Part 34

She turned her head on the low pillow as Father Damon spoke, saying he was very glad he could come to her, and hoped she was feeling better.

“I knew you would come,” she said, feebly. “The nurse says I'm better. But I wanted to tell you--” And she stopped.

“Yes, I know,” he said. “The Lord is very good. He will forgive all your sins now, if you repent and trust Him.”

“I hope--” she began. “I'm so weak. If I don't live I want him to know.”

“Want whom to know?” asked the father, bending over her.

She signed for him to come closer, and then whispered a name.

“Only if I never see him again, if you see him, you will tell him that I was always true to him. He said such hard words. I was always true.”

“I promise,” said the father, much moved. “But now, my child, you ought to think of yourself, of your--”

“He is dead. Didn't they tell you? There is nothing any more.”

The nurse approached with a warning gesture that the interview was too prolonged.

Father Damon knelt for a moment by the bedside, uttering a hardly articulate prayer. The girl's eyes were closed. When he rose she opened them with a look of gratitude, and with the sign of blessing he turned away.

He intended to hasten from the house. He wanted to be alone. His trouble seemed to him greater than that of the suffering girl. What had he done? What was he in thought better than she? Was this intruding human element always to cross the purpose of his spiritual life?

As he was passing through the wide hallway the door of the reception-room was open, and he saw Dr. Leigh seated at the table, with a piece of work in her hands. She looked up, and stopped him with an unspoken inquiry in her face. It was only civil to pause a moment and tell her about the patient, and as he stepped within the room she rose.

“You should rest a moment, Father Damon. I know what these scenes are.”

Yielding weakly, as he knew, he took the offered chair. But he raised his hand in refusal of the glass of wine which she had ready for him on the table, and offered before he could speak.

“But you must,” she said, with a smile. “It is the doctor's prescription.”

She did not look like a doctor. She had laid aside the dusty walking-dress, the business-jacket, the ugly little hat of felt, the battered reticule. In her simple house costume she was the woman, homelike, sympathetic, gentle, with the everlasting appeal of the strong feminine nature. It was not a temptress who stood before him, but a helpful woman, in whose kind eyes-how beautiful they were in this moment of sympathy--there was trust--and rest--and peace.

“So,” she said, when he had taken the much-needed draught; “in the hospital you must obey the rules, one of which is to let no one sink in exhaustion.”

She had taken her seat now, and resumed her work. Father Damon was looking at her, seeing the woman, perhaps, as he never had seen her before, a certain charm in her quiet figure and modest self-possession, while the thought of her life, of her labors, as he had seen her now for months and months of entire sacrifice of self, surged through his brain in a whirl of emotion that seemed sweeping him away. But when he spoke it was of the girl, and as if to himself.

“I was sorry to let her go that day. Friendless, I should have known. I did know. I should have felt. You--”

“No,” she said, gently, interrupting him; “that was my business. You should not accuse yourself. It was a physician's business.”

“Yes, a physician--the great Physician. The Master never let the sin hinder his compassion for the sinner.”

To this she could make no reply. Presently she looked up and said: “But I am sure your visit was a great comfort to the poor girl! She was very eager to see you.”

“I do not know.”

His air was still abstracted. He was hardly thinking of the girl, after all, but of himself, of the woman who sat before him. It seemed to him that he would have given the world to escape--to fly from her, to fly from himself. Some invisible force held him--a strong, new, and yet not new, emotion, a power that seemed to clutch his very life. He could not think clearly about it. In all his discipline, in his consecration, in his vows of separation from the world, there seemed to have been no shield prepared for this. The human asserted itself, and came in, overwhelming his guards and his barriers like a strong flood in the spring-time of the year, breaking down all artificial contrivances. “They reckon ill who leave me out,” is the everlasting cry of the human heart, the great passion of life, incarnate in the first man and the first woman.

With a supreme effort of his iron will--is the Will, after all, stronger than Love?--Father Damona rose. He stretched out his hand to say farewell. She also stood, and she felt the hand tremble that held hers.

“God bless you!” he said. “You are so good.”

He was going. He took her other hand, and was looking down upon her face. She looked up, and their eyes met. It was for an instant, a flash, glance for glance, as swift as the stab of daggers.