing and was leaning forward with hurt eyes. Suddenly, the boy drew in his oars, resting on them and allowing the boat to drift. "It isn't like my home," he cried passionately; a wild thrill of homesickness surging over him, "It isn't like my Scotland—one little bit! We have great big rocks rising out of the water—not long beaches like this! And the sea beats and beats and beats against them—it doesn't just lap the sand as it does here—" the boy drew in his breath quickly, hurrying on, "And you haven't got our heather and our bracken, and our country isn't flat—except the moorlands where Mactier used to take me to hunt, and even our moors are not like this!" He stopped suddenly; and he buttoned and unbuttoned his pea-jacket. He wouldn't for the world have let Johnny see his eyes, but Johnny was looking at Cary. The child was leaning forward with angry face. "You're a horrid, horrid boy!" she cried, "You haven't a single nice thing to say about us or our flag or—or me! You're impolite and you're dreadfully rude and I'll never play with you again!" Trevelyan's boy continued to button and unbutton his pea-jacket. He didn't care now if Johnny did see his eyes. Johnny saw them, too, and he was frightened. One day, Rob's eyes had had that look when their tutor had threatened to strike him. He spoke hastily. "Rob didn't mean to be rude, Cary," he said; "but Rob's home was beautiful—a great deal more beautiful than mine, and—and even more beautiful than your home, and so you mustn't—" Cary's anger melted like a mist before the sun. She slid to the bottom of the boat and then crept along to Rob on the rower's seat. She pulled at his sleeve. "Rob—I'm sorry—I didn't mean—really truly mean—" Trevelyan's boy shook away the child's clinging fingers. Cary drew back; her lips quivering. "I'm cold," she said, for Cary never would have admitted that a boy could hurt her so, "I'm cold, and—and tired. Can't we go home, Johnny?" "Yes," he said. "No, we won't," said Rob, moodily, "the oars are gone." The oars were gone—slipped from the locks when he had drawn them in, and in the excitement of the quarrel they had floated away. The two boys knew that the oars were not the only things on the surface of the deep, drifting out to sea. Behind them a bank of storm clouds was gathering and a sudden stone-color fell upon the face of the waters. The clouds increased in size and swept toward them, seemingly poised directly overhead. Then they parted and the rain fell in a great straight sheet of water. The oarless boat tossed dangerously, and the rain gathered in the bottom. Cary, half rose, beside herself with terror. The storm had drenched her to the skin, and her long, straight hair lay, matted with the wet, close to her small head. Her wide gray eyes looked out dark against the pallor of her skin. "Sit down!" It was Johnny's voice. Mechanically, the child obeyed. Once, years later, he so commanded her, and she yielded then as now. She cowered in the bow and was silent. In the stern the elder boy grasped the rudder, forcing the boat for a time in the direction of the far-off Point. The rough ropes slipped through his hands, in spite of effort, and tore them cruelly. Trevelyan's boy had crept to the bottom of the boat, the better to balance it. The wind swept across his hair, forcing it back from his forehead, as with a mighty hand. The joy of an unknown danger was in his blood and the color was in his cheeks. The wild spirit of the storm found a challenge in his eyes. He was a being apart from the other two, and yet sharing their danger. The freedom and the peril were as elixir to his soul, and yet he never lost consciousness of the wind cloud in the distance; and he knew it to be as merciless as it was strong. "Steer for the Point," he shouted. Johnny nodded. They neared the shore. Then the wind came upon them and churned the bay into a white foam. It turned the frail boat around as on a pivot, heading it for the open sea, and with the effort the ropes that held the rudder broke. The boys looked at each other. It was characteristic of both; it was characteristic of their training and their birth, that the sense of personal danger did not touch them and that it was solely for the small girl they thought. In the face of the older boy was a strong courage that soothed and sustained the frightened child; but in the face of Trevelyan's son was defiance against the might of the storm, and the sea, and death. He ripped open his pea-jacket; he unlaced his water-soaked boots; he stripped to his shirt. "Keep the boat steady," cried Trevelyan's son, "I'm going to swim to the Point and get help!" The older boy caught him by the wrist. "You'll be drowned. I'll go!" Trevelyan's son shook him off. He threw back his head. "I've swum double the distance," he shouted, "Anyhow, we'll all die here." He balanced himself on the rower's seat. Then he raised his arms above his head before he sprang. The joy of the coming struggle was in the boy's eyes—the joy of testing his strength against the sea's forces. He dived. The boat, lightened of his weight, rocked, sprang higher in the water and then righted. From the bow came the sob of a girl-child's terror. Trevelyan's son rose, striking out for shore. Cary and the elder boy watched him—even as they drifted seaward. * * * * * Trevelyan's son was gaining. The fight had been a long one and a hard one. The rain had lessened, but the wind and tide had carried him a quarter of a mile below the landing he had intended to make. His thoughts were growing disconnected. At first, he had only gloried in his own skill; then he thought of Scotland—he could scarcely have told why—and of old Mactier. Then he remembered Cary—and after awhile, he wondered if he had ever drank as much salt water before. Then the wind changed. That was a help. Once he trod water, looking out over the face of the sea for a sign of the boat. He saw it. It was far away and still drifting seaward, but it was upright and the coast boy knew that unless the storm began again, it could live in spite of the long swells that bore it outward. His arms began to get numb, and a mist—he supposed it was the rain—got between him and his vision. The low banks of clouds on the horizon, too, assumed strange shapes. They looked like the gray crags at home. Once his breath seemed to leave him and his arms grew suddenly powerless and he sank. The emersion gave him new energy. The love of life, the wild thrill of fearless conquest, swept right over him anew, and he pulled for shore. After a little he raised his right arm and sounded. The waters were up to his eyes, but he touched land. He rose and struck out again, and again, and—again. Then he waded in and stood upon the beach, his face turned seaward. Trevelyan's boy threw back his head and laughed at the waters and the storm. "I beat you," he shouted passionately, "I beat you!" * * * * * The Lieutenant was in his office. It had been a busy day of petty annoyances and he was tired. He leaned back in his chair and filled his pipe, packing it carefully. Then he lighted a match. Some one fumbled at the door knob in an uncertain way; hesitated, and tried again. "Come in!" shouted the Lieutenant. The noise hurt his nerves. The door opened and Rob entered. His eyes looked shadowy by contrast to the pinched paleness of his face. He walked with difficulty. His short legs got tangled up in the long coat he had gotten from one of the men of the rescuing party, and he stumbled over it. The Lieutenant rose. The match burned down to his fingers and he mechanically tossed it into the fire. Then he laid down his pipe. The short odd figure in the long overcoat advanced to the middle of the room, facing Cary's father. "Cary—" he began, and then stopped a moment and cleared his throat. It seemed still full of salt water. "I stole Lieutenant Burden's boat and I took Cary and Johnny out. The storm came. I knew it was coming, but I didn't care, and I went. And I lost the oars and—" The salt water feeling came back. "Cary?" asked Cary's father. Trevelyan's boy shook the long sleeves away from his hands, which he pushed down into the great pockets of the coat, where they hunted around for themselves. The Lieutenant was tall and Trevelyan's boy was short, and he had to look up a long way before he could look him full in the face. "She's coming," he said, "and so's Johnny. They both feel sort of sick, but I'm all right, and so I've come here. I thought we'd better have it over with." "What?" asked the Lieutenant. "Why, the thrashing! Of course, you'll thrash me." He came forward a step and swayed. Cary's father caught him as he fell and laid him on the lounge. * * * * * That night Cary was ill. The next day she was worse. She complained of a sharp pain in her side and toward evening she began to breathe heavily. At nine, when the post surgeon came again, she was burning with fever, and he shook his head when he listened to her lungs. "It looks confoundedly like pneumonia," he told the Lieutenant who was standing anxiously by Cary's little brass bed, and he went off to look up a nurse. The Lieutenant bent over the child a moment after the surgeon had left, and then he turned hastily away and lowered the lamp and shaded its glare from Cary's eyes. Then he went over to the window and stood looking out. Below him stretched the yard of his quarters. It was Cary's playground. Beyond the garden lay the parade ground and further off the other officers' quarters. He could see Cary now, her long, straight hair flying in the wind as she tore by the flagstaff to meet him on his return from duty. Way off in the distance he could see the dim, dark outline of the Fort's walls, and beyond, the strip of moonlit sea. He had used to carry Cary on his shoulders, when she was a baby, along those walls and she had used to clap her hands at the sunlight dancing on the water. Everything spoke to him of Cary. He turned and went back to the bed and knelt down by it and buried his head close to the child's—so close that he could feel her hot breath on his cheek. "I was a fool," he told himself, passionately, "to fancy I could care for a little flower, but I couldn't give her up after her mother died." He rose presently and cautiously heightened the lamp and wrote a hurried line on a scrap of paper. "Cary is ill. Pneumonia. Mam' Amy is away. Will you come?" He signed the note and then crept down stairs and gave it to the colored boy. The colored boy carried it across the parade ground to the house where the English children were staying and waited, as he had been bidden, for an answer. The Lieutenant went back to the window. He could see the house across the parade ground from there, and presently he saw the shadowy figure of a woman accompanied by his colored boy passing the flagstaff. "Heaven bless her! I knew she'd come." He went down stairs to open the door for her and it was not until he had closed it and turned to thank her that he saw it was not the wife of his comrade. "Mary was away," the exquisitely modulated English voice fell on his overwrought nerves like a balm. "I took the liberty of opening the note, fearing something might be wrong with your little girl after yesterday's terrible experience. I have come to nurse her. I know you won't send me away." John's mother threw off the long cloak she had flung over her shoulders. "Really, Mrs. Stewart—" "There—please don't! I am the mother of three children—I once was the mother of four," the English woman looked down steadily at her wedding ring, twisting it on her finger, "I am the adopted mother of another—" She raised her eyes, smiling gravely, "We are all alike—we women; be we American or English. Besides if it hadn't been for my two boys Cary would never be ill now. Come, take me to her." There was not a nurse to be found, and at midnight the post surgeon returned, discouraged from a fruitless search. A sense of order and exquisite peace seemed to permeate the child's sick room. It impressed him before he had crossed the threshold. A woman was sitting by the little brass bed and he could hear her speaking soothingly to Cary. She turned when she heard his step and rose. He took in the situation at a glance. "You're a trump," he said, concisely, and went over to the bed. "How is she?" "Bad—very bad! Where's the child's father?" "In the next room. He cannot stand seeing her suffer." "Humph! Shouldn't wonder. She's the apple of his eye. You know we call her the 'Post Baby'—have ever since her mother died." "How're your young rascals?" he inquired, when he was leaving. "They and the 'Post Baby' here had a pretty time of it yesterday." "God only knows what saved them." "Well, I know. It was your two youngsters. They're both game. The Queen will have two good soldiers some day." The English woman smiled. "I left Rob in a perfect fury at the foot of his bed. He woke up when I was getting ready to come over, and wanted to come, too. He says Cary belongs to him. I threatened severe punishment, and—left him." The post surgeon chuckled. "He'll risk that if he takes it in his head to come." "I'm afraid he will. I left Johnny consoling him." "The two of them called seven times this afternoon." "I know—but I never dreamed Cary was really ill." "Well—" The post surgeon hesitated, "I'll be back after awhile and if the baby's worse, I'll spend the night with you." He closed the front door softly; hesitated for an instant before he recrossed the shadowy parade ground, and starting to go on, stumbled over a dark object on the porch. The dark object turned out to be a boy, who rose and pulled at the surgeon's sleeve. "How is she? Oh! tell me how she is!" he asked. His thin, high bred face with the delicately chiseled features, showed out sharply in the waning moonlight. "Great Scott!" "No, it's only Johnny Stewart," said the boy, a faint flash of humor lighting up his pale face for a moment. "I couldn't sleep—tell me—is she—worse?" "She's a pretty sick little girl," said the surgeon, amused at the situation. "Your mother has been expecting trouble from your quarter, but she rather looked for it from Rob." "He's asleep," said the boy, simply, "I sat with him until he went to sleep, but—you know I'm the oldest, and I'm responsible for it all." He looked up gravely, self-accusing, in the post surgeon's weather-beaten face. "Well, you're a pair of you!" said the surgeon, looking hard at the flagstaff. "Now, what do you propose to do with yourself?" "You couldn't slip me in, somehow?" pleaded the boy. "I'd stay down stairs and I'd be awfully quiet and I wouldn't trouble a soul. There might be errands—" he broke off, "I'd like to be near her," he said. "Do you think you could manage it?" The post surgeon thought he could, and the post surgeon did. Then he started once more to cross the parade grounds. As he passed the flagstaff and entered the shadows of the trees, a small whirlwind struck him. The whirlwind proved to be Rob. He was only half dressed: his shirt being open at the throat and devoid of tie. One stocking had been forgotten in his haste and he was hatless. The surgeon caught him by his hair and pulled him back. Then the whirlwind developed into a small tornado. "Let me go," he cried. "Let me go!" "I'll take you to the guard house if you don't behave," threatened the surgeon. "Now what in thunderation are you after?" "Going to see Cary," said Rob, sullenly. "You are, hey? Well, you're not going to do anything of the kind. You'd scare any little girl into a fit. You're going home." "No, I'm not," said Rob, rebelliously. "Yes, you are." "I'll come out again." "Not behind locked doors." "Yes I will, too, through the window." "I'll see to the window." "I'll climb through the transom." He made a dive under the surgeon's arm. The surgeon caught him by the seat of his small trousers. "Where's Johnny?" "That's the trouble—is it? Well, Johnny's a different quantity from you. Johnny's safe enough." "Johnny's at Cary's house. I know it. I'm going, too," cried the younger boy, passionately. "If you make a sound, I'll thrash you within an inch of your life," said the surgeon, in desperation, retracing his steps across the parade ground. "I'd scratch your eyes out if you tried to," said the boy, a flood of crimson sweeping his face. "Well—look out that your noise don't kill Cary," said the surgeon. Trevelyan's boy caught the surgeon's hand. "Indeed I'll try to be good," he said, earnestly, "if you'll only take me to Cary." Mrs. Stewart opened the door. "Here's one boy," said the surgeon grimly, pushing Trevelyan's son over the threshold, "There's another in the dining-room." "You're a nice one to leave a chap asleep and then sneak off. I wouldn't have been so mean!" Rob blinked in the glare of the dining-room lamp, and shifted from the stockingless leg to the covered one, "I didn't think Johnny Stewart—" His voice rose. Johnny came forward. "Stop that shouting!" he commanded, "Don't you know Cary's very, very sick?" Rob blinked again. It was a blink of astonishment. He had never seen Johnny quite so angry before. "'Course I know she's sick. That's why I've come." He sat down on the extreme edge of a chair. There was a long, long silence. Johnny sat at the big table, his chin between his hands and looked straight ahead of him. Rob looked moodily into the fire. Once the younger boy rose and went to the foot of the stairs. "What you suppose is happening up there?" he inquired when he came back. "I don't know." "Suppose she's dying?" "Don't!" The elder boy turned sharply and lowered the lamp that was smoking. The long hours crept away. By and by the lamp flickered and went out, and the fire died down, and left only a heap of white ashes on the hearth. Then the gray dawn crept in and after awhile the gray was tinged with gold. Later, the sunrise gun boomed through the stillness, to be followed by the ringing notes of the reveille. Upstairs, the post surgeon was leaning over the little brass bed. "I'll spend the night," he had said briefly, on his last visit. There were symptoms about Cary's labored breathing and dry cough that he did not like. The child's sleepless eyes and flushed face looked wan in the grayness of the early dawn. As the hours dragged by, Cary became more restless and her mind began to wander. "Don't let him, Johnny! Don't let him! He'll drown! He'll dro——" the voice rose in a shriek and then trailed off. The cry had reached the children below stairs. A moment later and Rob, wide-eyed and excited, appeared at the sick-room door. He was confronted by his old foe the post surgeon. "Can't come in here," said the surgeon briefly. "It—" "Oh, but tell her I'm not drowned! Let me tell her—" The surgeon took him by the shoulders and marched him down stairs. "Is this the way you promise to keep still?" The post surgeon was skilled in other arts than his own profession. He had appealed to the boy's honor. Trevelyan's son flung himself face downward on the hearth rug and lay motionless. Johnny went to him and knelt beside him and touched him on the arm. Something of Johnny's childhood had vanished in the night, never to return. He did not say anything to Rob; he just continued to kneel beside him with his hand on his arm. Presently Rob sat up. His wakeful night had not improved his appearance. His shirt was a crumpled mass; his hair was disheveled, and one of his ill-laced boots was gone. "She shan't die!" he cried, passionately, "I won't let her die! I won't! I won't!" Johnny said nothing. Once, long ago, a little brother had died, and Johnny still remembered how vainly he had tried to wake him. Johnny had seen death. Upstairs Cary tossed in her delirium. "Johnny, don't make me keep still! I can't keep still any longer! The water looks so cold—" And so the day wore on. The dry cough stopped and the fever ran higher and the breathing came more labored, and Cary lay wide eyed and sleepless. The children wandered like little ghosts through the rooms of the lower floor. They pleaded that they might see Cary once. The post surgeon tried an experiment. "The child's strength is going fast for lack of sleep," he told Mrs. Stewart, "We'll see what your boys can do." He brought Rob in first, and Trevelyan's son stood at the foot of the bed, and was silent as they had bidden him to be; but they could see that he trembled. Cary's eyes, bright with delirious fever, rested on him for a moment. Then she started up in bed. "It's Rob, dear," said Rob's aunt, bending over her. "No, it isn't!" cried Cary. "No—it—isn't! Take him away; away—a-w-a-y!" Rob let go of the brass railing and rushed impetuously to the little girl's side and flung himself down by the bed. "Cary! Cary! Don't you know me? It's me! It's only Rob!" But Cary shrank back from his touch. "I'm frightened," she moaned. The Lieutenant came and lifted the boy and took him from the room. Trevelyan's son was crying passionately. The excitement proved to be the worst possible thing for Cary. The fever ran higher and sapped and sapped her strength and still she moaned and cried in her delirium and still sleep did not come. "She can't grow much worse and stay alive," muttered the post surgeon, "And something has got to be done." He went down stairs in search of Johnny. He found the boy standing by the window, his white face turned toward the sea. Rob, his passion of tears spent, lay sleeping heavily on the lounge. The surgeon touched the elder boy on the arm and motioned him to follow him. Outside in the little square hall, they faced each other—the skilled man of science, and the delicately featured English boy with the firm mouth. "You're going to take me to Cary?" The surgeon nodded. "Yes. She wouldn't see Rob, but perhaps she'll see you. I've an idea she will. She's been calling your name all day. If I take you to her, will you be very quiet?" "I'll be very quiet," promised the little Briton, gravely. "And we've got to get her to sleep. Perhaps—" The boy's firm mouth quivered for an instant. "Yes," he said. The post surgeon let him go into Cary's room alone, and he motioned the boy's mother and Cary's father away from the bed. The boy went directly to the head of the bed and stood there looking down at Cary. For a long while Cary did not notice him. But he waited. The stillness of the room grew—broken only by Cary's piteous moans. After awhile she became conscious of the boy's slim figure at her side, and she turned her restless, feverish eyes to him. Then he stroked her long straight hair timidly. The moans ceased suddenly. "It's Johnny," said the boy. He sat down on the edge of the bed and took one of the child's hot hands in his. Then the terror of the delirium fell on her again. She sat up in bed, flinging out her arms and crying, and still the boy kept that firm pressure on her hand. The sustaining touch won her back from the thraldom of the fever and she threw herself into the boy's arms and lay there, sobbing—sobbing. The post surgeon nodded. "I thought so," he muttered from the doorway, and beckoned the others into the adjoining room. For an hour they sat there. Gradually the child's sobs grew weaker; after awhile they caught their echo at long intervals and by and by they died away altogether. The shadows of the dying day crept into the sick room and the wanness of its departing struggle was reflected on Cary's small, pinched face. She still lay in the boy's arms, quiet—spent with the effort of her delirium. The boy sat rigidly mute, supporting her. The day sank into evening and the post surgeon came in quietly from the adjoining room. The boy's eyes met his as he entered. It was his only movement. Otherwise he might have been carved of stone. The boy's eyes smiled and the post surgeon retraced his steps. "She's sleeping. The boy holds her life in his hands. If he can only remain motionless—" Another hour slipped by. The post surgeon came in again. Cary was sleeping still, her whole weight resting in the boy's rigid arms. He was growing white with the strain of his enforced position. The surgeon looked down at him. "Can you hold out?" he asked, below his breath. The boy nodded. The post surgeon went down stairs noiselessly to the sideboard where the Lieutenant kept his wines. Rob sat up as he entered. "How's Cary? What time is it? Where's Johnny?" The post surgeon went up and laid his finger on Rob's mouth. "Cary's sleeping. If you wake her, you'll kill her. Don't speak above a whisper." He filled a glass with wine and turned to leave the room. "Where's Johnny?" "With Cary. He put her to sleep." Trevelyan's boy clenched his hands convulsively. "Johnny—with—Cary," he said, slowly, and then something choked him. He followed the post surgeon to the foot of the stairs and watched him until he disappeared. Then he went back to the dimly lighted, lonely dining-room and hesitated. Suddenly a passionate cry rose in his throat, which he smothered. He turned and flung himself on the lounge. "Dear God," he moaned, "Dear God, be good to a little boy. I want to die! Quick!" Upstairs the surgeon held the brim of the wine glass to the elder boy's white lips. The enforced position had become an agony. Once, the surgeon saw the boy bite his under lip until a drop of blood appeared. He got a pillow; two—half a dozen and supported the boy's stiff back. Three more hours dragged away, and then Cary stirred and woke. Great beads of perspiration stood out on her thin, drawn little face, but the fever had been broken in her sleep. The boy's grasp suddenly relaxed and Cary sank back on the pillow. The Lieutenant helped the boy to rise; ending, by picking him up in his arms and carrying him from the room. He re-entered Cary's room by way of the hall. By the light of the early breaking dawn, he saw something dark lying before Cary's outer door. He stooped over it. It was Trevelyan's boy. |
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