hold of your chin, so; ifany is serious without hope, just pass your hand through yourhair. You do that often."
"Not when I am going my rounds, Daisy," said the doctor,looking amused.
"Only this time, for me," I pleaded.
"You would not sing as well."
"I should - or I might - know better how to sing."
"Or you might not be able to sing at all. Though your nervesare good," the doctor admitted. "Women's nerves are made of amaterial altogether differently selected, or tempered, fromthat of masculine nerves; pure metal, of some ethereal sort."
"Are there such things as masculine nerves?" I asked.
"Do you doubt it?" said the doctor, turning a half reproachfullook upon me.
"Dr. Sandford, I do not doubt it. And so, you will, for once,and as an extraordinary kindness, do this thing for me that Ihave asked you."
"The use of it is hidden from me," said the doctor; "but toadmit my ignorance is a thing I have often done before, whereyou are concerned."
"Then I will take care to be with you as soon as you come inthis evening," I said, "so as to get all you will tell me."
"If I do not forget it," said the doctor.
But I knew there was no danger of his forgetting. There was notaking Dr. Sandford off his guard. In all matters thatconcerned his professional duties, he was like steel; forstrength and truth and temper. Nothing that Dr. Sandford didnot see; nothing that he did not remember; nothing that wastoo much for his skill and energies and executive faculty.Nobody disobeyed Dr. Sandford - unless it were I, now andthen.
I walked through the rest of that day in a smothered fever.How I had found courage to make my proposition to the doctor,I do not know; it was the courage of desperate suspense whichcould bear itself no longer. After the promise had beenobtained that I sought, my courage failed. My joints trembledunder me, as I went about the ward; my very hands trembled asI ministered to the men. The certainty that I had coveted, Idreaded now. Yet Mr. Thorold looked so well and seemed tosuffer so little, I could not but quarrel with myself forfolly, in being so fearful. Also I was ready to questionmyself, whether I had done right in seeking more knowledge ofthe future than might come to me day by day in the slow courseof events. But I had done it; and Dr. Sandford was coming inthe evening.
"What is the matter with you, Daisy?" Mr. Thorold said.
"Is anything the matter?" I replied.
"Yes. What is it?"
"How can you see it, Christian?"
"I?" - said he. "I see right through your eyes, back into thethought that looks out of them."
"Yet you ask me for the thought?"
"The root of it. Yes. I see that you are preoccupied, andtroubled; - and trembling. _You_, my Daisy?
"Can I quite help it, Christian?"
"Can you quite trust the Lord?"
"But, - not that He will always save me from what I fear."
"No; not that. Let Him save you from the _fear_."
"How have you learned so much about it, so much more than I?"- and my lips were trembling then, I know.
"I have had time," he said gently. "All those months andmonths, when you were at an unimaginable distance from me,actually and morally, - and prospectively, - do you think Ihad no chance to exercise myself in the lesson of submission?I fought out that problem, Daisy."
"Were you in Washington the winter of '61?" I asked, changingthe subject; for I could not bear it.
"Part of that winter," he said, with a somewhat surprised lookat me.
"Did you meet in society here that winter a Miss St. Clair,who used to be once a schoolmate of mine? - very handsome."
"I think I remember her. I knew nothing about her having beenat school with you, or I think I should have sought heracquaintance."
"She was said to have yours."
"A passing, society acquaintance, she had."
"Nothing more?"
"More?" said he. "No. Nothing more."
"How came the report that you were her dearest friend?"
"From the father of lies," said Mr. Thorold; "if there everwas such a report; which I should doubt."
"It came to me in Paris."
"Did you believe it?"
"I could not; but papa did. It came from Miss St. Clair's ownparticular friend, and she told mamma, I think, that you wereengaged to her."
"I think particular friends are a nuisance!" said Mr. Thorold."Why, she was said _here_, to be engaged to somebody, - Major -Major Somebody, - I forget. Major Fairbairn."
"Major Fairbairn!"
"Yes. Why?"
"That explains it," I exclaimed.
"Explains what?" said Mr. Thorold. And such a shower of fireas came from his eyes then, fun and intelligence andaffection, never came from anybody's eyes beside. I had totell him all I was thinking about; and then hurry away to myduties.
But at tea time I could touch nothing. The trembling hadreached my very heart.
"Why, you ain't going to give out, are you?" said Miss Yatesin a concerned voice. "You've gone a little beyond yourtether."
"Not at all," said I; "not at all. I am only not hungry. Iwill go back, if you please, to something I _can_ do."
I busied myself restlessly about the ward, till one of themen, I forget who, asked me to sing to them. It had become astanding ordinance of the place; and people said, a verybeneficial one. But to-night I had not thought I could sing.Yet when he asked me, the power came. I did not sit down 'asusual;' standing at the foot of Mr. Thorold's bed I sang,leaning hard against strength and love out of sight; and myvoice was as clear as ever.
The ward was so very still that I should have thought nothingcould come in or go out without my being conscious of a stir.However, the absolute hush continued, until it occurred to methat I must have been singing a great while, and I half turnedand glanced down the room. My singing was done; for therestood Dr. Sandford, as still as I had been, with folded armsnear the door. I went towards him immediately.
"Do you have this sort of concert most evenings?" he inquired,as he took my hand.
"Always, Dr. Sandford."
"I never heard you sing so well anywhere else," he remarked.
"I never had such an audience. But now, you remember myrequest this morning, Dr. Sandford?"
"I never forget your requests," he said, gravely. And we wentto business.
From one to another, from one to another. Generally with nomore but a pleasant or a kind word from the doctor to thepatient; but two or three times the doctor's hand came to hischin for a moment, before such a word was spoken. - It did notin those cases tell me much. I had known, or guessed, thetruth of them before. I suppose every good nurse must get apower or faculty of reading symptoms and seeing the state ofthe patient, both actual and probable. I was not shocked norstartled. But the shock and the start were all the greater,when pausing before the one cot which held what I cared for inthis world, the doctor's fingers were thrust suddenly throughhis thick auburn hair. He went on immediately with the dueattention to Mr. Thorold's wounds; and I waited and stood by,with no outward sign, I think, of the death at my heart. Eventhrough all the round, I kept my place by Dr. Sandford's side,doing whatever was wanted of me, attending, at least inoutward guise, to what was going on. So one can do, while thewhole soul and life are concentrated on some point unconnectedwith it all, outside of it all, in the distance. Towards thatpoint I slowly made my way, as the doctor went through hisrounds; and came up with it at last in the little retiringroom which he called his own and where our conversation of themorning had been held.
"I see how little I know, Dr. Sandford," I remarked.
"Ay?" said he. "I had been thinking rather the other way."
"You surprised me very much - with the one touch of yourhair."
The doctor was silent.
"I should have thought - in my ignorance - several others morelikely to have called for it."
"Thorold is the only one," said the doctor.
"How is it?"
"The injuries are intern
al and complicated; and beyond reach."
The doctor had been washing his hands, and I was now washingmine; and with my face so turned away from him, I went on.
"He does not seem to suffer much."
"Doesn't he?" said the doctor.
"Should he?"
"He should, if he has not good power of self-control. No manin the ward suffers as he does. I have noticed, he hides itwell."
I was washing my hands. I remember my wringing the water fromthem; then I remember no more. When I knew anything again, Iwas lying on an old sofa that stood