"Is that you at last?" she asked in a deep, hoa.r.s.e voice that sounded strange and unnatural. "Are we both dead?"

A cold perspiration had come out upon the girl, and the awfulness of the situation seemed to be taking her senses away, but she tried to speak coolly, and still the wild beating of her heart.

"Yes, I've come," said Dawn; "but we're not dead. What is the matter?

Are you sick? I found the front door open, and no one around."

"They've all gone and left me," moaned the woman, beginning to turn her head with a strange, restless movement from side to side. "They rushed off like frightened cattle. You'll go, too, I suppose, when you know I've got the cholera. Yes, go quick. I don't want to do you any more harm than I have already. Oh!"

The sentence broke in a cry of agony, and the sick woman writhed in terrible contortions, which, pa.s.sing, left her weak and almost lifeless.

The girl's heart was filled with horror, but she took off her bonnet and cape and laid down her bundle.

"No, I'm not going to leave you," she said sadly, almost dully. "I'm not afraid, and, besides, it doesn't matter about me, any way. Have you had the doctor?"

The woman shook her head. The agony was not all pa.s.sed.

"There wasn't any one to go for him," she murmured weakly, tossing restlessly again. "Oh, I'm so thirsty! Can you get me some water?"

"Where is Father?" asked Dawn, wondering if he too had deserted her.

"Didn't you know he was dead?" asked the sick woman, in that strangely hoa.r.s.e voice.

"No," said Dawn, shuddering. Everybody seemed to be dying. Would she die, too?

She hurried to the old medicine closet and in a moment returned with the camphor bottle and some lumps of sugar, and administered several drops of camphor. The patient's hands were cold and blue. Dawn tucked her up with blankets warmly.

"You lie still," she said in a business-like tone. "I'll get some hot water bottles for your hands and feet, and then I'll call the doctor."

"It isn't worth while for you to stay here and get the cholera," said the woman plaintively. "I'm not going to get over it. I've known it all night. It was coming on yesterday. I tried to straighten up the house, but I was too dizzy and weak. The servants all went away when they heard me say I didn't feel well. There have been several other cases--"

But Dawn did not hear all her step-mother said, for she had hurried down to get a fire started. It was no easy task for her unaccustomed hands to strike the fire from the tinder-box, and after one or two fruitless efforts she decided to waste no more time, but to run to the neighbor's and borrow a kettle of water, at the same time sending a message for the doctor. She was terribly frightened by her step-mother's appearance, and knew she must be very ill indeed. It seemed as if all possible haste was necessary if she would help to save her life.

Upstairs, the sick woman was tossing and moaning. The sudden appearance of the girl who had been the occasion of so much trouble in her life seemed to make the agony all the greater. She knew that she was face to face with death, and now to have the girl she had injured meet her almost on the threshold of the other world, and minister to her, was double torment. If only she could do something to make amends for the wrong she had done, before she left the world and went to meet her just retribution! Her fevered brain tried to think. What was there she could do?

The girl had come, and would probably take the disease and die. Her husband might never know she was here. No one would find it out until she was dead. If only she-Mrs. Van Rensselaer-had some way of letting Charles Winthrop know that his wife had come home. If she could get up and go out into the street and beg some one to take him a message! But her strength was gone, and the agony might come upon her at any moment.

She would have to do it at once, or the girl would return and stop her.

Could she try?

All her life she had been a woman of iron will. She had made herself and every one except her husband bend to it. She summoned it now. She would try. She would make one supreme effort to right the great wrong of her life. If in the other world to which she knew she was going in a few short hours there was opportunity to meet the husband she had loved as she had loved nothing else on earth besides herself, she would like to tell him that she had tried-that at the last hour she had tried to make some amends.

With the extraordinary strength which mind sometimes gives to body at times of great necessity, as in cases of soldiers mortally wounded fighting to the end, the woman crawled out of the bed and dragged herself over to the desk. Her eyes were bright with her great purpose and blazed like sunken fires. Her gray, thin hair straggled down upon the collar of the old dressing-gown she had put on when first taken sick. She seized her quill pen and a sheet of paper that lay there, and with cramped, shaking hand wrote, "Dawn is here," and signed her name, "Maria Van Rensselaer." The scrawl was almost unreadable, but she dared not try to write it over. She dared not add another word. Her time was short. Her strength already was failing. She had yet to get the message into some one's hands. Perhaps even now she would fail. She crushed the folds together with her cold fingers, wrote "Charles Winthrop" and the address, and then tottered across the room to the door. She almost fell as she reached the stair-landing. The dizzy, blinding blackness that seemed pressing upon her almost overwhelmed her.

She felt the pain and torment surging back, but she fought it off and would not yield. This was her last chance to make amends-her last chance. She said it over to herself as she clung to the banisters and got down the stairs clumsily. If Dawn had been in the house, she must have heard her.

It looked like miles to the front gate as the sick woman came out on the piazza, but somehow she got there-a queer, ghastly figure of death, clinging to the gate-post, with a letter and a purse in her hand.

In the distance she saw a negro approaching. He was scuttling along with a frightened gait, as if he wished to hurry through the street.

She felt her strength going. If she could only stand up till he reached her! It seemed to her hours before he came to the gate. She had kept back out of sight, instinctively feeling he would be scared away if he saw her.

"Take that to the post office or G.o.d will punish you!" she said, in the deep, hoa.r.s.e voice the disease had given her, and thrust the letter and the purse upon him.

The negro stopped with a yell of fright, but her words had the desired effect. She had worked upon the superst.i.tion of his race. He dared not disobey her command. Taking the letter and the purse in his thumb and finger, that he might not come in contact with them more than was necessary-for a glance at the face of the woman had warned him of her malady-he ran at top speed to the post-office. His eyes rolled with horror as he told of the old woman who had accosted him. He felt as if his days were numbered and he fled the village immediately, not caring where he went so he got away from the haunting memory of the living dead who had given him the letter.

With almost superhuman effort Mrs. Van Rensselaer turned to go back to the house, but the iron will could carry her no further. Her strength was gone. She had accomplished her errand, and had come to the end.

She had done her best to make amends for her sin. She sank unconscious by the gateway.

Meantime, Dawn had hurried through the hedge by a short cut to the nearest neighbor's, but failed to get any response to her urgent knock.

She went around the house and perceived that it was closed. The family must be away. She flew to the neighbor just below with the same result, and going on farther down the street to four other houses, found no one in sight. At the fifth, some distance from her home, a woman stepped fearfully out of the kitchen door, and agreed to send word to the doctor, but shook her head at the demand for hot water. She could not spare her kettle. She had sickness in the house herself. No, she didn't think Dawn could get any at the next house either. Everybody that could get away had gone since the cholera struck the town. Then the woman went in and shut the door and with new horror Dawn sped back to try her hand again at making the fire.

The necessity was so strongly upon her now that she fairly _made_ that fire burn, and at last had a kettle of hot water to carry upstairs.

Dawn was so intent upon carrying her great steaming kettle up the front stairs without spilling the contents that she failed to hear the wheels of a carriage upon the gravel drive outside. It was not until she had carried the kettle into the bedroom and put it on the hearth and then turned toward the bed that she discovered the bed was empty!

A great horror filled her. Trembling, she knew not why, she quickly glanced into the other rooms on that floor. It seemed almost as if the pestilence had become a living being that could s.n.a.t.c.h people bodily away from the earth.

She seemed to have no voice with which to call, yet she felt upon her a necessity of great haste. Perhaps her step-mother had gone downstairs in search of her. She hurried down a few steps, then stopped, startled.

Someone was coming into the front door, staggering under the heavy burden of an inert, human form. It looked a vivid blot of darkness against the background of the hot summer sunshine outside.

Dawn hurried down, with white face and horrified eyes, and saw that it was the old family doctor, and that he held her step-mother in his arms.

A sudden pang of remorse went through her heart that she had been away from the sick one so long, yet how could she have helped it? Was Mrs.

Van Rensselaer perhaps trying to find her, or was she seeking aid, and had fallen by the way?

"Oh, why did she get up!" she exclaimed regretfully. "I came just as soon as I could get the water hot!" Then she caught hold of the heavy form of the unconscious woman and helped with all her young strength to lift and drag her up to her room again.

"She might have been out of her head, child," said the doctor kindly, as if in answer to her exclamation. He was searching in his medicine case for a certain bottle as he spoke. His breath was coming in short, quick gasps from the exertion of carrying the sick woman upstairs, and the perspiration stood in great beads on his forehead. His face looked old and haggard, and his voice was that of one who had seen much recent sorrow. He walked rapidly asking a few keen questions and giving brief directions. He nodded approvingly at the kettle of hot water, sent Dawn for one or two articles he needed, then when he had done all he could, and the sick woman was breathing more naturally, he turned and looked at Dawn.

She had told him in a few words how she had found the house when she arrived, and the little she had done. He looked her through with his kind tired eyes, noted the sweet, sad face, the dark circles under her eyes, the pallor of the thin cheeks, and shook his head doubtfully.

"You're young for this sort of thing," he said gruffly. "It's a hard case, and her only hope is good nursing. I'm afraid you're not equal to it. You'll break down yourself."

"Oh, no, I'm quite strong," said Dawn, bravely trying to smile.

"Well, I don't know how it can be helped," he mused. "I don't know of a single person I can get to help you. It may be Patience Howe could come if she can get away from the Pettibones. I'll see what I can do. I'll stop and send a line to Mrs. Van Rensselaer's sister. She'll likely come down by to-morrow. You know she was here when your father died.

Do you think you could get along to-night alone in case I can't get any one? I'll try to get back here before dark if I can and bring some one to stay with you. I haven't had a wink of sleep for forty-eight hours except what I caught on the road. I'll get back as soon as I can."

Dawn a.s.sured him she would do her best, though her heart quaked within her at thought of staying alone with the death-like sleeper upon the bed. The doctor gave a few directions and cautions, and hurried away.

The house settled into quiet, and the hours stretched into torturing length. Dawn slipped downstairs to find some food, for she was growing faint with long fasting. But there was nothing in the house fit to eat.

The bread was moist and sticky with the damp, warm atmosphere, and she had no heart to cook anything. She had arranged the fire to keep the kettle boiling, for hot water was an essential in the sick-room. Now she caught sight of a basket of eggs and dropped several into the boiling water. These would keep her alive and be easy to eat.

The afternoon was a long agony. She spent most of the time applying hot cloths, and chafing the skin of her step-mother. From time to time the woman would almost waken or moan and toss in her sleep. As the hot, red sun slipped down in the west and the oppressive darkness settled upon the house, Dawn felt more alone than she had ever been in all of her short, troublous life. She lighted a candle and set it on the floor in the hall, as in the room it seemed to trouble the patient. The long, flickering shadows wavered over the floor in ghostly march, and the nurse sat and watched them till it seemed that they were the shadows of all the troubles that had taken their way through her young life.

It was late in the evening when the doctor finally returned, and he was alone. But Dawn was glad to see his kindly face, for she had almost given up hoping for him that night, and it seemed terrible to her to sit there and feel that the death angel was standing at the other side of the bed, perhaps.

But the doctor's eyes brightened a little as he looked at the patient.

"She's holding her own," he murmured. "You've done pretty well, little girl. Just as well as an experienced nurse. If you can keep it up during the night you may save her life. I'm sorry I couldn't get any one to stay with you to-night, but there wasn't a soul who was not already taking care of two or more cases. I'd stay myself, but there are three cases I must save to-night if possible. Keep up the treatment as before, and if she rouses again try this new medicine."

He was gone as quickly as he had come, and she was alone with her charge once more, but a new spark of interest was in her work. He had said she might save her step-mother's life. She wondered dully why she should care when the woman had done her so much harm, but she did care, and the fact gave her peace.

While she thus thought she was aware that the sick woman's eyes had opened and were gazing at her with a strange, deep wonder, as if they would ask: "Are you here yet? Have you stayed alone to nurse me, when I have always hated you, and done you harm?"