IN THE PAVILION.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11811, 21 December 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

IN THE PAVILION.

(By Mary Roberts Rinehart.)

Now had Billy Grant really died there would be no story- Tho story is to relate hoir he nearly difl : and how, approachiiig that bourn to which no traveller may tako with lam anything but his sins—and this with Billy Grant meant considerable luggage—he cast about for some way to prevent the Lindley Grants from getting possession of his worldly goods. Probablv it would never havo hap-

pened at all had not young Grant, having hit on a scheme, clung to it with a tenacity that might better have been devoted "to saving his soul, and had ha not said to the Nurse, who was at that moment shaking a thermometer: "Come on —be a sport! It's onlv a matter of hours." Not that h- said it aloud —he whispered it, and fought for tho breath to do even that. The Nurse, having shaken down the thermometer, walked to the table and recorded a t.mperature of one hundred and six degrees through a most unprofessional mist of tears. Then in tho symptom column sho wrote: "Delirrious." But Billy Grant was not delirious. A fever of a* hundred and four or thereabout may fuse one's mind in a sort of fierv crucible, but when it gets to a hundred and six all the foreign thoughts, like seeing green monkeys t>il tho footboard and wondering why th« doctor is walking on his hands—all these things melt away, and one sees one's past, as when drowning, and remembers to hato one's relations, and is curious about what is coining when one goes over.

So Billy Grant lay on his bed in the contagious pavilion of the hospital, ami remembered to hate the Lindley Grants

and to try to devise a way to keep them out of his property. And, having studied law, he knew no will that ho might make now would hold against tho Xitndley Grants for a minute, nnless he survived its making some thirty days. Ths? Staff Doctor had given him about thirty hours or less.

Perhaps bo would have given tip in. despair and been forced to rest content with a threat to haunt the Lindley Grants and otherwise mar the enjoyment of their good fortune, had not the Nureo at that moment put tne thermometer, under his arm. Now, as every one knows, an axillary temperature takes five minutes, during which it is customary for. a nurse to kneel beside the bed, or even to sit very lightly on the edge, holding the patienrs arm close to his side and counting his respirations while pretending to be thinking of something else. It was during these five minutes that the idea came into Billy Grant's mind and, having come, remained. The Nurse got Up, rustling starchily, and Billy caught her eye. "Every engine," he said with difficulty, "labors—in a low—gear. No wonder I'm —heated up!" The Nurse, who was young, put her hand on Ms forehead.

"Trv to sleep," she said. "Time for—that —later." said Billy Grant. "I'll—l'll be a —long time — dead. I —l wonder whether j-ou'd—do me a—favor." >

"I'll do anything in the world you want."

She tried to smile down at him, but only succeeded in making her chin quiver, which would never do—bring unprofessional and likely to get to the head nurse; so, being obliged to do something, she took his pulse by tho throbbing in his neck. "One, two, three, four, five, six— —" "Then —marry me," gasped Billy Grant. "Only for an—hour or —two, you know. You—promised. Come on —be a sport!" It was then that the Nurse walked to the table and recorded "Delirrious" in the symptom column. And, though she was a Smith College girl and had taken a something or other in mathematics, she spelled it just then with two r's.

Billy Grant was not in love with the Nurse. She was a part- of his illness, like the narrow brass bed and the yellow painted walls, and the thermometer under his arm. and the medicines. There were even times —when his fever subsided for a degree or two, after a cold sponge, and the muddled condition of mind returned —when she seemed to have more heads than even a nurse requires. So sentiment did not enter into the matter at all; it was revenge. "Yon—promised," he said again; but the Nurse only smiled indulgently and rearranged the bottles on the stand in neat rows.

JVnks. the orderly, carried her supi>er to th*' isolation pavilion at six o'clock—cold ham, ptoto salad, egg custard and tea. Also, ho brought Tier an evening paper. But the Nurse was not hungry. She went into the bathroom, washed her eyrs with cold water, put on a clean collar, against tho impending visit of the Staff Doctor, and then stood at the window, looking across at the hospital and feeling very lonely and responsible. It was not a. great hospital, but it looim-d large and terrible that night. The ambulance came out into the courtyard, and an interne, in white ducks, came out to it. carrying a surgical bag. He looked over at her and waved his hand. "Big railroad wrtx-k!" he called cheerfully. "Got 'em coming in bunches." He crawled into the ambulance, where the driver, trained to many internes, gave him tinr? to light a cigarette; then out into the dusk, with the gong beating madly. Billy Grant, who had lapsed into a doze, opened his eyes. "What about it?" ho asked. "Yon're not —married already are yon?"

"Please try to rest. Perhaps if I get vour beef juice " "Oh, hang—the teef juice!" wliisperei Billv Grant, and shut his eyes again —but "not to sleep. He was planning how to get his way, and finally, out of a curious and fantastic medley of thoughts, be evolved something. The doctor, of course! These women "had to do what the dctor ordered. He would see the doctor! —upon which, with a precision quite amazing, all the green monkevs on tho footboard of the Bed put their thumbs to their noses at him. Tho situation was unusual; for here was young Grant, far enough from any one who knew he was one of the Van. Kleek Grants —and, as such, entitled to nil the nurses and doctors that money could procure —shut away in the isolation pavilion of a hospital, and not even putting up a gotxl fight! Even the Nurso felt this, and when the Staff Man came across tho courtyard that nightshe met him on the doorstep and told him.

"Ho doesn't care whether he gets well or not." sho said dispiritedly. "All he seems to think about is to die and to leave everything lie owns so his relatives won't get it. It's horrible!" The Staff Man, who had finished up a hard day with a hospital supper of Steak and fried potatoes, sat down on the doorstep and fished out a digestive iablet from his surgical bag. "It's pretty sad. little girl." he said, over the pill/ He had known the Nurse for some time, having, in fact, brought harr —according to report at the in a predecessor of the very bag at his feet, and ho had the fatherly manirer that belongs by .right to the man who has first thnmpod ono between the ehoulderblades to make one breathe, and who remarked on the occasion to some one beyond the door: "A girl, and fat as butter!"

The Nurse tiptoed in and found Billy Grant apparently asleep. Actually he had only closed his eyes, hoping to lure one of "the monkeys, within clutching distance. So the Nurse came out again, with the symptom record. "Delirious, with two r's," said the Staff Doctor, glancing over his spectacles. "He must have been pretty bad."

"Nof wild: he—he wanted me to marry him!"

She smiled, showing a most alluring dimple in nrr° cheek. "T see! TTpII. that's not necessarily delirium. H'm—pulse, respiration—look at that temperature! Yes. it's pretty sad—awav from home. too. poor lad!"

"You Isn't there anv hope, doctor?"

"None at all—at least. I're never had 'em get well." Now the should, by all the. ethics of hospital practice, have walked brhmd the Staff Doctor, listenins reverentially to what he said, not

}-■■■ speaking until she was spoken to. and carrying in one hand an order blank on which said august personage would presently inscribe certain cabalistic characters, to be deciphered later by tho pliarmncy clerk with a strong light and much blasphemy, and in the other liand a clean towel. The clean towel does not enter into the story ; but for the curious it said that were said personage to desire to listen to the patient's.heart, the'towel would be unfolded and spread, without creases, over the patient's chest—which reminds mo of the Irishman and .tho weary practitioner; but every one knows that.story. Now that is what the Nurso should have done; instead of which, in the darkened passageway, being very tired land exhausted and under a hideous strain, sbo suddenly slipped her arm through the Staff Doctor's and, putting j her head on his shoulder, begaa to cry softly. "What this:"" demanded the Staff Doctor sternly and, putting his arm round her: "Don't you know tihat | Junior .Nurses aro not supposed to weep over the Staff?" And, getting no answer but a choke: "Wo can't have you used up like this; I'll make tiem relievo you. When did you sleep?" "I don't want to be relieved," said tho Nurse, very muffled. "No-nobody else would know wh-what he wanted. I just—l just can't bear to see him — to siv 'him " The Staff Doctor picked up tho clean towel, which belonged on the Nurse's left arm, and dried her eyes for her; ' then ho sighed. "None of us likes to see it. girl," he said. "I'm au old man, and I've never , got used to it. What do they send you ] to eat?" .

'Tho food's all right," she said rather drearily. '"l'm nob hungry—that's all. How long do you thint " The Staff Doctor, who was putting an antiseptic gauze cap over his white hnir. ran a safoty pin into, his scalp at that moment and did not reply' at once. Then, "Perhaps—until morning," be said.

He held out his arms for' the -long white sterilised coat, and a moment later, with his face clean washed of emotion, and looking like a benevolent Turk, he entered the sickroom. The Nurse was just behind him, with an order book in one band and a clean towel over her arm. Billy Grant, from his bed, gave the turban a high sign of greeting. "AUab—is—great!" he gasped cheerfully. ""Well, doctor —I guess it's all—over but—tho shouting."

Some time after midnight Billy Grant roused out of a stupor. He was quite rational; in fact, ho thought he would get out of bed. But his feet would nob move. This was absurd! One's feet must move if one wills them to! However, he could not stir either of them. Otherwise h* was beautifully comfortable.

Faint as was the stir he made, the Nurse heard him. She was sitting in tho dark by the window.

"Water:- - "" sho asked softly, coming to him.

"Please." His voice was stronger than it had been. Some of the water went down his neck, but it did not matter. Nothing mattered except the Lindley Grants. The Nurse took his temperature and went out into the hall to read the thermometer, so he might not watch, her face. Then, having recorded it tinder the nightlight, she came back into the room.

"Why don't you put on something comfortable?" demanded Billy Grant querulously. He was so comfortable himself and she was so stiffly starched, so relentless of collar and cap. "I am comfortable."

"Where's that wrapper thing you've been wearing at night?" The Nurse rather flushed at this. "Why don't you lie down on the cot and take a nap? I don't need anything." "Not —not to-night."

Ho understood, of course, but he refused to be depressed. He was too comfortable. Ho was breathing easily, and his voice, though weak, was clear. "AVould you mind sitting beside me? Or are you tired? But of course you are. Perhaps in a night or so you'll be over there again, sleeping in a nice white gown in a nice fresh bed, with, no querulous devil "

"Please!" "You'll have to be sterilised or formaldehyded ?" "Yes." This very low.

'•"Will you put your hand over mine? Thanks. It's —company, you know." He iras apologetic: under her hand his own burned fire. "T—l spoko to the Staff about that while you were out of the Toom." ''About what?" "About your marrying me." "What did he say?" She humored him.

"He said he was willing if you were. You're not going to move—are you ?" "No. But you must not talk."

"It's like this. I've got a. little property—not much: a little." He was nervously eager about this. If she knew it' amounted to anything she would refuse, and the Lindley Grants "And when I—you know I want to leave it where it will do fioma good. That little brother of yours—it would send him through college, or help to."

Once, weeks ago. before he became, so ill, she had told him of the brother. This in itself was wrong and against the ethics of the profession. One does not speak of oneself or one' 6 family. "If you won't try to sleep, shnll I read to von?" "Read what?" . "I thought —the Bible, if you wou'dn't mind."

•''Certainly," he agreed. "I suppose that's the conventional thing; and if it makes you f?el any better Will von think over what I've been saying?" "I'll think about it," she said, soothing him like a fretful child, and brought her Bible. Tho clock on the near-by town hall struck two as she drew up her chair beside him and commenced to Tead by tho shaded light. Across the courtyard the windows were dim yellowish rectangle.", with hero and there one brighter than the others that told its own story of sleepless hours. A taxicab .rolled along the street outside, carrying a boisterous night party. Tli" Nurse had taken off her cap and put it on a stand. The autumn nighl was warm, and the light touch of the tulle had nressecr her hair in damp, fine curves over her forehead. There were pnrple hollows cf anxiety and sleeplessness under her eyes. "The perfect nurse." the head of tho training school was fond of saving, "is more or less of a machine. Too much simpathy is a handicap to hrr work and an embarrassment to her patient. A perfect, silent, reliible, fearless, e-mo-tio"less machine!" Poor .Tunior Nurse! Now Billy Grant, lyinp there listening to something out of iKiiah. should have been repenting his hard-living, hnrd-dr.ihkirg young life: should been forgiving the Lindley Grants — which story does not belong h-ere; should have been asking for the consolation of the church, and trying to summon from the depths_ of his con- ' sciousness, faint memories of early teachings as to the life beyond, and what he might or might not expect there.

What he actually did while the Nnrse read was to try to move his le-rs. and. failing this, to plan a way to achieve the final revenge of a not particularly forgiving life. At a little before three o'clock the Nurse telephoned across for an interne, • who came over in a bathrobe oyerhis pviamas' and shot a. bvpodermic into Billv Grant's left arm. Billy Gran* hardly noticed. He was seeing Mrs Lindley Grant when_ his surprise Tvas snrun<r on her. The interne summoned the Nurse into the ball with :i lerk of his head. "About all in!" he said.. "Heart's gone—too much booze probably. I'd stay, but there!s nothing to- do ' "Would oxygen "

"Oh. you can try it if yon like It's like hlnwinjT tip a leakinir tyre: hnfc if ron*ll_ feel better, do it." He yawned and tied the cord Gf his bathrobe round him more securelv. "I guess you'll be glad to set hack," he observed, looking rnnnd the dingy hall. "This plan; always crives me a. chnll. "VTell. let me know if von .Kant me. Good night.'' The Nurse stood in the hallway until the echo of his slmneTs on the asphalt find d : ed awav. Then she furnec! to Billv Grant.

"Well?" . demanded Billy Grant. "How long have I? Until morning?" "If you would only not talk and not excite yourself " "I've got to do all the talking I'm going to do right now," said Billy Grant. "I beg your pardon—l didn't intend to swear."

"6h, that's all right!" said the Nurse vaguely. This was like no deathbed she had ever seen, and it was disconcerting.

'Shall I read again?"

"No, thank you." The Nurse looked at her watch, which had been a, graduation present from her mother and which said, inside the case: "To my little girl!" There is no ouestion but that, when the Nurse's mother gave that inscription to the jeweller, she was thinking of the day when the Staff Doctor had brought the Nurse in his leather bag, and had slapped her between the shoulders to make her' breathe. "To my little girl!" said the watch; and across from that—"Three o'clock."

At half-past three Billy Grant, havng matured his plans, remarked that if fc would ease the Nurse any he'd see <-. >reacher. His voice was weaker again tnd broken. "Not" —he said, struggling—"not ■hat I think—rhe'll pass me. But —if 'ou say so—l'll—take a chance." AH of which was diabolical cunning; or when, as the result of a telephone onversation, the minister came, an unworldly man who counted the world, an mtonlobile, a vested choir and a silver •ommUnion service well lost for the sake >f a dozen derelicts in a slum mission wuse, Billy Grant sent the Nurse out a prepare a broth he could' no longer iwallow. and proceeded to cajole the nan of God. This lie did by urging the leed of the Nurse's small brother for in education and by forgetting to mention either the Lindley Grants or the sxtent of his property. From four o'clock until five Billy Jrant coaxed the Nurse with what voice 10 had. The idea had become an obession; and minute by minute, pantng breath hy panting breath, her resoution wore away, fie was not deliriius; he was as sane as she was and erribly set. And this thing he wanted ras so easy to rrant; meant so little to ler and, for some strange reason, so nuch to him. Perhaps, if she did it, le would think a little of what the (readier was saying. At five o'clock, utterly worn out with Jie struggle and finding his pulse a legligiblo quantity, in response tc lis pleading eyes the Nurse, ineeling and holding a thermoneter under her. patient's arm with Jne hand, reached the other one ovei the bed and was married in a dozen words and a soiled white apron. Dawn was creeping in at the windows —a gray city dawn, filled with soot ami fclio rumbling of early waggons. A smeT of damp asphalt from the. courtyard floated in and a dirty sparrow chirpec on the sill where the Nurse had beer in the habit of leaving crumbs. Bill} Grant, very sleepy and contented now that he had got his way, dictated a line or two on a blank symptom record, ant signed his will in a sprawling hand. "If only," he muttered, "I could se< Lin's face when that's—sprung or, him_!"

The minister picked up the Bible from the tumbled bed and opened it. "Perhaps," he suggested very softly, "if I read from the Word of God " Satisfied now that he had fooled the Lindley Grants out of their very shoebuttons, Billy Grant was asleep—asleep with the thermometer under his arm and with his chest rising and falling peacefully. The- minister looked across at the Nurse who was still holding the thermometer in place. She had buried her face in the whito counterpane. "You are a good woman, sister," he said softly. "The boy is hnpoier, and you are none the worse. Shall I keep tho paper for you?" But the Nurse, worn out with the long night, slept where she knelt. The minister, who had come across the street in a ragged smoking-ooat and no collar, creaked round the bed and threw the edge of tho blanket over her shoulders.

Then, turning his coat collar up over his unshav.ed neck, ho departed for the mission across the street, where one of his derelicts, in his shirtsleeves, was sweeping tho pavement. There, mindful of tho fact that he had come from the contagious* pavilion, the minister brushed his shabby smoking-eoat with awhiskbroom to remove tho germs!

Billy Grant, of course, did not dieThis was perhaps because only the good. die young. And Billy Grant's creed had been tho honor of a gentleman rather than the Mosaic Law. There was. therefore, no particular violence done to his code whoa his last thoughts —or what appeared to be his last thoughts—were revenge instead of salvation.

The fact was, Billy Grant had' a real reason for hating the Lindley Grants. When a fellow like that has all the Van Kleek money and a hereditary thirst, he is bound to drink. The Lindley Grants did not- understand 1 this and made themselves obnoxious by calling him "Poor Billy!" and not having wine when he came to dinner. That, however, was not his reason for hating them. Billv Grant fell in love. To give the

devil his due, he promptly set about reforming himself. He took about half as many whisky-and-scdas as he had boon in the habit of doing, and! cut out champagne altogether. '. He took up golf to fill in the time, too, hut gave it Gp when ho found it made him thirstier than ever. And then, with things so shaping tip that he _could rise in the morning without having a- drink to get up on, the Lindley Grants thought it best to warn the girl's family before it was too late. "He is a nice boy in some Tvays," Mrs Lindlev Grant had said on the occasion of the'waming; "but, like all drinking men, he is a broken reed, eccentric and irresponsible. No daughter of mine could marry him.-. I'd rather bury her And if you want facts Lindley will give them to you." So the girl had sent back her ring and a cold little letter, and Billy Grant had got roaring full at a club that night and presented the ring to a cabman —all of which is exceedingly sordid, but rather human after all. The Nurse, having had no sleep for 48 hours, slept for quite 30 minutes. She wakened at the end of that time and started up with a horrible fear that the thing she was waiting for had come. But Billv Grant was still alive, sleeping naturally, and the thermometer, having been in placo 40 minutes, registered 103. At eight o'clock the interne, hurrying over in fresh ducks, with a laudable desiro to make the rounds before the Staff began to drop in, found Billy Grant very still and with his eyes closed, and the Nurse standing beside the bed, pale and tremulous. "Why didn't you let me know? he demanded, aggrieved. "I ought to have been called. ~I told you-——" "He isn't dead," said .the Nurse breathlessly. "He —I think he is better." . Whereon she stumbled out of the room into her own little room across the-hall. locking the door behind her, and leaving the interne to hunt the,symptom record for himself —a thing not to be lightly overlooked; though of course internes are not the Staff. The interne looked over the record ■And -whistled. . ."Wouldn t that paralyse you!" he said under his breath. "Pulse very weak.' 'Pulse almost obliterated.' 'Very talkative.' 'Breathing hard at 4 a.m. Cannot swallow.' And then: 'Sleeping calmly from five o'clock.' ' 'Pulse stronger.' 'Temperature 103.' By that last prescription of mine, was a hit!" So now began a curious drama of convalescence in the little isolation pavilion across the courtyard. Not for a minute •did the two people most concerned forget their strange relationship: not for worlds would either have allowed the other to know that he or she remembered. Now and then the Nurse caught Billv Grant's eyes fixed on her as she .moved ahnnt the room, with a curious wistful expression in t.hpm. And' sometime', waking from a doze, he would find her in her chair by tho window, with her bonk dropped into her lap and a frichfencd look in, her eyes, staring at him.

H" trained strength rapidly, and the day came when, with the orderly's assistance, he was lifted to a chair. There was on" brief moment in which he stood +ott°ring on his fpet. Tn that instant ho rind realised what a little thine she was. nff-er all. and wh.it a cm.pl advania~° he had used for his own purpose. When he ■was settled in the chair and

j the orderly had gone she brought an extra pillow to put behind him, and he [dared the first personality of their new relationship. •'What a little girl you are, aftei all!" he said. "Lying there in the bee shaking at your frown, you were so for midable." "I am not small," she said, straight ening herself. She had always hopec that her cap gave her height. "It i 3 r ou who are so tall. You—you are £ giant 1" "A wicked giant, seeking whom I maj devour and carrying off lovely girls foi dinner under pretence of marriage ' : He stopped his nonsense abruptly, hav ing got so far, and both of them colored Thrashing about desperately for some thing to break the wretched silence, h< seized on the one thing that in those days of his convalescence was always per tinent —food-. "Speaking of dinner," hi said hastily, "isn't it time for some but termilk?" She was quite calm when she> came back—cool, even smiling; but Billy Grant had not had the safety-valve o: action. As she placed the glass on th< table at his elbow he reached out anc took her hand. "Can you ever forgive me?" he asked Not an original'speech; the usual ques tion of the marauding male, a quen after the fact and too late for anything but forgiveness. "Forgive you? For not dying?"

She vras pale;" hut no more snbter.ige now, no more turning aside from dangerous subjects. The matter was up before the house. "For marrying von !" said Billy Grant

I and upset the buttermilk. It took a i little time to wipe up the floor and to j put a clean cover on the standi, and after that to bring a fresh glass and place it on the table. But these were merely parliamentary preliminaries while each side got its forces in line. "Do yon hate me very* much ?" opened Billy Grant. This was, to change the figure, a blow below the belt. "Why should I hate you?" countered the other side. "I should think you would. I forced the thing on you." "I need not have done it."

"But being you, and always thinking about making some one else happy and comfortable " "Oh. if only they don't/find it out over there!" she burst out. "If they do and I have to leave, with Jim " Here, realising that she was going to cry and not caring to screw up her face before any one, she out her arms on the stand and buried her face in them. Her stiff tulle cap almost touched Billy Grant's, arm.

Billy Grant had. a shocked socoHd. "Jim?"

"My little brother," from the tahle. . Billy Grant drew along breath of relief. For n moment he had thought "I wonder —whether I dare to say something; to you." Silence from the table and presumably consent. "Isn't he—-don't vou think that —I might be allowed to—to help Jim ? It would help me to like myself again. Just now I'm not standing very high with myself." "Won't you tell me why you did in?" she said, suddenly sitting up, her arms still out before her on the table. "Why did you coax so ? You said it was because of a little property you had, but —that wasn't it—was it?" "No."

"Or because yon cared a snap for me." This was affirmation, not question.

"No, not that, though I- " She gave a hopeless little gesture of despair. "Then—why? Why?" "For one of the meanest reasons I know —to be even with some people who had treated me badly." The thing was easier now. His flat) denial of any sentimental reason had lielned to make it so.

"A girl that you cared about?" "Partly that. The girl was a poor thing. She didn't care enough to be hurt by anything I did. But the people who made the trouble " Now a curious thing happened. Billy Grant found at this moment that he no longer hated the Lindley Grants. The discovery left him speechless—that ho who had taken his hate into the very valley of death with him should now find himself thinking of both Lindley and his wife with nothing more bitter than contempt shocked him. A-.'state of affairs existed for which his hatred of the Lindley Grants was alone responsible, now tlie hate was gone and the state of affairs persisted. "I should like," said Billy Grant presently, "to tell you a little it will not bore you—about myself ami the things 1 have'done that I shouldn't, and about the girl. And of course, you know, I.m —l'm not going to hold you to—to the thing I forced, you into. There are ways to fix that." Before she would listen, however, suemust take his temperature and give him his medicine, and see that ho drank his buttermilk—the buttermilk last,, so as not to chill his mouth for the thermometer. The tired lines had gone from under her eves and she was very loveiy that dav. She had always been lovely, even when the Staff Doctor had slapped her between the shoulders long ago—you know about that—only Billy Grant had never noticed it; but to-day, sittmc there with the thermometer m Ins mouth while she counted his rospiratioiK pretending to be lookine out the window while she did it, Billv Grant saw how sweet and lovely and in every way adorable she was. in spite of the sad droop of her lies —and found it hard to sav the thing he felt he must. "After all," he remarked round tlie thermometer, "the- thing is not irrevocable. I can fix it up so that—"Keep your lips closed about tlie thermometer!" she said sternly, and snapped her watch shut. The pulse and so on having been recorded, and "Very hungry" put down under Symptoms, she came back to her chair by the window, facing _him. She sat down primly and smoothed ner white apron in her lap. "Now?" she said.

"I am to go on?" "Yes, please." ~ "If you are going to change tne pillows or the screen, or give me any other diabolical truck to swallow,' he said somewhat peevishly, "will you get it over now, so we can have five unprofessionalminutes?" . . "Certainly," she said; and bringing an extra blanket she spread it, to his disgust, over his knees. This time, when she sat down,/one ot her hands lay on the table near him and he reached over and covered it with "Please!" he begged. "For company! And it will help me to tell you some of the things I have to tell." She left it there after an uneasy stirring So, sitting there, looking out into the dusty courtyard with its bandaged figures in wheeled chairs, 'its cripples sunning on a bench—their crutches beside them—its w 2 ter i e fl fountain and its dingy birds, he told her about the girl and the Lindley Grants, and even about the cabman and; the ring. And feeling, perhaps m some current from the small hand under his, that she was knowing and understanding and not turning away, be told her a great deal he had not meant to tell—ugly things, many of them —for that was his creed.

And, because in a hospital one lives manv lives vicariously with many people, "what the girl hack home .would, never have understood this girl did and faced unabashed. Life, as it. was not all good and not all. bad.; passion and tenderness, violence.and Rface, iov and wre-tehedness, birth and death —these she had looked on, all of thenv with clear eyes and hands ready to help. So Billy Grant laid- the good and .the bad of his life before her, knowing that he was burring it with her. When he finished, her hand on the table had turned and was clasping his. He bent over and kissed her fingers softly. After this she read to him. and their talk, if anv. was impersonal. \\ hen the orderlv had put him bark to bed be lay watching her moving about, rejoicing in her nniet strength, her repose. How well she was taking it, al!! If onlv—but there was no hope of that. She could go to Reno, and in a few months she would be free again and the thing would be as if it had never been. , . , ~ . . i At nine o'clock that night the lsola- ' tion pavilion was ready for the night. The lights in the sick-room were out. In a nightlight burned low Billv Grant was not asleep. He tried counting the lighted windows of the hospital and grew only more wakeful. The Nurse was sleeping now in her ! own room across, with the doors open j between. The slightest movement and I she wns up. rip-i.oeinjr in. with her hair ■ in a long braid down her back and her ' wrapper sleeves falling away loosely

from lier white, young arms. So, aching with inaction, Billy Grant lay still until silence across indicated that she was sleeping. Then he got up. This is a matter of difficulty when one is still very weak, and is achieved by rising first into a sitting posture by pulling oneself up by the bars of the bed, and then by slipping first one leg, then the other, over the side. Properly done, even the weakest thus find themselves in a position that by the aid of a chairback may become, however shaky, a standing one. He got to his feet better than he expected, but not well enough to linquish the chair. He had made no sound. That was good. He would tell her in the morning and rally her on her powers as a sleeper. He took a step—if only his knees He had. advanced into line with the doorway and stood lookng through the open door of the xoomi across. ■ The Nurse was on her knees beside the bed, in her nightgown, crying. Her whole young body was shaken .with silent sobs; her arms, in their short white sleeves, stretched across the bed, her fingers clutching the counterpane. "I thought I'heard —-are you worse?" she asked anxiously. "I'm all right," he said, Hating himself; "just not sleepy. How about you?" . "Not asleep yet, .but—resting, she replied. She stood in the doorway, dimly outlined, with her long braid over her shoulder and her voice,still a little strained' from crving. In the darkness Billy Grant half stretched out his arms, then dropped them, ashamed. "Would you like-another blanket?" "If there is one near." . She came in a moment later with the blanket and spread it over the bed. He lay very still) while she patted and smoothed it into place. He was mustering up his courage to ask for something —a curious state of mind for x>illy Grant, who had always taken what he wanted without asking. "I wish you would kiss me —just once!" he said wistfully. And them, seeing her draw back, he took an unfair advantage: "I think that's the reason I'm not sleeping." "Don't be absurd!"

"Is it so absurd —under the circumstances?"

"You can sleep quite well if you only try." She went out into the hall again, her chin well Tip. Then she hesitated, turned and came swiftly back into the room.

"If I do," she said rather breathlessly, "will you go to sleep? And will you promise to hold your arms up over your head?" "But my arms "

"Over your head!" He obeyed at that, and the next moment she over him in the darkness; and quickly, lightly, deliriously, she kissed—the tip of his nose!

She was quite cheerful the next day and entirely composed l . Neither of them referred to. the episode of the night before, but Billy Grant thought of little else. Early in the morning he asked her to bring him a hand mirror and, surveying his face, tortured and disfigured by the orderly's shaving, sufI fered an acute wound in bis vanity. He was glad it had been dark or she probably would not have— — He borrowed a razor from the interne and proceeded to enjoy himself. Propped up in his chair, he rioted !n lather, sliced a piece out of his right ear, and shaved the back of his neck by touch, in lien of better treatment. This done, and the ragged' and unkempt hair over his ears having been trimmed in scallops, due to the work being done with curved surgical scissors, he was his own man again. That afternoon, however, he was nervous and restless.' The Nurse was troubled. He avoided the subject that had so obsessed him the day before, was absent and irritable, could not eat, and sat in his chair by the window, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands. The Nurse was puzzled, but the Staff, making rounds that day, enlightened her. "He was pulled through—God and you alone know how." he said. "But as soon as he begins to get his strength he's going to yell for liquor again. When a man has been soaking up alcohol for years Drat this hospital cooking anyhow! Have you got any essence of pepsin?" The Nurse brought the pepsin and a medicine glass and the Staff Doctor swallowed and grimaced. "You were sayingi" said the Nurse timidly—for, the stress being over, he was Staff again and she was a Junior and not even, entitled to a Senior's privileges, such as returning occasional badinage or reminding the Staff bluntly —"every atom of him is going to crave it. He's wanting it now. He has been used to it for years." The Nurse waa white to the lips, but steady. "He is not to have it?" - ■ "Not a drop while he is here. When lio gets out it is his own affair again, but while he's here —by-the-way, you'll have to watch the orderly. He'll bribe him." . . "I don't think so, doctor. He is a gentleman." "Pooh! Of course he is. I dare say he's a gentleman when he's drunk too; but he's a drinker —a habitual drinker." The-Nurse-went back into the room and found Billy Grant sitting ina chair, with the book he had been reading on the floor and his face buried in his hands. . "I'm awfully sorry," he said, not looking up. "I heard what he said. He's right, you know." • . "I'm sorry. And.l'm afraid this is a place where I cannot help." «She put her hand on.his head, and he brought it down and held it between "Two or three times," he said, "when things were very bad with me," you let me hold your hand, and we got past somehow—didn't we?" She closed her eyes, remembering the dawn when, to soothe, a dying man, in the presence of the mission preacher, she had put her hand in his. Billy Grant thought of it.too. "Now you know what you've married," he said bitterly. The bitterness was at himself of course. "If—if you'll sit tight I have a fighting chance to make a man of myself, and after it & over we'll fix this thing for you so you will forget it ever happened. And 1— Oh -T- don't take your hand— RWciy! "I was feeling for my handkerchief," she explained'. . ■ "Have I made you cry again r "Again?" "I saw you last night m your room. I didn't intend to; but I was trying to stand, and——" ; • . . .-. She was very dignified at this, witlt her eyes still wet, and' tried to take her hand away unsuccessfully. . "If vou are going to get up when it is forbidden I shall ask to go back to the house." . , ' "You wouldn't do that!" "Let go of my hand." "You wouldn't do that!!" : _ "Please! The"head nurse is coming. He freed her hand then and she wiped her eyes, • remembering the "perfect, silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine.". . ■ The head of the training school came to the door of the pavilion, but did not enter. The reason for this was twofold: first, she had confidence'in the Nurse; second, she was afraid of contagion—this latter, of course, quite sub rosa, in view of the above quotation. The head-nurse was.a. tall woman in white,. and' was so starchy that she rattled like: a newspaper when she "Good' morning." she said briskly. "Have you sent over the soiled clothes'?" Head nurses are always bothering about "soiled clothes; and what becomes of all the nailbrushes, and how can they use so many bandages ! "Yes, Miss Smith." > "Meals come over promptly?" "Yes, Miss Smith." "Getting anv sleep?" "Oh, yes, plenty —now." Miss -Smith peered into the hallway, ■which seemed tidy, looked at the Nurse with approval, and then from the doorstep into the patient's room, where Billy Grant sat. At the sight of him her evebrows rose. "Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "T thought he* was older than that!" "Twenty-nine." said the Nurse; "twenty-nine last Fourth of July." "H'm! commented the head nurse.

'•'You evidently know! I had no idea you were faking care of a boy. Tt won't do. I'll send over Miss Hart." The Xur.-o triod tn visualize Billy Grant in his times of stress clutching at Miss Hart's hand, and. failed.

"Jeiiks is here, of course," she said, jenks being the orderly. The idea of Jenks as a chaperon, however, did not appeal to the head nurse. She took another glance through the window at Billy Grant, looking uncommonly handsome and quite ten years .younger sinco the shave, and she set her hps. "I urn astonished beyond measure, she said. "Miss Hart will relieve you at two o'clock. Take your antiseptic bath and you may have the afternoon to yourself. Report in L Ward in the morning." Miss Smith rattled hack across the courtyard and -the Nurse stood watching" Sier; then turned, slowly and went into the house to tell Billy Grant. Now the stories about what followed differ. They agree on one point: that Billy Grant had a heart-to-heart tals with the substitute at two o'clock that afternoon and told her politely but firmly that he would none of her. Here the divergence begins. Some say ha got the superintendent over the house telephone and said he had intended, to make a large gift to the hospital, but if his comfort was so little considered aa | to change nurses just when he had got used to one, he would have to-alter his plans. Another and more likely story, because it sounds more like Billy Grant, is that at five o'clock a florist's boy de-livered-to the head nurse a box of orchids such as never had been seen before in the house, and a card inside which said: "Please, dear Miss Smith, take back the Hart that you gavest." Whatever really happened—and only Billy Grant and the lady in question ever really knew—that night at eigh! o'clock with Billy Grant sitting ghinvV in his room and Miss Hart studying tvphoid fever in. the hall, the Nurse came back again to the pavilion with her soft hair flying from its afternoon washing and her eyes shining. And things went on as before —not quite as before; for with the nurse question settled the craving got in its work again, and the nest week was a bad one. There were good days, when he taughther double-dummy auction bridge, followed by terrible nights, when he walked the floor for hours and she sat by, unable to help. Then at dawn he would send her to bed remorsefully and take up the fight alone. And there were quiet nights when both slept and when he would waken to the craving again and fight all day. "I'm afraid I'm about killing her," he said to the Staff one day; "but it's my chance to make a man of myself—now or never." The Staff was no fool and he had heard about the orchids. "Fight it out, boy!" he said. "Pretty soon you'll quit peeling and cease being a menace to the public health, and you'd better get it over before you are free again." So, after a time, it grew a little easier. Grant was pretty much himself again—had put on a little flesh and could feel his biceps rise under his fingers. He took to cold plunges when he felt the craving coming on, a-nd there were days when the little pavilion was full of the sound of running water. He shaved himself daily, too, and sent out for some collars. Between the two of them, since her return, there had been much of good fellowship, nothing of sentiment. He wanted her near, but he did not put a hand on her. In the strain of those few days the strange, gray dawn seemed "to have faded into its own. mists.

Only once, when she had brought his breakfast tray and was arranging the dishes for him —against his protest, for he disliked being waited on —he reached over -and touched a plain hand ring she wore. She colored. "My mother's," she said; "her wedding ring." . Their eyes met across the tray, but he only said, after a moment: "Eggs like a rock, of course! Couldn't we get 'em raw and boil them over here?" It was" that morning, also, that he suggested a thing which had been in his mind for some time. "Wouldn't it be possible," he asked, "to bring your tray in here and to eat together? It would be more sociable." She smiled. "It isn't permitted." "Do you 'think—would another bos of orchids " She shook her head as she poured out his coffee. "I should probably be expelled." He was greatly aggrieved. "That's all . foolishness," he said. "How is that any worse—any more unconventional—than your bringing me your extra blanket on a cold night? Oh, I heard you last night!" "Then why didn't you leave it on?"

<l And let you freieze?" "I was quite warm. As it was, it lay in the hallway all night and did no one any good." Having got thus far from wedding rings, ho did not try to get back. He ate alone, and after breakfast, while she took her half-hour of exercise outside the window, he sat inside reading —only apparently reading however. Once she went quite as far as the gate and stood looking out. "Jenks!" called Billy Grant. Jenks has not entered into the story much. He was a little man. rather fat. who occupied a tiny room in the pavilion, carried! meals and soiled clothes, had sat on Billy Grant's chest once or twice during a delirium, and kept a bottle locked in the dish closet. ,"Yes, sir," said Jenks, coming behind a strong odor of spiritus frumenti. "Jenks," said Billy Grant with an eye on the figure at the gate, "is that bottle of vours empty?" "What bottle?" "The one in the closet." Jenks eyed Billy Grant, and Billy eyed Jenks—a look of man to man, brother to brother. "Not quite, sir:—a nip or,two." "At," suggested Billy Grant, "say—five dollars a nip?" Jenks smiled. "About that," he said.. '-'Filled?" Billy Grant debated. The Nurse was turning at the gate. • "No," he said. "As it is, Jenks. Bring it here." Jenks brought the bottle and a glass, but the glass was niotioned away. Billy Grant took the bottle in his hand and looked at it with a curious expression. Then he went oyer and put it in the upper bureau drawer, under a pile of handkerchiefs. Jenks watched him, bewildered. "Just, a little experiment, Jenks,' said Billy Grant. Jenks understood then and stopped smiling. "I wouldn't, Mr GTant," he said; "it will : only make", you lose, confidence in yourself when" it doesn't work out. "But it's - going, to ' work out," said Billy Grant. "Would you—would you mind turning on the cold water?" Now the next twenty-four hours puzzled the Nurse. When Billy Grant's eyes were not on her with an unfathomable expression in them, they were fixed on something in the neighborhood of the dresser, and at these times they had a curious fixed look not unmixed with triumph. She tried a now arrangement of combs and brushes and tilted the: mirror at a different angle, without effect. That day Billy Grant took only one cold plunge. As the hours wore on lie grew more cheerful; the look of triumph was. unmistakable. He stared less at the dresser and more at the Nurse. At last it grew unendurable. She stopped in front of him and looked down -at him severely. She could only be severe when he was sitting—when he was standing she had to look so far up at "him. "even when she stood on her tiptoes. "What is wrong with me?" she demanded. "You look so queer! Is my 'cap crooked?" "It is a wonderful cap." "Is my face dirty?" "Ttis a won No, certainly not. "Then would r yon mind not staring so? You —upsefc me." "I shall have to shut my eyes," he replied meekly, arid worried her into a state of frenzy by sitting for fifty minutes with his head back and his eyes shut.

So—the. .evening and the morning were another day, and the hot-tie lay undisturbed under the handkerchiefs, and the cold shower ceased running, and Billy Grant assumed the air _ of triumph permanently. That morning when the breakfast trays came he walked over into the Nurse's room and nicked hers up. table and all. carrying it across the hall. In his own roorn he arranged the two travs side by side, and two charr? opposite •' each' other. .AMion the Nurse, who had been putting on the window-sill, turned! round Bill- - Grant was waiting to draw out oris of the chairs, and there was

something in his facia she had not seen there before. "Shall we breakfast?" he said.

"I told you yesterday " "Think a minute," he said" softly. "Is there any reason why we should not breakfasts together?" She pressed her hands close together, but she did not speak. "Unless—you do not wish to." "You remember you promised, as soon as you got away, to —fix that " "So I will if you say the word." "And —to forget all about it." . "That," said Billy Grant solemnly,"I shall never do so long as I live. Do .you say the word?" "What else can I do?" "Then there is somebody else?" "Oh. no!" . He took a step toward her, but still he did not touch her. ' "-' . "If there is no one else," he. said, "and if I tell you that you havo made me a man again " "Gracious! Your eggs will be cold." She made a motion toward the egg-cup, but Billy Grant caught her hand. "Hang the eggs!" ho said. "Why you look at me?" Something sweet and luminous .and most unprofessional shono in the Little Nurse's eyes, and the lino of her pulse on a chart would have looked! like «. seismic disturbance. "I—l have to look up so far!" she said, but really she was looking, dwwn when she said it.

"Oh, my dear—my dear!" exulted Billy Grant.- "It is I who must look up at you!" And with that he dropped on his knees and kissed the starched hem of her apron. >. The Nurse felt very absuTd and a. little frightened. "If only," she said, backing off —"if only you wouldn't be such a silly! Jenks is coming!" But Jenks was not corning. . Biltr Grant rose to his full height and looked down at her—a new Billy Grant, the one who had l got drunk at a club': and given a ring to a. cabman having died that gray morning some weeks before. "I love you—love you—love-you!" he said, and took her in his arms.

Now the head nurse was interviewing an applicant; and, as the h. n. took a constitutional each morning in the courtyard and believed in losing no time, she was holding the interview as she walked.

"I think I would make a good nurse," said the applicant, a trifle breathless, the h. n. being a brisk walker. "I am so sympathetic."

The h.n. stopped and raised a r«- *

proving forefinger. "Too much sympathy is a handicap," she orated. "The perfect nurse is a silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine —this little building here is the isolation pavilion." "An emotionless machine," repeated

the applicant. "I see —an e -" The words died on her lips. She was looking past a crowd of birds on the window-sill to where, just inside, Billy Grant and the Nurse in a very mussed cap were breakfasting together. •Vnd as she looked' Billy Grant bent over across the tray. "I adore you!" he said distinctly and, lifting the Nurse's hand's, kissed' first one and then the other.

"It is Lard work," said the head nurse —having made a note that the hoys in the children's ward must be restrained from lowering a pasteboard box on a string from a window —"hard work without sentiment- It is not a romantic occupation." She waved an. admonitory hand toward the window, and the bos went. up. swiftly. The applicant looked again toward the pavilion, where Billy Grant, having kissed the Nurse's hands, had buried his face in her two palms. '---■ The mild October sun shone down on the courtyard, with its bandaged figures in wheel-chairs, its cripples sunning on a bench, their crutches beside them,.its waterless fountain and dingy bird's. ' The applicant thrilled to it all—joy and suffering, birth and death, misery and hope, life and love. Love! The head nurse turned' to her grimly, but her eyes were soft. "All this," she said', waving her hand vaguely, "for eight dollars a month!'-' "I think," said the applicant shylyV. "I should like to come."