"Then you can be somewhere else in the house so that I could call you--or you could sit right here--whichever you preferred."

"I'd rather sit right here, if I shouldn't be in the way."

"Oh, when you're in the way I'll tell you."

On this understanding Barbara sat down, in a small low armchair not far from the foot of the bed. Miss Gallifer also sat down, nearer to the window, taking up a book which, as Barbara could see from the "jacket" on the cover, bore the t.i.tle, _The Secret of Violet Pryde_.

It was clear that there was nothing to be done, since Miss Gallifer could so easily lose herself in her novel.

Not till her jumble of impressions began to arrange themselves did Barbara realize that she was in Rash's room, surrounded by the objects most intimate to his person. Here the poor boy slept and dressed, and lived the portion of his life which no one else could share with him.

In a sense they were rifling his privacy, the secrecy with which every human being has in some measure to surround himself. She recalled a day in her childhood, after her parents and both her brothers had died, when their house with its contents was put up for sale. She remembered the horror with which she had seen strangers walking about in the rooms sanctified by loved presences, and endeared to her holiest memories. Something of that she felt now, as Miss Gallifer threw aside her book, sprang lightly to her feet, hurried into Rash's bathroom, and came out with a towel slightly damped, which she pa.s.sed over the patient's brow. She was so horribly at ease! It was as if Rash no longer had a personality whose rights one must respect.

But he might get better! Miss Gallifer believed that he would! Barbara clung to that as an anchor in this tempest of emotions. If he got better he would open his eyes. If he opened his eyes it would be, for a little while at least, with his inhibitions suspended. If his inhibitions were suspended the thing he most wanted would be in his first glance; and if his first glance fell on her....

Chapter XXVI

Waiting was becoming dreamlike. She didn't find it tedious, or over-fraught with suspense. On the contrary, it was soothing. It was a little trance-like, too, almost as if she had been enwrapped in Rash's stillness.

It was so strange to see him still. It was so strange to be still herself. Of her own being, as of his, she had hardly any concept apart from the high winds of excitement. Calm like this was new to her, and because new it was appeasing, wonderful. It was not unlike content, only the content which comes in sleep, to be broken up by waking.

Somewhere in her nature she liked seeing him as he was, helpless, inert, with no power of enraging her by being restive to her will. It was, in its way, a repet.i.tion of what she had said that morning: "If he wasn't here--or if he was dead!" Longing for peace, her stormy soul seemed to know by instinct the price she would have to pay for it. For peace to be possible Rash must pa.s.s out of her life, and the thought of Rash pa.s.sing out of her life was agony.

While Miss Gallifer was downstairs at lunch Barbara had the sweet, unusual sense of having him all to herself. She had never so had him in their hours together because the violence of their clashes had prevented communion. Seated in this silence, in this quietude, she felt him hers. There was no one to dispute her claim, no one whose claim she had in any way to recognize as superior. Letty's claim she had never recognized at all. It was accidental, spurious. Letty herself didn't put it forth--and even she was gone. If Rash were to open his eyes he would see no one but herself.

She was sorry when Miss Gallifer came back, though there was no help for that; but Miss Gallifer was obtrusive only when she chatted or moved about. For much of the time she pursued the secret of Violet Pryde with such a.s.siduity that the room became quiescent, and communion with Rash could be re-established.

The awesome silence was disturbed only by the turning of Miss Gallifer's pages. It might have been three o'clock. Once more Barbara was lost in the unaccustomed hush, her eyes fixed on the white face on the pillow, in almost hypnotic restfulness. The pushing open of the door behind was so soft that she didn't notice. Miss Gallifer turned another page.

It was the sense that someone was in the room which made Barbara glance over her shoulder and Miss Gallifer look up. A little gray figure in a battered black hat stood just within the door. She stood just within the door, but with no consciousness of anything or anyone in the room. She saw only the upturned face and its deathlike fixity.

With slow, spellbound movement she began to come forward. Barbara, who had never seen the Letty who used to be, knew her now only by a terrified intuition. Miss Gallifer was entirely at a loss, and somewhat indignant. The little gray vagrant was not of the type she had been used to treating with respect.

"What are you doing here?" she asked quickly, as soon as speech came to her.

Letty didn't look at her, or remove her eyes from the face on the pillow. A woman in a trance could not have spoken with greater detachment or self-control. "I came--to see."

"Well, now that you've seen, won't you please go away, before I call the police?"

Of this Letty took no notice, going straight to the bedside, while Miss Gallifer moved toward Barbara, who stood as she had risen from her chair.

"Do you know who she is?" Miss Gallifer asked, with curiosity greater than her indignation.

Barbara nodded. "Yes, I know who she is. I thought she'd--disappeared."

"Oh, they never disappear for long--not that kind. What had I better do? Is she anything--to _him_?"

Barbara was saved the necessity of answering because Letty, who was on the other side of the bed, bent over and kissed the feet, as she had kissed them once before.

"Is she dotty?" Miss Gallifer whispered. "Ought I to take her by the shoulders and put her out the door? I could, you know--a sc.r.a.p of a thing like that."

Barbara whispered back. "I can't tell you who she is, but--but I wouldn't interfere with her."

"Oh, the doctor'll do that. _He'll_ not----"

But Letty raised herself, addressing the nurse. "Is he--dead?"

Miss Gallifer's tone was the curt one we use to inferiors. "No, he's not dead."

"Is he going to die?"

"Not this time, I think."

Letty looked round her. "Well, I'll just sit over here." She went to a chair at the back of the room, in a corner on a line with the door. "I won't give any trouble. The minute he begins to--to live I'll go."

It was Barbara who arranged the matter peaceably, mollifying Miss Gallifer. Without explaining who Letty was she insisted on her right to remain. If Miss Gallifer was mystified, it was no more than Miss Towell was, or anyone else who touched the situation at a tangent. To that Barbara was indifferent, while Letty didn't think of it.

In rallying her forces Barbara's first recollection had been, "I must be a sport." With theoretical sporting instincts she knew herself the kind of sport who doesn't always run true to form. Hating meanness she could lapse into the mean, and toward Letty herself had so lapsed.

That accident she must guard against. The issues were so big that whatever happened, she couldn't afford to reproach herself.

Self-reproach would not only magnify defeat but poison success, since, if she availed herself of her advantages, no success would ever prove worth while.

For her own sake rather than for Letty's she made use of the hour while the doctors were again in consultation to explain the possibilities. She would have the whole thing clearly understood.

Whether or not Letty did understand it she wasn't quite sure, since she seemed cut off from thought-communication. She listened, nodded, was docile to instructions, but made no response.

To be as lucid as possible Barbara put it in this way: "Since you've left him, and I've broken my engagement he'll be absolutely free to choose; and yet, you must remember, we may--we may both lose him."

That both should lose him seemed indeed the more probable after the consultation. All the doctors looked grave, even Dr. Lancing. His dinner-party manner had forsaken him as he talked to Barbara, his emphasis being thrown on the word "prepared." It was still one of those cases in which you couldn't tell, though so far the symptoms were not encouraging. He felt himself bound in honor to say as much as that, hoping, however, for the best.

Closing the front door on him Barbara felt herself shaken by a frightful possibility. If he never regained consciousness that would "settle it." The suspense would be over. Her fate would be determined.

She would no longer have to wonder and doubt, to strive or to cry. No longer would she run the risk of seeing another woman get him. She would find that which her tempestuous nature craved before everything--rest, peace, release from the impulse to battle and dominate. Not by words, not so much as by thought, but only in wild emotion she knew that, as far as she was concerned, it might be better for him to die. If he lived, and chose herself, the storm would only begin again. If he lived and chose the other....

But as to that she could see no reasonable prospect. She had only to look at Letty, shrinking in her corner of the bedroom, to judge any such mischance impossible. She was so humble; so negligible; so much a bit of flotsam of the streets. She had an appeal of her own, of course; but an appeal so lowly as to be obscured by the wayside dust which covered it. What was the flower to which Rash had now and then compared her? Wasn't that what he called it--the dust flower?--that ragged blue thing of byways and backyards, which you couldn't touch without washing your hands afterwards. No, no! Not even the legal tie which nominally bound them could hold in the face of this inequality.

It would be too grotesque.

The hours pa.s.sed. The night nurse was now installed, and was reading _Keith Macdermot's Destiny_. She was one of those tall, slender women whom you see to be all bone. As businesslike as Miss Gallifer, and quite as detached, Miss Moines was brisk and systematic. It being her habit to subdue a household to herself before she entered on her duties her eyes regarded Miss Walbrook and Letty with the startled glance of a horse's.

For before going Miss Gallifer had given her a hint. "You'll have to do a lot of side-stepping here. This is the famous House of Mystery.

You'll find two nuts upstairs--that's what I'd call them if they were men--but they're women--girls, sort of--and you've just got to leave them alone. One's a high-stepper--regular society--was engaged to the patient and now acts as if she'd married him; and the other--well, perhaps you can make her out; I can't. Seems a little off. May be the poor castaway, once loved, and now broken-hearted but faithful, you read about in books. Anyhow, there they are, and you'd best let them be. It won't be for more than--well, I give him twenty-four hours at the most. I begin to think that for once old Wisdom is right.

Good-looker too, poor fellow, and can't be more than thirty-five. I wonder what could have happened? I suppose they'll go into that at the inquest."

But Miss Moines was too systematic to have companions in the room without marshaling them to some form of duty. They needed to eat; they needed to sleep. Now and then someone had to go out on the landing and comfort or rea.s.sure Steptoe, who sat on the attic stairs like a grief-stricken dog.

Letty was the first to consent to go and lie down. She did so about nine o'clock, extracting a promise that whatever happened she would be called at twelve. If there was any change in the meantime--but that, Miss Moines a.s.sured her, was understood in all such ride-and-tie arrangements. At twelve Letty was to return and Barbara lie down till three, with the same proviso in case of the unexpected. But, so to put it, the unexpected seemed improbable, in view of that rigid form, and the white, upturned face.

"And yet," Miss Moines confided to Barbara, "I don't think he's as far gone as they think. Miss Gallifer only changed her mind when they talked her round. A doctor just sees the patient in glimpses, whereas a nurse lives with him, and knows what he can stand."

About eleven Miss Moines closed _Keith Macdermot's Destiny_, and took the pulse. She nodded as she did so, with a slight exclamation of triumph. "Ah, ha! Fifty-eight! That's the first good sign. It may not mean anything, but----"