Karl was at the hospital--the telegram told that. She would get off at the stop just this side of the main station--that was a little nearer the hospital, she believed. She would take a cab--if only there were an automobile!--but the cabman would surely go very fast if she told him why she had to hurry like this.

Long before the train came to its stop she was standing at the door. She would not have waited for the standstill if the porter had not held her back. Oh how she must hurry now!

She ran to the nearest cabman. Would he hurry very fast?--faster than he ever had before? It was life and death, it was--"Yes--yes, lady," he said, putting her in. "Yes, I understand. I'll hurry."

"But faster," she kept saying to him--"oh _please_, faster!"

She saw nothing either to the right or left. She saw only the straight line ahead which they must travel. And still everything from within her was pushing her on--oh if the man would only _hurry_!

A big building at last--the hospital. Only two blocks now, then one, and then the man had slowed up. She was out before he stopped, running up the steps--somebody in the hospital would pay--and up the stairs. The elevator was there--but her own feet would take her faster.

"Dr. Hubers?--Where is he?" she said in choked voice to a nurse in the hall.

The nurse started to speak, but Ernestine, looking ahead, saw Dr. Parkman standing in the door of a room. She rushed to him with outstretched hand, white, questioning, pleading face. Her lips refused to move.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

WITH THE OUTGOING TIDE

He simply took her into the room, and there was Karl--alive. That was all she grasped at first; it filled her so completely she could take in nothing else. He was lying there, seemingly half asleep, looking much as he always did, save that of course it was plain he was very sick. She stooped down and kissed him, and his face lighted up, and he smiled a little. "Ernestine," he murmured, "did they frighten you?"

It was as she had known! His thought was of her. And oh how sorry Karl would be when he was quite well and she told him all!

She nestled her head close to him, her arm thrown about him. The tears were running down her cheeks. Of the blessedness of finding Karl here--breathing, smiling upon her, sorry she had been frightened! She took his hand and it responded to her clasp. That thrilled her through and through. Those awful fears--those never-to-be-forgotten fears--that Karl's hand might never close over hers again! She leaned over him that she might feel his breath upon her face. In all her life there had never been so blessed a joy as this feeling Karl's breath upon her cheek.

Nothing mattered now--work, eyes, nothing. She had him back; she asked nothing more of life. What could anything else matter now that those awful fears had drawn away? She was sobbing quietly to herself. Again his hand closed over hers.

Then something made her look up, and at the foot of the bed she saw Dr.

Parkman. One look at his face and she grew cold from head to foot; her throat grew painfully tight; strange things came before her eyes. She could not move. She simply remained there upon her knees, looking at Dr.

Parkman's face, her own frozen with terror.

The doctor came to her, took her hands, and helped her to rise. Two nurses and another doctor were bending over Karl--doing something. Dr.

Parkman led Ernestine into an adjoining room.

She did not take her eyes from his face; the appeal, terror, in them seemed to strike him dumb. It was as though his own throat were closed, for several times he tried vainly to speak.

"Ernestine," he said at last, "Karl is very sick."

"How--sick?" she managed to whisper.

"How--sick?" she repeated as he stood there looking at her helplessly.

And, finally, he said, as if it were killing him to do it--"So sick that--"

"Don't say that!"--she fairly hissed it at him.

"Don't _dare_ say that! You _did_ it--you----" And then, sinking down beside him, catching hold of his hand, she sobbed out, wildly, heartbreakingly--"Oh, Dr. Parkman--oh, please--_please_ tell me you _will_ save Karl!"

Her sobs were becoming uncontrollable. "Ernestine," he said, sharply--"be quiet. Be quiet! You have got to help."

The sobs stopped; she rose to her feet. He pulled up a chair for her, but she did not sit down. A few sobs still came, but her face was becoming stern, set.

"Tell me," she said, holding her two hands tight against her breast, and looking him straight in the face.

And then he jerked it out. Karl had been taken ill--pain, fever, he feared appendicitis. He had two other doctors see him; they agreed that he must be operated on immediately. They brought him here. They found--conditions awful. They did all that surgery could do--every known thing was being done now, but--they did not know. He had rallied a little from the operation; now he seemed to be drooping. He was in bad shape generally,--heart weakened by the shock of his blindness, intestines broken down by lack of exercise, whole system affected by changed conditions--all these things combined against him. He told the short story with his own lips white, swaying a little, seeming fairly to age as he stood there.

Her face had been changing as she listened. He had never seen a human face look as hers did then; he had never heard a human voice sound as hers sounded when she said: "Dr. Parkman, you are mistaken." She looked him straight in the eye--a look which held the whole force of her being.

"I say you are mistaken. We will go back in here now to Karl. You and I together are going to save him."

There was the light from higher worlds in her eye as she went back, in her voice a force which men have never named or understood. And something which emanated from her took hold of every one who came into that room.

There was more than the resources of medical science at work now.

On her knees beside the bed, her arm about him, pa.s.sionately shielding him from the dark forces around him, her face often touching his as if rea.s.suring him, Ernestine spoke to Karl, quietly, tenderly, forcefully, love's own intuition telling her how much to say, when to speak. By her warm body which loved him, by her great spirit which claimed him, she would hold him from the outgoing tide. Her voice could rouse him where other stimulants failed; the only effort he made was the tightening of his hand over hers, and sometimes he smiled a little as he felt her close to him.

Two hours went by; the lines in Dr. Parkman's face were deepening. They worked on unfalteringly--hypodermics, heat, rubbing, oxygen, all those things with which man seeks to deceive himself, and for which the foe, with the tolerance of power, is willing to wait. But their faces were changing. The call of the outgoing tide, that tide over which human determination has not learned to prevail, was coming close. They worked on, for they were trained to work on, even through the sense of their own futility.

Looking about her Ernestine saw it all, and held him with a pa.s.sionate protectiveness. If all else failed, her arms--arms to which he had ever come for help and consolation--could surely hold him! The cold fear crept farther and farther into her heart, and as it crept on her arms about him tightened. Not while she held him like this! Oh not while she held him like this!

And then a frenzy possessed her. That she should sit here powerless--weeping--despairing, surrendering, while Karl slipped from her! She must do something--say something--something to hold him firm--call him back--make him understand that he must fight!

Suddenly a light broke over her face. She looked at Dr. Parkman, who was bending over Karl. "I will tell him," she whispered--"what I did--the secret--about the work."

He hesitated; medically his judgment was against it; and then, white to the lips with the horror of the admission he faced the fact that this had pa.s.sed beyond things medical. Let her try where he had failed. Through a rush of uncontrollable tears he nodded yes.

And she did tell him,--in words which were not sentences, with sharp flashes of thought--such flashes as alone could penetrate the semi-consciousness into which she must reach; after a moment of pause in which to gather herself together for the great battle of her life, with concentration, illumination, with a piercing eloquence which brought hot tears to every cheek, and deep, deep prayers to hearts which would have said they did not know how to pray--a woman fighting for the man she loved, human love at its whitest heat pitted against destiny--she told him.

"Karl," at the last--"you _understand?_--That's the great secret!--_That's_ the great picture! I've not painted one stroke this winter! I've been working for _you_--working in your laboratory every day--studying day and night--getting ready to be your eyes--going to give you back your work--oh, Karl--_Karl_--won't you--" but the sobs could hold back no longer.

She had reached him. He took it in, just a little at first, but comprehension was growing, and upon his face a great wondering, a softening.

"Old man,"--it was Dr. Parkman now--"you get that? See what you've got ahead? G.o.d, man--but it was splendid! She came to me with the idea--_her_ idea--thought it all out herself. Karl was not happy--Karl must have his work. Karl--Karl--it was nothing but Karl. She was closer to him than any one in the world. She could make him see what others could not. Then _she_ would be his eyes. Man--do you know that this woman has fairly made over her soul for love of you? Do you know that she has given up becoming one of the great painters of the world to become your a.s.sistant? Do you get it, Karl? So help me G.o.d it was the pluckiest fight I've ever seen or heard of. And she's won! I'm no fool--and I say she can do what she says she can. She's ready. She's ready to begin to-morrow. What do you say, old man? What do you think of Ernestine now? Isn't she worth taking a good brace and living for?"

And then he got it all; he was taking it in, rising to it, understanding, glowing. And a look that was very wonderful was growing upon Karl's face.

"Ernestine," he whispered, dwelling long upon the name, his voice a voice of wonder, "you did that--for me?"

"I did it because I love you so!" she whispered, and it seemed that surely death itself could not withstand the tenderness of it.

And then his whole face became transfigured. His blind eyes were opened to the light of love. His illumined face reflected it as the supreme moment of his life. In that moment he triumphed over all powers set against him. He rose out of suffering on wings of glory. He transcended sorrow and tragedy, blindness--yes, in that moment, death. He saw behind the veil; he saw into the glory of a soul; he comprehended the wonder of love. Compensation for suffering and loss--understanding, victory, peace; it was the human face lighted with divine light. They did not dare to move or breathe as they looked upon the wonder of his face.

"Ernestine--little one," he whispered, the light not going from his face--"you loved me--like that?"

"You see, Karl,"--it was this must reach him--"what you have to live for now?"

But he did not get that. He was filled with the wonder of that which he was seeing.