“Line busy,” said Wyant curtly.
About this time, Justine gave up her night vigils. She could no longer face the struggle of the dawn hour, when life ebbs lowest; and since her duties extended beyond the sick-room she could fairly plead that she was more needed about the house by day. But Wyant protested: he wanted her most at the difficult hour.
“You know you’re taking a chance from her,” he said, almost sternly.
“Oh, no–-“
He looked at her searchingly. “You don’t feel up to it?”
“No.”
He turned away with a slight shrug; but she knew he resented her defection.
The day watches were miserable enough. It was the nineteenth day now; and Justine lay on the sofa in Amherst’s sitting-room, trying to nerve herself for the nurse’s summons. A page torn out of the calendar lay before her—she had been calculating again how many days must elapse before Mr. Langhope could arrive. Ten days—ten days and ten nights! And the length of the nights was double…. As for Amherst, it was impossible to set a date for his coming, for his steamer from Buenos Ayres called at various ports on the way northward, and the length of her stay at each was dependent on the delivery of freight, and on the dilatoriness of the South American official.
She threw down the calendar and leaned back, pressing her hands to her temples. Oh, for a word with Amherst—he alone would have understood what she was undergoing! Mr. Langhope’s coming would make no difference—or rather, it would only increase the difficulty of the situation. Instinctively Justine felt that, though his heart would be wrung by the sight of Bessy’s pain, his cry would be the familiar one, the traditional one: Keep her alive! Under his surface originality, his verbal audacities and ironies, Mr. Langhope was the creature of accepted forms, inherited opinions: he had never really thought for himself on any of the pressing problems of life.
But Amherst was different. Close contact with many forms of wretchedness had freed him from the bondage of accepted opinion. He looked at life through no eyes but his own; and what he saw, he confessed to seeing. He never tried to evade the consequences of his discoveries.
Justine’s remembrance flew back to their first meeting at Hanaford, when his confidence in his own powers was still unshaken, his trust in others unimpaired. And, gradually, she began to relive each detail of their talk at Dillon’s bedside—her first impression of him, as he walked down the ward; the first sound of his voice; her surprised sense of his authority; her almost involuntary submission to his will…. Then her thoughts passed on to their walk home from the hospital—she recalled his sober yet unsparing summary of the situation at Westmore, and the note of insight with which he touched on the hardships of the workers…. Then, word by word, their talk about Dillon came back…Amherst’s indignation and pity…his shudder of revolt at the man’s doom.
“In your work, don’t you ever feel tempted to set a poor devil free?“ And then, after her conventional murmur of protest: ”To save what, when all the good of life is gone?”
To distract her thoughts she stretched her hand toward the bookcase, taking out the first volume in reach—the little copy of Bacon. She leaned back, fluttering its pages aimlessly—so wrapped in her own misery that the meaning of the words could not reach her. It was useless to try to read: every perception of the outer world was lost in the hum of inner activity that made her mind like a forge throbbing with heat and noise. But suddenly her glance fell on some pencilled sentences on the fly-leaf. They were in Amherst’s hand, and the sight arrested her as though she had heard him speak.
La vraie morale se moque de la morale….
We perish because we follow other men’s examples….
Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of Lamiæ—bugbears to frighten children….
A rush of air seemed to have been let into her stifled mind. Were they his own thoughts? No—her memory recalled some confused association with great names. But at least they must represent his beliefs—must embody deeply-felt convictions—or he would scarcely have taken the trouble to record them.
She murmured over the last sentence once or twice: The opinions of the many—bugbears to frighten children…. Yes, she had often heard him speak of current judgments in that way…she had never known a mind so free from the spell of the Lamiæ.
Some one knocked, and she put aside the book and rose to her feet. It was a maid bringing a note from Wyant.
“There has been a motor accident beyond Clifton, and I have been sent for. I think I can safely be away for two or three hours, but ring me up at Clifton if you want me. Miss Mace has instructions, and Garford’s assistant will be down at seven.”
She looked at the clock: it was just three, the hour at which she was to relieve Miss Mace. She smoothed the hair from her forehead, straightened her cap, tied on the apron she had laid aside….
As she entered Bessy’s sitting-room the nurse came out, memoranda in hand. The two moved to the window for a moment’s conference, and as the wintry light fell on Miss Mace’s face, Justine saw that it was white with fatigue.
“You’re ill!” she exclaimed.
The nurse shook her head. “No—but it’s awful…this afternoon….” Her glance turned to the sick-room.
“Go and rest—I’ll stay till bedtime,” Justine said.
“Miss Safford’s down with another headache.”
“I know: it doesn’t matter. I’m quite fresh.”
“You do look rested!” the other exclaimed, her eyes lingering enviously on Justine’s face.
She stole away, and Justine entered the room. It was true that she felt fresh—a new spring of hope had welled up in her. She had her nerves in hand again, she had regained her steady vision of life….
But in the room, as the nurse had said, it was awful. The time had come when the effect of the anæsthetics must be carefully husbanded, when long intervals of pain must purchase the diminishing moments of relief. Yet from Wyant’s standpoint it was a good day—things were looking well, as he would have phrased it. And each day now was a fresh victory.
Justine went through her task mechanically. The glow of strength and courage remained, steeling her to bear what had broken down Miss Mace’s professional fortitude. But when she sat down by the bed Bessy’s moaning began to wear on her. It was no longer the utterance of human pain, but the monotonous whimper of an animal—the kind of sound that a compassionate hand would instinctively crush into silence. But her hand had other duties; she must keep watch on pulse and heart, must reinforce their action with the tremendous stimulants which Wyant was now using, and, having revived fresh sensibility to pain, must presently try to allay it by the cautious use of narcotics.
It was all simple enough—but suppose she should not do it? Suppose she left the stimulants untouched? Wyant was absent, one nurse exhausted with fatigue, the other laid low by headache. Justine had the field to herself. For three hours at least no one was likely to cross the threshold of the sick-room…. Ah, if no more time were needed! But there was too much life in Bessy—her youth was fighting too hard for her! She would not sink out of life in three hours…and Justine could not count on more than that.