CHAPTER III.
The shifting and removal of furniture and the banishment of carpetspreparatory to the reception of patients next day, together with theinstallation of the necessaries for sick-rooms, were complete when Maudgot home that evening, and she found Dr. Symes, who had come up tosuperintend this, just on the point of leaving. He had no very cheeringaccount to give concerning several of the patients whom Maud askedafter, but there was one cause, at least, for thankfulness, since nofresh case had appeared during the day.
"And that is rather strange," he said, "for we have not yet been able todiscover what the cause of the epidemic was, and so have notintentionally cut off any source of infection. But, God knows, I amquite content not to know what it is, provided it is cut off."
"Yes, indeed," said she. "And to-morrow you will fill up all the bedshere?"
"Yes, all, I am sorry to say. Of course, we are taking certain risks,but, for the sake of the fresher air and better attention they will beable to receive up here, we shall move some very serious cases. Ah, mydear lady, we doctors get sick at heart sometimes! Doctor though I am,and prescriber of drugs, I wonder how much good we really do with ourpowders and potions. I wonder if all the contents of all the chemists'shops, and our cabalistic prescriptions, are measurable by the side offresh air and quiet, and the conviction on the part of the patient thathe is going to get well."
"But if he believes that the drugs are going to make him well, surelythey are a spring of faith," said she.
He laughed.
"Well, well, they may get better how they choose, and I won't quarrelwith it," he said. "By the way, I should like to say just once howsplendid it is of you and Lord Thurso to give up the house like this."
"It was absolutely Thurso's idea," said she, "though, of course, itseemed obvious when he suggested it. And he wanted to send me back totown! Has he come in yet, do you know?"
"Yes, he came in half an hour ago, in great pain, I fear, with one ofthose neuralgic headaches. He is rather overdone; he wants rest."
Maud made a little quick movement towards him.
"Not seriously so?" she asked. "You don't mean that there is anything tobe anxious about?"
"I don't, anyhow, want you to be anxious," said he, "but as long as heis continually anxious himself, and gets constantly tired, thoseheadaches will probably be rather frequent. He has had attacks duringthese last three days, and pain like that is good for nobody. Icertainly hope he will get rest soon. We do not want it to becomechronic."
"Chronic?"
"Yes; your nerves, you know, form habits, like everything else."
Maud was silent a moment; an anxiety she had felt while she was waitingfor Thurso to come in last night reminded her again of its presence. Shedid not much want to speak of it, but, after all, she was speaking tothe old doctor whom she had known since she was a child. Also, she verymuch wanted to be reassured.
"He takes laudanum when he is in great pain," she said. "Is that wise?"
"It would be unwise of him to do so frequently, or continue doing so forlong. There, again, is a reason why we do not want his nerves to formthe habit of pain. I did not know, by the way, that he took it. It wasprescribed for him, of course."
"Oh yes; I know it was."
Dr. Symes seemed to dismiss that from his mind.
"Then it is no business of mine," he said. "Now I hope--and to-day thereis cause for hoping--that we have seen the worst of this epidemic. Therehas been no fresh case to-day, so before many days are over I think LordThurso can get away. I tell you frankly that I shall be glad when hecan."
"Ought he to go now, do you think?" asked Maud.
Dr. Symes considered this before he replied.
"No, I think he ought to stop here," he said at length. "It is true heis running a certain danger of producing a chronic irritation and--howshall I say it?--exasperation of nerves. Also, there is a certain riskin continuing to take laudanum. But, after all, he is sensible, and heis certainly brave, and I think for the present his sense of duty isright in keeping him here. Our orders and the nurses' orders are obeyedwhen they know he is here and is backing us up. You have no idea of thedifficulties we had before you and he came. Well, I must get back to thevillage again. And, Lady Maud, I like plucky people like you and yourbrother. Good night. The patients will begin to arrive early to-morrow."
* * * * *
Dr. Symes, brisk and active for all his sixty years and grey head,hopped nimbly onto his bicycle, and rode off, feeling that Maud had donehim good. Apart from the Raynhams, his notions of the Britisharistocracy were founded on those curious volumes known as societynovels, books which his wife read aloud to him in the evening withhorrified gusto. These works presented this class in a more lurid butless pleasant light. But Lord Thurso and his sister were both so simpleand so good, to use that ordinary word in its most ordinary sense. Theymade no more fuss over the reception of forty patients suffering fromtyphoid into the house than they would have made over a few friendsdropping in to tea. No thought of risk or inconvenience seemed to haveoccurred to either of them; it appeared to them the most natural thingin the world that the house should be turned into a hospital, and thoughprofessionally he believed that there was no risk, still he felt thatthe wicked countesses and marchionesses in "Lepers" or "Lady Babylon"would not have behaved quite like this. Indeed, for one half moment helet himself wonder what even Mrs. Symes would have said if he hadsuggested taking cases into their house. But it had seemed to thatbeautiful girl whom he had left on the doorstep with her fishing-rod inone hand and a landing-net weighed down with half a dozen sea-trout inthe other a perfectly natural thing to do. It was this courageousacceptation of events that did him good.
* * * * *
Thurso, to his sister's great relief, came down to dinner in the mostequable and cheerful spirits. All trace of his headache had vanished,and Maud thought that Dr. Symes must have been mistaken about it, for,as he had said, he had only guessed that Thurso must be in great pain.In any case, it was her part to try to take his thoughts away from feverand neuralgia, and all the darker side of things, and she instantlybegan on her own poaching comedy by the river.
"Thurso, I have broken the record to-day," she said. "I have done themost awful thing that has ever been done. After you went out thismorning, I took a rod down to the river to look about for sea-trout, andwas firm in a salmon--oh no, he saw me hook it--when Mr. Bertie Cochraneappeared. How could you forget to tell me you had let the fishing? ThereI was, tied to it--to his fish. He watched me play it. And, of course,I didn't know him from Adam."
For the moment Thurso was almost as horrified as Maud had been.
"Good Lord!" he said; "I hope you lost the fish."
"Not at all. It was entirely owing to Mr. Cochrane that I landed it, forin the nick of time down came Duncan--his gillie, not ours at all--witha gaff. Mr. Cochrane looked on with interest and sympathy."
Thurso had laid down his knife and fork, and a huge grin was beginningto take the place of his horror.
"Go on, quick," he said.
"I will. Mr. Cochrane had a rod, and I said I supposed he was going overto Scarsdale. No, he was not. So, with a slight addition of stiffness, Ithanked him for his help, but said that this was your river. Heexplained. Oh, Thurso, did you ever? And I asked him to come and dineto-morrow, and eat some of his own fish. He is coming."
Thurso shouted with laughter.
"Oh, what would I not give to have been there when the light broke onyou!" he said. "And to ask him to dinner--add insult to injury! You werecaught poaching--poaching, you know--and then you ask the rightful ownerto have some. Did you tell him, by the way, that we were a typhoidhospital?"
"Yes; he didn't mind."
"Oh, Maud--oh, Maud! An American, too! He will probably telegraph anaccount of it to the New York press, and it will come out all over theStates with enormous headlines!"
"Oh, I think not," said she. "I'm sure he wo
uldn't do it."
Thurso recollected his own meeting with Cochrane.
"No, I don't think he would," he said. "Because I met him in thevillage yesterday evening, and I agree he doesn't look like that. Goon."
"Isn't that enough?" she asked. "Afterwards we sat and talked as if Ihadn't been caught poaching at all. He begged me to go on fishing, too,and he did it, somehow, so simply and naturally that I thanked him anddid go on. I caught six sea-trout, too, and we're just going to havesome of them. He really made it easy for me to say 'Yes.' In fact, itwould have been absurd to say 'No.'"
Thurso laughed again.
"That almost beats everything," he said. "You are absolutely brazen."
"Not in the least. When you see Mr. Cochrane you will understand howsimple it was."
"I have seen him, as I told you. It occurred to me then that we mightask him to dinner. It was that I began to suggest last night, but youwere so curious to know what I was going to say that I stopped."
Maud looked at him reproachfully.
"Oh, Thurso, if you had gone on you would have saved me from all this!"she said. "But don't you understand how it was possible for me toaccept?"
Thurso considered.
"Yes, even though I did not speak to him, I think perhaps I do. He didlook to be the sort of man whose sea-trout you might catch after he hadcaught you poaching his salmon. That is rather a high compliment. It isa great gift to be able to make people not ashamed of themselves. Ishould have absolutely sunk into the earth."
"And Mr. Cochrane would very kindly have pulled you out," said Maud. "Atleast, he pulled me out."
There was a short pause, during which Maud occupied her mouth withsea-trout and her mind with the question as to whether she should tellThurso that Mr. Cochrane was a Christian Scientist. But his remark thatit was not his plan to proselytise decided her against doing so. ThenThurso spoke again.
"Do you know, to-day is the first on which I haven't felt absolutelyswamped and water-logged with depression and anxiety?" he said. "Therehas been no fresh case since morning, and Duncan's wife, who, likeSandie, was almost despaired of, has taken a sudden inexplicable turnfor the better. She was dying of sheer exhaustion from fever, and nowall day she has been gaining strength--gaining it quickly, too, thoughyou would have said there was no strength left. I saw Duncan thisevening. He--really, I wondered whether he had been drinking."
"Drinking?" asked Maud. "Why, he is a tee-totaller!"
"The worst sort of drunkard," remarked Thurso rather cynically.
"Oh, don't be cheap!"
Thurso looked up at her, and then nodded.
"Quite right," he said; "it's a pity. Sorry."
"You old darling! But Duncan's as sober as I am. Soberer. Go on. Itinterests me."
"Well, it all leads back to Mr. Cochrane again," he said. "Don'tinterrupt. I looked in to-night, as I told you, and there was Duncansitting by his wife's bedside, nursing the baby, who was, withextraordinary gurgles, trying to swarm up his beard. And his wife laythere, different, changed, with life instead of death in her face. Butfancy bringing a baby into a room where there is typhoid! So I gotDuncan and the child out, and cursed him, and told him that his wife wasreally on the mend, as the nurse had just told me. I thought he wouldlike to know that, but apparently he had known it all day. Our Mr.Cochrane had told him this morning that his wife was getting better allthe time."
"Yes, I heard him tell him," said Maud.
"Well, but how did he know?" asked Thurso. "Twelve hours ago theythought she couldn't live through the day. And what the deuce has ourMr. Cochrane got to do with it? Who is he? What is he? How did he know?"
Maud had no reply to this at once; "our Mr. Cochrane" had repudiatedpreaching on his own account--clearly, then, it was not her business tostate his views.
"Well, he hasn't done any harm, anyhow," she said.
"Of course not; but it's an odd coincidence. Mr. Cochrane tells Duncanthat his wife is getting better, and Duncan has only got to walk home,and finds it is so. Oh, and another thing: Dr. Symes called there thisafternoon, and Duncan kindly but quite firmly refused to let him in atall unless he promised not to give her any more medicine. So hepromised, because when he saw her last she was absolutely past all hope;also, he doesn't much believe in medicines, though you needn't mentionit. He saw, of course, the enormous improvement, and wanted to take hertemperature, but Duncan again firmly, and with beaming smiles, would notallow it. I suppose he considered a thermometer a sort of modifiedmedicine."
"Well?"
"Dr. Symes insisted, and eventually Duncan, with great respect, threwthe thermometer out of the window. That is why I supposed he was drunk."
"No, I'm sure he wasn't drunk," said Maud. "Go on, dear."
They had finished dinner, and Thurso rose to get a cigarette.
"That's the end," he said. "Dr. Symes tells me he has seen that sort ofrecovery before, but what is odd is that our Mr. Cochrane should haveforeseen it. Is he a crank, do you think, or a spiritualist, or somesort of innocent lunatic?"
Again Maud mentally reviewed her decision not to do Mr. Cochrane'spreaching (which he would not do for himself) for him, and againendorsed her policy.
"How do you expect me to know?" she asked. "I talked to him for tenminutes. But he's coming to dine to-morrow, and you can judge foryourself. And how have you been? No headache?"
He glanced at her sharply and sideways a moment, with a movement ofvague suspicion.
"Headache?" he said; "I haven't seemed much like headache this evening,have I? Why?"
"Only Dr. Symes told me he was afraid you were in pain. I am delightedhe was mistaken."
Thurso shrugged his shoulders.
"Lord, what bad guesses a skilful doctor makes!" he said. "He half wantspeople to be ill, so that he may have the pleasure of curing them."
* * * * *
Maud naturally asked no further question, and told herself that Dr.Symes had simply made what Thurso called a "bad guess." But, knowingthem both, it seemed to her odd that he should have thought that Thursohad been suffering if he had not. For it was only when he was in theextremes of pain that anyone could guess that he was on the rack, for ithad to be strongly screwed before he visibly winced. For one moment itflashed through her mind that he had been in pain, had perhaps takenlaudanum to stop it, and had--well, not chosen to tell her so. Yet hisanswer, though as a matter of fact it was slightly evasive in form,clearly bore the construction that he had been free from pain all day.So she dismissed that at once, telling herself that it was scandalous ofher, though involuntarily only and momentarily, to suspect Thurso ofinsincerity. Thus, the pause only lasted a moment before she spoke ofsomething else. But in that moment he had said to himself, "Shall I tellher?"
* * * * *
The two sat up rather late that night, for Maud disliked going to bednearly as much as she disliked getting up, and it was usually Thursowho moved the adjournment. But to-night he was extraordinarily alert; ashe had said, to-day had been the first on which there had been any breakin the tempest of illness which was devastating the village, and hisspirits seemed to have risen in sympathy, enabling him to think andspeak of other things than the immediate preoccupations which surroundedthem. And chief among these was London and the reopening of ThursoHouse. His father, the late Earl, had died just a year ago, and nextweek the house was to celebrate its re-entry into London life with anadequately magnificent ball. His wife, who had stopped in town, wasseeing to all arrangements, and when Catherine undertook to see to athing, it was unnecessary for anyone else, however closely concerned, tofeel any anxiety as to the completeness with which it would be seen to.
"I heard from Catherine this morning," he said--"at least, I heard fromher typewriter. She did not even sign it. She is up to the eyes in amillion affairs, and hopes I am well. Really it seems to me that most ofthe festivities, as well as all the charities of London would collapseunless she saw to them. And ther
e's the ball next week. I shall go upfor the night, though whether I stop depends on how things go on here.Of course, you'll come."
Maud looked at him in mild surprise; it was as if he had said, "Ofcourse, you'll have breakfast to-morrow."
"It is _not_ improbable," she said. "Or did you really suppose that yourhouse was going to make its debut again, and me not there?"
"Oh, well, I didn't know," he said.
"You do now. What fun it will be! It will be crammed with kings andqueens like 'Alice in Wonderland.' Thurso, what a good thing Catherineis so smart! I hate the word, but she is: she is magnificent. She saidthe other day that there are only two sorts of entertainingpossible--the one where you have a great party, with kings and queens,and everybody in orders and tiaras; and the other where it is justtea-gowns and two or three real friends. I don't believe she has everhad a party at which there were more than eight people and less thanforty."
"It's usually not less than forty," remarked Thurso.
"Oh no; it's often less than eight. Of course I shall come. Do have aspecial all the way to town; it will be so expensive! Catherine--I mustquote her again--says, 'Either have a special or go third.'"
"With a preference for specials?"
"Not at all. She doesn't care which it is. She often goes third, andtalks to the people. And on the tops of omnibuses. But she doesn't go incabs: she says they are middling, like parties of twenty to meet aSerene Transparency. If she can't have the twenty-five millionhorse-power motor, up she gets on the omnibus. She never stops it,either, because of the horses. She runs after it, and jumps quitebeautifully. I do admire her so."
Thurso laughed.
"So do I. And it's something to admire your wife when you have beenmarried twelve years!"
Maud made a little sideways movement in her chair, as if her positionhad become suddenly uncomfortable. Her brother continued.
"I don't believe a woman ever existed who was so obviously admirable,"he said. "We went to the opera together the night before I came up here,and as she was going on to some large ball afterwards, she was--well,suitably dressed."
Maud felt, as she always felt when Thurso talked like this, as if a filehad been drawn across her teeth. She tried to turn, not theconversation, but its tone.
"Oh, how?" she asked, with deep and genuine interest; for, like allsensible girls, she loved beautiful clothes, especially when beautifulpeople wore them. "She always makes everybody else look dowdy oroverdressed. That must be such fun."
"Well, she had the diamond palisade, as she calls it, in her hair, andwhat she calls the ruby plaster all, all down her."
"Yes, but her dress?" said Maud. "I know the plaster."
"Her dress? Goodness knows what it was made of, but it looked--you knowwhat whipped cream looks like compared to cream--it looked like whippedgold. Sort of froth of gold: not yellow, but gold. Melba was in themiddle of the jewel-song when we came in, but at the end of it nobodywas paying the slightest attention to her. Every glass in the house wasturned on Catherine."
He got up and threw his cigarette-end away.
"And she's my wife," he added; and the four words carried tons ofirony.
Maud got up also. She hated this: it was the process of the file again.She knew that Thurso talked to no one but her like that, but shedeplored that he felt like that.
"Oh, it is such a pity, dear," she said.
"That she's my wife?"
"Oh, Thurso, don't! All the worst of you spoke then. No, a pity that youfeel like that. You are both such splendid people, really. And----"
"And I bore her, and she gets on my nerves," he remarked.
Maud gave a little frown and gesture of disapproval.
"You should never say such things," she said. "It is a mistake to saythem just because they are--well, partly true. If they were untrue itwould not matter. But to let yourself say a true thing, when that thingis a pity, only makes it more real. Speech confirms everything. Goodgracious! if people would only hold their tongues on unpleasant topics,how the things themselves would improve! Oh, I am a philosopher."
He looked at her with great tenderness and affection.
"Are you?" he said. "I like you, anyhow. Go on."
Maud gave a long sigh.
"You don't do her justice," she said, "any more than she does youjustice. You don't allow for each other. And--Thurso, I don't believeshe is happy any more than you are."
"Why do you think that? She carves forty-eight hours out of every day,and fills them all, while the world looks on in envious admiration. Thatis her ideal, and she always attains it. And even her husband claps hishands."
Maud took him by the shoulders and shook him gently.
"Idiot!" she said--"dreadful idiot! Shut up! I am going to bed. Thank mefor catching so many beautiful fish."
"I am not sure that I thank you for asking Mr. Cochrane to dinnerto-morrow," he said. "I love these quiet evenings with you."
"Thanks, dear. I get on tolerably, too. Good night. What a nice day ithas been, and what nice things we've got to think about to send us tosleep! No fresh case of typhoid to-day for the people, and no headachefor you, and a salmon for me. I am so sleepy that I don't mind going tobed."
"Maud," he began, then stopped.
No, he could not tell her. In himself he was ashamed of having takenlaudanum, and was ashamed, also, of having deceived her, for he saw hehad done that. Since, then, he was ashamed of it, there was no need thatshe should know.
"Well?"
"No, it's nothing."
"Thurso, your manners are atrocious!" she said. "Both yesterday andto-day you have begun to say something, and then stopped. I shall keepdoing that all to-morrow, and you will see how maddening it is."
He laughed again.
"Good night, dear old boy," said she.
* * * * *
The next day was wholly given up to the installation of the typhoidpatients. Carpets, rugs, and curtains had been rolled up, unnecessaryfurniture removed, and beds brought up and down from the basement andthe higher floors, so that the utmost accommodation might be provided inthe big rooms on the first-floor. Dr. Symes, in consultation with theother doctors, had settled that it was better to run a little risk, andmove even bad cases up here, since the day was dry and warm, for thesake of the more immediate attention and greater abundance of fresh airthan was possible when patients were scattered about in tinycottage-rooms, and the ambulance, going backwards and forwards all day,brought grave burdens. But by five in the afternoon the work oftransportation was done, and the house was full. Afterwards the doctorswent the round of the whole house, and found the results satisfactory.Not one, apparently, had suffered from the move, and now, instead of thepatients being in small, ill-ventilated rooms, they were airily housed,with every facility for constant supervision from the nurses. Most, too,were going on well; but there was one case, that of Sandie the gillie,which was as serious as it could be. As often when the strong are ill,it seemed as if the fever, vampire-like, sucked out his strength anditself thrived and grew strong on it; and Dr. Symes, before he left, hadgiven orders that he should be sent for at once if any furtherunfavourable symptoms occurred. Duncan's wife, it is true, had beenthrough a passage no less perilous that very morning, but, with everywish to be hopeful, it was unlikely that two should be snatched from thevery snap of the jaws of death.
Thurso had been in the house all day, and when the move was finished hewent down into the room where he and Maud lived, feeling desperatelytired, and intending to get an hour's sleep before dinner. But to havean intention, however strong, laudable, and innocent, does not implythat the very best efforts are able to put it into effect; and instead,in this instance, he had no sooner composed himself to sleep than hefelt that, though the surface of his brain was drowsy and tired beyondall words, something below was broadly and staringly awake.
He had lain down on the sofa with his face averted from the light andhis eyes shut, so as to give the utmost welcome
to sleep, but it was notsleep that came, but a series of vivid though unreal images, born ofmemory. First an interminable series of stretchers, each with itsswathed, fever-stricken burden, came up the stairs, and just when he wasbeginning to feel that this monotonous procession was the precursor ofsleep, another image twitched him and claimed his attention. Maud hadgone fishing, poaching, yesterday, and had enjoyed good sport; thus theprocession of stretchers gave way to the vision of her landing fishafter fish, all dead-beat, all silver-sided, till it seemed that thisiteration, too, must end in unconsciousness. But something jarred it,and, instead, Catherine stood at the head of the stairs in Thurso House,dressed in rubies, with a sort of "love-in-the-mist" of gold round her,receiving kings and queens, and queens and kings, all in crowns. Butthat, again, ended, not in slumber, but in something very antagonisticto it. There was just a little stab--it was hardly pain--inside hishead, as remote as the sound of an electric bell in the basement. Thenit was repeated, but this time louder and more insistently, as if theringer, on the one hand, was impatient, and as if the bell was beginningto come up the back-stairs. Then--it was right to call it pain now--thesound grew louder, and the finger pressed the bell more firmly, whilethe bell itself came closer. He was quite wide awake now, surface ofbrain and secret cells alike, and he opened his eyes. Then he said outloud:
"I am in for another."
That seemed to be the case, for the prediction began to be instantlyfulfilled. The half-drowsy similitude of the electric bell vanished, andinstead there was pain--clear, clean pain. It stabbed half a dozen timeswith a firm, practised touch, as a pianist strikes a chord or two beforehe begins his piece. Then it paused for a moment. Immediately afterwardsit began again, but differently. Instead of stabbing at the nerve, itlaid a cold, steady finger on it, and that finger grew quietly steadierand colder, till something inside his head seemed to ring with it, as amusical glass rings when it is adroitly stroked. Then came a brilliantpassage of all sorts of pain, as if the orchestra had begun to accompanythat masterly solo. Then, as the horn holds a long, lazy, piercingnote, pain pierced and dwelt in him, while wonderful arpeggios oftorture from neighbouring nerves crossed it. That was the prelude.
* * * * *
In his room upstairs, which he could reach in ten seconds, there stoodon his dressing-table a bottle, not very large, which contained not onlythe antidote and instant cure of his suffering, but also blissfulcontent and the gift of ecstatic well-being. But the very fact thatyesterday he had so lightly (or so it seemed now) had recourse to that,deceiving Maud, and had uncorked Paradise, made him at this moment bracehimself against the temptation of resorting to it again. If he had gotto bear pain--and it really appeared just now that he had--then he wouldset his teeth and bear it, sooner than, at the cost of another step inthe formation of a damnable habit, drug himself into remission from hispain, or, what even now, when he was suffering hell, tempted him moreclosely, into that sense of divine harmony of being that the drug gavehim. He longed that the pain should cease; he longed even more for thatseventh heaven of content. It was all in that small bottle, with itsbrown elixir.
Then his desire disguised itself, and made a more insidious approach.There was a guest coming to dinner to-night. He could not simply retireto bed, leaving Maud to entertain Mr. Cochrane alone, nor, on the otherhand, did it seem to him to be physically possible that he should beable to sit through dinner if in this state, for already the beads ofanguish were thick upon him. And he knew well that this was but theprelude; it was only an orchestral performance. Soon the curtain wouldgo up; the singers would be there too. It was intolerable enough now; hehad never known so full an orchestra. Yet he could stifle them, he couldextinguish the singers, by a little draught, a swallowing in the throat.
But his will, his intention, remained firm. He was not going to silencethem like that. For now he knew quite well that his desire for the drugwas acute, not only because of the blessed relief from pain that itwould give him, but because of the intense physical enjoyment that itbrought. Then, with head splitting and buzzing with pain, he wentupstairs to dress and make ready to entertain his guest. There wereforty other guests, too, in the house, but those were well looked after.Also they were in bed, lucky devils!
* * * * *
Breeding, and what is implied by that much-abused word, includes courageof a quiet but rather heroic kind, since it has no stirring aids to helpit, no moral trumpets and drums to stimulate it to its shining deeds.Yet it demands a greater command of self, a greater obedience to thecourtesies of life, to be courageous in hum-drum and unexcitingcircumstances than in those to which romance and adventure areauxiliary; and certainly to-night Thurso's perfectly natural and evengravely convivial manner towards his guest and his sister, while hehimself was suffering pain of the most excruciating kind, was couragethat in its small and difficult sphere deserved some sort of domesticVictoria Cross. Though most people have more manliness than theythemselves or anybody else would have credited them with when pain hasgot to be borne, or a heart-rending situation faced, yet to have theready smile, the attentive ear, the genial manner, under suchcircumstances is a fine exhibition of the courage of good breeding. Morethan this, too, Thurso had faced before dinner, when the little bottleon his dressing-table reminded him that pain need not be borne a momentlonger than he chose.
But all through dinner Thurso achieved the outward signs of inwardwell-being, and it was through no remissness or failure on his part, butby instinct born of intimate knowledge on Maud's, that she knew he wasgoing through hells of physical torture. Sometimes he just bit his lipor suddenly stroked his long moustache; sometimes in the middle of asentence he would make a pause that was scarcely noticeable, as if hebut considered for a word; sometimes he gripped knife and fork so thatthe skin over his knuckles showed white; but that was all. He talkedquite easily and naturally, made reference to Maud's poachingexpedition, and its satisfactory results as far as dinner was concerned,for the salmon was excellent, and went on to speak of the epidemic whichhad brought them both up North.
"But at last it shows some sign of abating," he said, "though we arestill ignorant of the source of it. In fact, there has been no freshcase either to-day or yesterday."
Maud looked up at Mr. Cochrane, wishing rather intently that he wouldpreach his gospel. She felt that it might do Thurso good, or, at anyrate, take his mind off the pain that flickered round him like a showerof daggers. But the gospel was veiled, at any rate.
"I think it is so good of you to bring the cases up here," he said."Lady Maud told me yesterday that you were doing so. I am sure it musthelp towards recovery to remove people from surroundings which theyassociate with illness to fresh, bright places."
He paused a moment.
"One sees that every day," he said. "If you associate a place withpleasure, you are pleased to go there again. The mind, left to itself,clings so strongly to material things. If one has been happy in acertain room, one thinks that those surroundings will tend to producehappiness again. It is one of the illusions we get rid of last."
Thurso began to speak.
"You mean," he said, and then stopped, for an access of pain so sharpseized him that he could not get on.
Maud saw, and gave him a sudden quick look of sympathy, which annoyedhim, and, for the first time, Cochrane saw too. But after a moment herecovered himself, and went on.
"You mean I shall always associate this house with typhoid and sick,suffering people?" he asked. "That is not very cheering."
Bertie Cochrane smiled, looking with those happy, childlike eyes firstat Maud, then at his host.
"No, I mean just the opposite," he said. "You will always associate thishouse with recovery, with the sweeping away of illness and pain."
* * * * *
Dinner was at an end, and the pause of cigarette-lighting followed.Bertie Cochrane had taken one as he spoke, but he did not light it, andlaid it down again on the
cloth. Then he got up.
"Lord Thurso, you are wonderfully brave," he said. "I am sure you feelin horrible pain. Let me go right away now. I have enjoyed coming up todine with Lady Maud and you ever so much."
For the last minute or two the pain had become so much more acute thatThurso's forehead dripped with perspiration. All dinner, too, thelonging, the drunkard's desire, to get to his room and take a dose fromthat healing bottle had been growing like some nightmare figure. Andnow, when his pain, in spite of all his gallant efforts to conceal it,was discovered, the desire became overwhelming--he could no longermaster it.
"Pray don't think of going away," he said, "but if you will excuse mefor a few minutes, I think I will go upstairs. I have some medicinethere that never fails to set me right, and I shall be down again quiteshortly. Yes, I may as well confess it, the pain has been pretty bad."
For one moment it appeared that Cochrane had something on the tip of histongue, for he turned eagerly to Thurso, who had risen, and was wipinghis face. But it was clear to Maud, when he did speak, that he was notgiving expression to the original impulse.
"I shall be delighted to stop," he said, "if Lady Maud does not mind mybeing on her hands. I wanted so much to ask about one or two of thepools on the river."
Thurso left the room, and Cochrane turned to her with the same eagernessas he had shown a minute ago.
"I am so willing, so eager to treat your brother," he said, "but Ididn't like suggesting it to him. I did not know if he would not thinkme some very special kind of lunatic."
Maud shook her head. She knew quite well it would be perfectly idle tosuggest such a thing to Thurso, and, indeed, to her sense, too, therewas something unthinkable about calling into play the power that rulesthe world in order to cure neuralgia. Besides, the poppy-juice, thoughshe did not wholly like his taking it, would do that. The other waslike cracking your egg for breakfast with a steam-hammer.
"Oh, thank you very much," she said, "but his medicine always puts himright."
And she instantly turned the conversation to the subject he hadsuggested, and spoke of certain pools in the river which he had founddifficulty in fishing satisfactorily.
Thurso, meantime, half blind with pain, had almost run to his room, forhe longed for the relief which awaited him there as the desert-parchedtraveller longs for water. And keenly as he desired the cessation ofpain, much more keenly did he thirst for the ecstatic sense ofwell-being that the drug produced. All day, even before this rackingneuralgia came on, he had been almost unable to think of anything butthat. He had thirsted all day for that stimulated consciousness, thathuge, vivid sense of happiness, which already seemed to him the proper,normal level of life. Already, too, he was beginning to be dishonestwith himself, just as yesterday he had been dishonest with Maud; andeven as he poured it out he told himself, knowing it was untrue, that hewould not be taking it if Mr. Cochrane had not been dining with them. Itwas inhospitable and impossible to send him away five minutes afterdinner; it was equally impossible that he should spend the evening alonewith Maud. And though that, so far as it went, was true, it was not theessential truth.
He took the glass in his hand, torturing himself, now that relief wasnear and assured, with voluntary delay, even as the caged beast whichhas been roaring for its meat sits fierce and snarling when it has beengiven it before it begins to assuage the hunger-pangs which it now knowsit can satisfy, and deliberately prolonged for a moment more thisstabbing pain. He sat down in an easy-chair, and put his feet up onanother, in order to make himself quite comfortable before he drank it.His room looked north-west, and they had dined early, so that the sunstill shone in at his window, flooding the room in cool crystal light.Then he drank.
Inside his head during this last hour he felt as if a sort of piston-rodfrom a cylinder had been making firm strokes onto some bleeding, manglednerve. The end of the piston-rod was fitted sometimes with a blunthammer, so that it crushed the nerve, sometimes with a sharpneedle-point which went deeper, and seemed to penetrate the very homeand heart of pain. Then perhaps the piston-rod would cease for a fewseconds, while an iron-toothed, rusty rake collected the smashedfragments of nerve together again, so that the hammer should not fail tohit them squarely, and made a neat little pyramid of the pieces on theplace where it would descend. This raking together (the image was sovivid to him that he almost believed that it actually took place) wasabout the worst part. He knew that in a minute the hammer would beginagain. But now, a few moments only after he had taken his dose, thechange began. Though the hammer did not cease to fall, its blows nolonger produced pain. They produced instead a warm, tingling sensation,like that which the hand feels when it spreads out icy fingers to afriendly blaze. And that tingling warmth felt its way gradually throughhis head, passed down his neck, and slowly flooded body and limbs to toeand finger tip. He forgot what pain meant; he was unable to realise evenbefore the piston-rod ceased to beat what it connoted, knowing only whatthe oncoming of this tide of physical bliss was like.
Every sense, too, was quickened and stimulated. The sun that still shonein at his windows burned with a ruddier and more mellow light. The gloryof it was soft but incredibly brilliant, and to his quickened sense ofsmell the air that came in through the open sash was redolent with thehoney-scent of warm heather. The blind had been a little drawn down overthe top of the window, but whereas, when he was dressing for dinner anhour ago, the sound of it flapping against the frame was a fretting andirritating thing, it now seemed to him to give out flute-like andvibrating notes, while the taste of the cigarette which he had lit fiveminutes ago, and brought up with him, had a flavour new and exquisite.The present moment, and the sensations of it, were all quickened intothe vividness of dream-life, while it was but vaguely that he rememberedthat downstairs Maud was sitting with a very pleasant American fellowwho had come to dinner. At dinner he remembered, but again vaguely, thathe was not sure if he liked him; now he appeared to be the most charmingof companions. But with the gates of Paradise here upstairs flung widefor his reception, he could not fix his mind very clearly on him. Nodoubt, if he made an effort, he could recall more about him, andremember his name, which just now eluded him; but an effort was the onething he certainly would not make, since it might disturb or destroythis perfect equilibrium on which he was balanced. And there was reallyno reason, so it now appeared, why he should go downstairs again. Maudand her poaching friend would talk about fishing for awhile, and thenhe--ah, yes! Bertie Cochrane--would go away. They would both easilyunderstand his own non-appearance. He had suffered tortures; noinquisitor or master of the rack would refuse to grant him this littlerest and compensation.
Then for a moment his breeding and the habit of his whole life jerkedhim to his feet, with the intention of rejoining them, as courtesy anddecorum demanded. But the drug he had taken was already more powerfulthan they. It told him with authority that this ecstasy of consciousnesswould be trespassed on and interfered with by the presence of others. Itwould, if he went downstairs, be necessary for him to some extent togive attention to them instead of letting himself be absorbed in theexquisiteness of his own sensations. And those sensations had nothingin common with the dulled perceptions of sleep or intoxication. He waslifted onto a plane more vivified than the normal; he basked insuper-solar sunlight.
Then, still without any suggestion of sleepiness or intoxicatedconsciousness, the most wonderful visions, or, rather, the intentionalvisualisation of scenes and moods magic in their beauty, passed in frontof him. He, turned into Keats himself, was listening to the nightingale,and losing himself in "embalmed darkness" to the charmed music of theimmortal song. "The weariness, the fever and the fret," were rememberedonly as the traveller arrived at his long-desired home remembers theweariness of the way. His spirit seemed to draw away from life, thoughstill intensely living, and he was in love with death, that but loosedit from the impediment of the body. Then a curve was suddenly turned,and next moment he was mounting higher than the blithe spirit of thelark could carry
it, and hung in some clear interstellar ether so remotethat the sun above him and the earth below seemed about equal in size,and the shape of England and the coasts of Europe were visible as in amap, set in dim blue sea. Then, still mounting, he turned his eyeupward, and looked undazzled into the high noon of the heavens, and yet,though it was noon, the infinite velvet vault was sown with the sparkleof stars. Sun and stars shone there together, and a slip of crescentmoon made the company of heaven complete.
Again, still vividly awake, and without the least hint of drowsiness,the aspect of the firmament was changed, and the stars became globulesof sparkling dew, and the empty spaces of ether took shape, until abovehim that which had been the heavens was transformed into a huge bed ofblue acanthus-leaves, on which the dew of the stars lay sparkling. Thesun was still there in the centre of all, and round it the sky took theshape of the petals of a flower. It was the "centre spike of gold" in animmense blue blossom, which was thick with petals as a rose, and pure ofshape as a daffodil. All this, too--this vision to which the hosts ofheaven contributed--was his own, born of his own brain, which so short atime ago was bound on the rack of torture and sordid suffering. But nowthat was nothing. He remembered he had been in pain, but no more, andhow cheaply had he purchased, at the price of but copper coin, thesejewels of consciousness. That little draught which relieved him ofphysical pain had brought him these astounding joys; it had made thewhole machinery of the universe to serve his vision. The stars weredrops of dew on the acanthus-leaves of infinite space, and the sunburned in the centre of this unique flower. A few minutes ago he hadhalf started to go downstairs; now the ravings of any lunatic in Bedlamwere not more distant from his mind than such a thought. He wasabsorbed in that contemplation of things which the brain, with the aidhe had given it, can re-create out of the objects it is used to seewithout wonder. But this was the real world, easy of entry to those whohad the sense to turn the key; while the material world was a dream,vague and pale, compared to this reality.
* * * * *
Meantime, below, Bertie Cochrane and Maud had for some ten minutestalked unmitigated fishing; but Maud, though in general to talk fishingwas to her one of the most entrancing forms of conversation, providedshe talked to a real fisherman, as she was now doing, was givinglip-service only to the subject, for inwardly she regretted the finalityof those few little frozen words about Thurso with which she had sosuccessfully dismissed the subject of Christian Science and all thematter of Duncan's wife, of which she wanted to know more. For veryshame or pride--the two, so verbally opposed, are often reallyidentical--she could not go back to the subject she had so unmistakablysnuffed out, while he, in his confessed and genuine dislike ofpreaching, was equally unlikely to approach it again.
But he had said that, though he disliked preaching, he loved practice,and she had just leaned forward over the dinner-table where they stillsat, her pride in her pocket, to ask a question about this, when aninterruption came. One of the nurses entered.
"I beg your pardon, my lady," she said; "I thought Lord Thurso washere."
"He will be back soon," said Maud. "Can I do anything?"
"I think Dr. Symes ought to be sent for at once, my lady," she said."Sandie Mackenzie had very high fever an hour ago, but I didn't like hislooks, and I have just taken his temperature again. It is below normal,and that is the worst that can happen, suddenly like this. Dr. Symestold me to send for him if there was a change for the worse, and Ithought I had better come and tell his lordship."
Maud got up.
"You did quite right to come and tell us, nurse," she said. "I will havehim sent for at once. Is it very serious?"
"Yes, my lady; it means perforation," she said. "I don't know that it isany good to send for the doctor, but one must do what one can."
Maud nodded.
"Thank you," she said; "I will see to it."
* * * * *
The nurse left the room, going back to her patients; but Maud stoodthere for a moment without moving, for all she had mused about by theriver yesterday came back to her mind in spate, vividly,instantaneously. Only yesterday she had heard Mr. Cochrane tell Duncanthat his wife was better, and though that morning she had been illalmost beyond hope of recovery, yet all that day, and all to-day, shehad been mending swiftly and steadily. Thurso was upstairs, too; theopportunity she had desired was completely given her.
She had started to go to ring the bell, and order someone to go down toDr. Symes's house and summon him, but half-way she stopped. It seemedalmost as if Mr. Cochrane had expected this, for he had wheeled round inhis chair, and when she stopped he was facing her, quiet, cheerful,looking at her with those strong, childlike eyes.
"Mr. Cochrane," she began.
Their eyes met, and again she felt antagonistic to him. He had theelement of certainty about him, which, it seemed to her, no one had theright to carry. But then, his simplicity made it easier to be simplewith him. She moved a step nearer him, a step further from the bell.
"I don't know whether I am right to ask you this," she said; "but, tobegin with, if what the nurse thinks has happened, it is quite useless,as she said, to send for the doctor. I don't ask it either in a spiritof derision or curiosity."
"Ask, then," said he quietly.
"Yes; a life is at stake. Can you go to poor Sandie, and make him live?And, if so, will you? I have known him all my life. He has landed ahundred fish for me. But if you say "No," I shall quite understand thatyou feel--honestly, I am quite sure--that it is not right for you to doso. I shall be sorry, but I shall in no way question your decision. So Iask you: Will you go to Sandie?"
Maud did not know that the human face could hold such happiness as shesaw there. He answered at once.
"Why, certainly I will," he said. "But if I am to make him better, youmustn't, while I am treating him, whether you think he is improving ornot, send for the doctor. There must be none of that. I will go to himif you wish, but if I go the case is in my hands--no, not that, butunder the direct care of Divine Love. I cannot tell how long it maytake to cure him. You know some patients are healed sooner than others,and respond more quickly than others to the healing power. But if youask me to make him well, believing that I can, I will do so. But youmust trust me completely, otherwise you hinder. And you must be sure youare not asking it only to see if I can."
Maud went through a long moment of dreadful indecision. She knew she wastaking a tremendous responsibility, for though, if the nurse was right,Sandie was beyond human power, yet it was a serious thing to refuse tosend for the doctor. But it was impossible not to trust this strong,happy confidence. And as she hesitated he spoke again, still quitequietly, quite cheerfully.
"Why hesitate?" he said. "Your choice is very simple. You choose thedirect power of God to make Sandie well, or you reject it. Don't thinkfor a moment it is I who make him well. I can do no more than thedoctor. Look on me only as the window through which the sun shines. Sochoose, Lady Maud."
She hesitated no longer.
"Please go to him," she said; "and oh, be quick!"
The human cry sounded there. She was terrified at her choice. What ifSandie died, and she had not sent for the doctor, not done all thatcould have been done? Yet she did not revoke her decision. But she wasfrightened, and this stranger whom she had seen yesterday for the firsttime soothed her like a child.
"There is nothing to be frightened at," he said. "You have chosen right,and your faith knows that, but the flesh is weak. Or, rather, our faithis weak, while our flesh is strong. It binds and controls us sometimes,so that our true will is almost powerless. Let me be silent a minute."
He moved his chair round again to the table where they had dined, made abackward sweep of his hand, overturning and breaking a glass, so as toclear a little space, and leaned his head on his hands, clasping hisfingers over his eyes to shut out the sight of all material things, andbrought his whole mind home to the one great fact from which sprang hisown life
, his health, his happiness--namely, his belief in the presence,omnipotence, and love of God. From fishing, from all the preoccupationsof life, from Thurso, from Maud, from false beliefs in illness and pain,he called his winged thoughts home, and they settled in his soul likehoming doves. With all his power of soul and mind he had to realise thecentral fact, this root from which the whole world sprang. Every nerveand fibre, material though they were, had to be instinct with it. As hehad said to Maud, he was but the window through which the sun shone.This window, then, had to be polished and cleaned, to be made specklessof dust, or of anything which could cast a shadow and hinder the raysfrom penetrating. For a minute or two he remained motionless, and thengot up from his chair.
"Come up with me, Lady Maud," he said, "since you have asked this insincerity. I should like you to see it, since you are ready to believe,for, like the Israelites, you shall stand still and see the salvation ofGod."
Maud did not hesitate now. Something of that which he had realisedreached her; the sun streamed in through the window.
"Yes, I will come," she said.
Nurse Miles, who had come down to tell Maud, was busy with patients inanother room, and the two, having gone upstairs to the first-floor,inquired of another nurse where Sandie was. She knew Maud, of course, bysight, and supposing that Cochrane was the new doctor expected to-dayfrom Inverness, asked no questions, but merely took them through thebilliard-room, where were some twenty beds, into a smaller room beyond,where Sandie had been placed alone. At the door Mr. Cochrane turned toher.
"Thanks," he said; "I shall not need you."
Then the two entered, and Cochrane closed the door gently behind them.
* * * * *
Maud had never yet in her life seen any to whom the great White Presencehas drawn near, but now, when she looked at the bed and the face of theman who lay there, she knew that the supreme moment must nearly havecome, so unlike life was what she saw. Sandie, the gillie whom she hadknown so well, with whom year after year she had passed so many pleasantand windy days on the moor or by the brown sparkling river, was barelyrecognisable. The grey, pallid mask, with skin drawn tight over theprotruding bones of the face, was scarcely human. Both upper and lowerlips, already growing bluish in tinge, were drawn back, so that in bothjaws the teeth were exposed even to the gums, and his eyes, wide openand bright and dry, looked piteously this way and that, with pupilsdilated with terror, and the soul, frightened at this dark and lonelyjourney on which none could be its companion, sought for comfort andreassurement, but sought in vain. It was no delirium of fever thatcaused that active scrutiny: it was fear and dumb appeal. His hands,thin and white, lay outside the blanket, and they, too, were active,picking at it.
Cochrane had seen that before, and knew what it meant, and he quicklypulled a chair to the bedside, leaving Maud standing.
"Sandie," he said, "just listen here a minute. You think you are ill,maybe you think you are dying--at least, your mortal mind tells youthat--and you've let yourself believe it. Now, there's not an atom oftruth in it. Why, man, God is looking after you, and He has sent me herethis evening to remind you of that. Your forgetting that has made yourpoor body sick. That's all the trouble."
Maud looked from that mask on the pillow to the man who sat by the bed,and if the one face was dark with the shadow of death that lay over it,the other was so lit and illumined with life that it seemed possibleeven now that death, for all his grimness and nearness, might have toretreat. Some force, irresistible and radiant, seemed to be challenginghim. But as yet she did not dare hope. She could only wait and watch.
Then there was silence. Cochrane took his mind off all else, off poorSandie even, to abandon himself to the knowledge, the belief in the onlyPower that healed and lived. Though the evening was cool, the beads ofperspiration stood thick on his forehead as he concentrated all hisstrength, all his power of belief, into the realisation of this. Then,again, after some quarter of an hour, he raised his head, and looked onthe glassy, dying face on the pillow, and spoke more eagerly, moreinsistently than ever.
"How can you be ill if you only realise that there is nothing real inthe world except God's Infinite Love? Fix yourself on that. It's onlysin that makes us able to be afraid, or sick, or in pain. But that isn'tGod's will for you, Sandie, and He won't have it. It's that old cheat,the devil, who makes us sin, and who makes us think we are sick. Hetells you, too, that you are a poor sinful body. So you are, but you'veforgotten a big thing about that. God has wiped it all away. Jesus tookit, the dear Master took all that, and all sickness, too, on Hisshoulders. It nearly staggered even Him for a moment."
He paused again, and for some minutes more was silent, absorbed in therealisation of that which he believed. All the time he seemedabsolutely unconscious of Maud's presence, and in the silence she lookedback from him to that which had been but a death's-head on the pillow,and saw, not exactly to her amazement, but to her intense awe, that acertain change had come over it. It was possible, of course, that herfirst terrified glance at it had exaggerated the deathliness of it, andthat she might in a way have now got used to it. But, in any case, itseemed different. Or, again, the intensity of Mr. Cochrane's belief inthe power to heal those on whom the very shadow of death lay might haveinfected her, and made her see through the medium of his conviction. Yetit seemed to her that a change was there. She faintly recognised Sandieagain--the living Sandie whom she knew, not the dead Sandie whom she hadseen when she first entered the room. That gaping, mirthless grin hadvanished; his lips were no longer drawn back to the base of the teeth.And surely, half an hour ago, his lips had been nearly blue; now ablood-tinge invaded them again. Also, those poor hands, which had pickedand plucked at the blanket, were still. They lay there weak andnerveless, but they no longer picked and clawed. His eyes sought comfortstill, but it seemed that they had begun to find it. And was theeclipse, the shadow of death, beginning to pass away from his face? Wasthe power of Infinite Love, which must be so much stronger than sicknessand death, being here and now openly manifested? Or was she butimagining these things in obedience to the suggestion made by thatstrong, virile mind of the man who sat by the bedside?
From Sandie she looked back to Mr. Cochrane. Soon he raised his eyesagain, for through this long silence he had sat with his face buried inhis hands; and again he looked at Sandie, and there shone from him abeam so tender and triumphant that his face was transfigured.
"You are better already, my dear man," he said, "and you are comingback so quickly, retracing your way along the road of error and untruthand unreality. Don't you feel it? Don't you know it?"
There could be no mistake now: Sandie's face had changed. Life, feebleand fluttering, made its impress there; death but flickered where it haddwelt so firmly. A tide had turned. It was low-water still, but thewater no longer ebbed; it had begun to flow. And, after a moment, Sandiesmiled at those brown, childlike eyes, and the smile was not that fixedand terrified grin which Maud had seen there before.
Cochrane caught, so to speak, and held that look, the first consciouseffort of the man who had been dying.
"That's right," he went on; "all that false belief which has made youill is coming out of your mind. It must come out, all of it. You can'tdo it of yourself, and I can't do it for you, but Divine Love can. Thedoor of your heart is opening. Oh, let it swing wide, and let the greatsun shine in and chase the shadows away. There, wider yet! Sin is gone,illness is gone; all is gone except the great light. If anyone has toldyou you were sick, forget it. He was mistaken; he didn't stop to thinkthat there can't be any sickness where God is, and He is everywhere,wherever He is asked to be. We have asked Him to come here, and here Heis. Put your hand in His, and let Divine Love lead you, and your sin andyour fear and your sickness will just roll away as the mists roll awayfrom the moor, as you have so often seen, when the sun rises. You feelthat, Sandie--you know it. Your fear has ceased, for there is nothing tobe afraid of. Your sickness and weakness are leaving you, because theyw
ere born only from night mists which the sun has scattered. You aretired and weak still--yes, yes--because you have been wading through theslime and choking mud of fear and false belief; but you are coming outof that, and already God is setting your feet on the rock. You will notbe afraid for any terror by night, nor for the pestilence that walks indarkness, and all day you are safe, for the arrow that flieth by daycannot touch you, nor the sickness that destroys in the noonday ofignorance and unbelief. God and His salvation are come to you, and youwill dwell in His house of defence, set very high. So tell me with yourown voice, are you not getting well? Do you not know you are better? Arenot the false things vanishing?"
* * * * *
What was happening? Maud asked herself that with thrilled and bewilderedwonder. She had to believe the evidence of her own ears, when she heardSandie saying--faintly, indeed, but audibly, and in his naturalvoice--that he was better. She had to believe the evidence of her owneyes, which showed her the pallid mask exchanged for the face of aliving being. He had been pulled back from the gate of death, even asthe door was being opened for him to pass through. The colour was comingback to that ghastly clay-hued face; terror and suffering were beingexpunged from his eyes; the short, panting breath, whistling frombetween clenched teeth and backdrawn lips, became natural respiration.And from under the bed-clothes there came no longer jumping movements;the limbs lay still.
Yet it was impossible; she could not yet believe the evidence of her ownsenses. It must be some trick, some illusion. And even as the thoughtentered her mind, Cochrane, for the first time, turned to her.
"You mustn't doubt either, dear lady," he said, "for you know that all Ihave been saying is quite true; it is the only thing that is completelytrue. Come, take all other thought out of your mind. If you have beenquestioning the truth of what you see here, reverse that doubt. TellSandie that you know God is making him well, just because he isbeginning to know that neither illness nor sin nor fear can exist in thepresence of Infinite Love. Tell him that."
Maud took a step forward, and stood at the foot of the bed. She had tobelieve what her eyes showed her, and they showed her no longer thatunrecognisable death-mask, but the face of Sandie--thin and pale andtired, it is true, but his living face.
"It is quite true, Sandie," she said. "You are getting well. It is yourfaith in the Infinite Love that makes you well."
Cochrane turned to the bed again, and spoke in a voice so tender andstrong that Maud felt a sudden lump rise in her throat.
"Why, Sandie," he said, "your faith is spreading round you like calmwaters, and Infinite Love shines through it like the sun at noonday.Faith is streaming from you, and the same knowledge streams from usall--Lady Maud and me. And the streams are joining, and rushing in spatetogether over what was a dry and barren hillside. Listen to the voice ofthem, shouting their praise to the Lord. By Jove! He is being good toyou, isn't He?"
Again he paused a moment.
"And now, since that old cheat, the devil, has been tiring your poorbody out, poking it and pinching it and roasting it, you will have agood sleep. Sleep the clock round, Sandie; but before you drop off justbe sure you've got tight hold of God's hand, and, like Jacob, say youwon't let Him go before He blesses you. And don't let Him go afterwards,either. And when you wake to-morrow squeeze His hand again, and say,'Divine Love, you're going to lead me now and always.' He will, too. Henever said 'No' to anybody, and the biggest trouble He has is that wewon't keep on asking Him for what we want. And now get to sleep, mydear man. Just say to yourself, 'Thou, Lord, art my hope; Thou hast setThy house of defence very high. There shall no evil happen untothee....'"
* * * * *
And then, gently as a child's, Sandie's eyelids flickered once and shutdown. Cochrane got up without another word, and in silence he and Maudleft the room. At the door Maud looked back. Sandie was lying quitestill, drawing in the long, full respirations of natural sleep.
Nurse Miles had returned during the last hour to the billiard-room,where she was settling her patients for the night, and as they wentthrough Maud stopped to speak to her.
"Sandie is ever so much better, nurse," she said, "and he has gone tosleep, I think. You won't disturb him again to-night, will you?"
Nurse Miles shook her head.
"It's exhaustion, I'm afraid," she said, "not sleep. He will not bedisturbed till Dr. Symes comes. And I daresay not even then, poorfellow!"
Cochrane was standing by, and it seemed to Maud as if it was her duty tobear witness here and now to what she had seen, to what sheincredulously believed.
"There is no need for Dr. Symes to come at all," she said. "I have notsent for him, and shall not. Go and look for yourself, so that I mayknow you are satisfied."
* * * * *
The nurse stared at her a moment, then went swiftly to the door of theroom where Sandie lay, opened it, and passed through. In somehalf-minute she came out again, closing it softly behind her.
"Why, he's getting some natural sleep," she said, "and he hasn't closedhis eyes the last three nights. And his breathing is quiet, and there isno more rigor. Yet his temperature came down to below normal from highfever an hour ago. Or could I have made a mistake?"
Cochrane smiled at her.
"Yes, nurse; I think there has been a mistake," he said. "But he's allright now, and you are satisfied, are you? Good night. Sandie won't wakefor the next twelve hours, I think."
* * * * *
The two went downstairs again. Thurso was still up in his bedroom, and,but that the table had been cleared, the room was just as they had leftit an hour ago. But it seemed to Maud as if some huge change had takenplace. What it was she could hardly formulate yet; she only knew thatthe whole aspect and nature of things was different. Then she turned toCochrane.
"I don't understand," she said; "I am bewildered."
"You understood just now," said he, "when you told Sandie his faith wasmaking him well. That is all. It's just the truest and simplest andonly thing in this world. But I'll get home now, Lady Maud. I've--I'vegot more to do."
Maud felt fearfully excited. All her emotions, all her beliefs andaspirations, were strung up to their highest by what she had seen. Shehad seen what she had seen; Nurse Miles had seen too. It was allincredible, but it had happened. She could not call it impossible. Andif this had taken place, why should not more?
"Ah, make them all well!" she cried. "Stop this dreadful false belief ofsuffering and illness, since you say it is false."
"But is it not false?" he asked. "Did it not vanish before the truth?"
"Yes, yes; it must be so!" cried she excitedly. "But can't you get Godto make them all know what Sandie knows now?"
He put out his hand to her.
"Don't you think He is doing that?" said he. "You see, there have beenno fresh cases now for two days, and all the cases are doing well, Ibelieve--now."
"Then, is it stopping?" she asked.
Those serene childlike eyes smiled at her.
"Why, yes," he said. "Good night, Lady Maud."