Part 60

The Mother-Superior murmured, a hand upon the ache in her bosom:

"Not of death for herself. For--another."

His purely scientific attitude must have already abandoned him when he knew gladness that Self was not the dominant note in this dumb threnody of fear. But he wore the professional mask of the physician as he ordered:

"Let one of the Sisters speak to her."

The Mother-Superior glanced at the nun who was ironing, and then at the figure on the stool. The Sister was about to obey when the Boer Maxim-Nordenfelt on the southern position rattled. There was a hissing rush overhead, and as a series of sharp, splitting cracks told that a group of the shining little copper-banded shells had burst, and that their splinters were busily hunting far and wide for somebody to kill, the stitching hand dropped by the girl's side. A new wave of shuddering went over the desolate young figure, pitiable and horrible to see. Dull drops of sweat broke out upon her temples in the shadow of her red-brown hair.

"How are you getting on with your work, dearie?"

Sister Tobias had spoken to her gently. She moved her head and her fixed eyes in a blind way, and the stitching hand resumed its mechanical task, but she gave no answer, except with the shudderings that shook her, as a lily is shaken in an autumn blast.

Then Saxham stepped backwards noiselessly, climbed the steep ladder stairway, and stood waiting for the Mother-Superior in the blazing yellow sunshine, beside the post to which his horse was hitched. The Mother followed instantly. He was making some pencil memoranda in a shabby notebook, and kept his eyes upon his writing, and made a mere mask of his square, pale face as he began:

"It--the case presents a very interesting development. The subject has at one time or other--probably the critical period of girlhood--sustained a severe physical and mental shock?"

The great grey eyes swam in sudden tears that were not to be repressed, as the Mother-Superior remembered the finding of that lost lamb on the veld seven years before. She bowed her head in silent assent.

"You would wish candour," Saxham said, looking away from her emotion. "And I should tell you that this is grave."

"I know it," her desperate eyes said more plainly than her scarcely moving lips. "But so many others are suffering in the same way, and there is nothing that can be done for any of them."

He answered with emphasis that struck her cold. "Some measures must be taken in the case, and without delay. This state of things must not go on." He saw that the Mother-Superior caught her breath and wrung her hands together in the loose, concealing sleeves as she said, with a breath of anguish:

"If she only had more self-control."

"She has self-control." He echoed the word impatiently. "She is using every ounce she has for all she is worth. She has used it too long and too persistently."

"I will say then, if she only had more faith!"

"I know nothing of faith," Saxham said curtly; "I deal in common-sense."

She could have asked if it were commonly sensible for a creature made by God, and existing but by His will, to live without Him? But she put the temptation past her. No cordial flame of mutual esteem and liking ever sprang up between these two, often brought together in their mutual work of help and healing. She recognised Saxham's power, she admitted his skill. But, as his practised eye had diagnosed in the beloved of her heart the signs of physical and mental crisis, so her clear gaze deciphered in his face the story written by those unbridled years of vice and dissipation, and knew him diseased in soul. She may have been fully acquainted with all Gueldersdorp had learned of him, going here, there, and everywhere, as was her wont, in obedience to her Spouse's call. But if so, she never betrayed Saxham. There was no resentment, only delicate irony in the curve of her finely-modelled lips as she queried:

"Am I so deficient in the quality of common-sense?"

"Madam," he said, "you have manifested it in each of the many instances where I have been brought in contact with you. But in your solicitude for this young girl you have shown, for the first time in my experience of you, some lack of good judgment, and have inflicted, and do inflict, severe suffering on her."

Her eyes flashed grey fire under her stern brows as she demanded:

"How, pray?"

"It is out of the question, I suppose," Saxham said coldly, "that you should slacken in your ministrations among the sick and wounded, and keep out of daily and hourly danger--for her sake?"

"Impossible," her voice answered, and her heart added unheard: "Impossible, unless I should be false to my Heavenly Bridegroom out of love for the child He gave."

"Then," said Saxham bluntly, "unless these recurrent nerve-storms are to culminate in cerebral lesion and mental and physical collapse--a result more easy to avert than to deal with--take the girl about with you."

"But----" the Mother uttered in irrepressible dismay. "I--we go everywhere!"

It was most true. He had a vision, as she said it, of the black-robed, white-coifed, cheerful Sisters passing in couples through the shrapnel-littered streets, between houses of gaping walls, and shattered roofs, and glassless windows, cheerful, serene, helpful, bringing comfort to the dying, and assistance to the sick, oblivious of whistling bullets and bursting shells. And the most arduous duties, the most repulsive tasks, the most danger-fraught errands, were hers, always by right, and claim, and choice. What a woman it was! A very Judith in Israel. He knew that Judith did not like him, but unconcealed admiration was in his blue eyes as he looked at her.

"I know it. Let her go everywhere. It is the sole chance, and--you spoke of faith just now.... If you have it for yourself and the religious women of your Order, who go about doing good in confidence of the protection--I do not speak in mockery--of an Almighty Hand, why can't you have it for her?"