The Witness Part 14

Good-by, and thank you again, Sincerely, ROSE BONNER BRENTWOOD.

The nurse rushed down to the office. A search was inst.i.tuted at once.

Every one in the office and halls was questioned. Only one elevator-man remembered a person, dressed in black, going out of the nurses' side door. He had thought it one of the probation nurses.

They searched the streets for several blocks around. It had been only a few minutes, and the girl was weak. She could not have gone far! But no Bonnie was found!

The evening mail came in and a letter with a Western postmark arrived for Miss R.B. Brentwood. The nurse looked at it sadly. A letter for the poor child! What hope and friendliness might it not contain! If it had only come a couple of hours sooner!

Later that evening, when it was finally settled that the patient had really escaped, the nurse went to the telephone.

Courtland was in Tennelly's room. They had been discussing woman suffrage, some question that had come up in the political-science cla.s.s that day. Tennelly held that most women were too unbalanced to vote; you never could tell what a woman would do next. She was swayed entirely by her emotions, mainly two--love and hate; sometimes pride and selfishness. _Always_ selfishness. Women were all selfis.h.!.+

Courtland thought of the calm, true eyes of Mother Marshall and the telegram that had come the day before. He held that all women were not selfish. He said he knew _one_ woman who was not. All women were not flighty and unbalanced nor swayed by their emotions. He knew two girls whom he thought were not swayed by their emotions. Just then he was called to the telephone.

The nurse's voice broke upon his absorption with a disturbing element: "Mr. Courtland, this is the nurse from Good Samaritan Hospital. I thought you ought to know that Miss Brentwood has disappeared! We have searched everywhere, but can get no clue to her whereabouts. She wasn't fit to go. She had fainted again--was unconscious a long time. She had a very disturbing call from a young woman this afternoon, who mentioned your name and got up to the room somehow without the usual formalities.

Of course I didn't know but she had the doctor's permission, and she came right in. She brought a lot of dirty evening gowns and tried to give them to my patient, and called her a working-girl; spoke of her little dead brother as 'the kid,' and was very insulting. I thought perhaps you would be able to give us a clue as to where the patient was.

She really was too weak to be out alone; and in this bitter cold! Her jacket was very thin. She's just in the condition to get pneumonia. I'm all broken up because I thought she was sound asleep. She left a little note for me, with a pin she wanted me to keep, and five dollars to pay for her room. You see she got the notion from what that girl said that she was on charity in that room and she wouldn't stay. I thought you'd want me to let you know!"

There was almost a sob in the nurse's voice as she ended. Courtland's heart sank.

Poor Gila! She hadn't understood. She had meant well, but hadn't known how! Poor fool he, that had asked her to go! She had never had experience with sorrow and poverty. How could she be expected to understand?

His anger rose as he listened to a few more details concerning Gila's remarks. Of course the nurse was exaggerating, but how crude of Gila!

Where were her woman's intuitions? Her finer sensibilities? Where indeed? But, after all, perhaps the nurse had not understood fully.

Perhaps she had taken offense and misconstrued Gila's intended kindness!

Well, the main thing was that Bonnie was gone and must be hunted up. It wouldn't do to leave her without friends, sick and weak, this cold night. She had, of course, gone home to her room. He could easily find her. He wouldn't mind going out, though he had intended doing other things that evening; but he had undertaken this job and he must see it through. Then there was that telegram from Mother Marshall! And her letter on the way! Too bad! Of course he must make Bonnie go back to the hospital. He would have no trouble in coaxing her back when she knew how she had distressed them all.

"I'll go right down to her old place and see if she's there," he told the nurse. "She has probably gone back to her room. Certainly I will insist that she return to the hospital to-night."

As he hung up the receiver Pat touched his elbow and pointed to a messenger-boy waiting for him with a note.

It was Gila's violet-scented missive over which she had wept those angry tears. He signed for the letter with a frown. Somehow the perfume annoyed him. He put the thing in his pocket, having no patience to read it at once, and went hurriedly down the hall.

As he pa.s.sed the office Courtland found a letter in his box, noting with a sort of comfort that it bore a Western postmark. As he waited for his trolley at the corner, he reflected how strange it was that this young woman, whom he had never seen nor heard of before, should suddenly be flung thus upon his horizon and seem, in a measure, his responsibility.

He had been shaking free from that sense of accountability since she had been reported getting better; and especially since he had put her upon the hearts of Mother Marshall and Gila. Gila! How the thought of her annoyed just now!

In the trolley he opened Mother Marshall's letter and read, marveling at the revelation of motherhood it contained. Motherhood and fatherhood!

How beautiful! A sort of Christ-mother and Christ-father, these two who had been bereft of their own, were willing to be! And Bonnie! How she needed them--and had gone before she knew! He must persuade her to go to Mother Marshall! For, after all, this whole bungle was his fault. If he had never tried to tole Gila into it this wouldn't have happened.

A factory-girl, belated, s.h.i.+vered into the car in a thin summer jacket and stood beside a girl in furs and a handsome coat. Courtland thought of Bonnie in her little shabby black suit--a summer suit, of course. He remembered noticing how thin it looked as they stood beside the grave on the bleak hillside, and wondering if she were not cold. But it was mild that day compared to this, and the sun had been s.h.i.+ning then. She must have half frozen in that long, long ride! And had she money enough to buy her something to eat? She had left a five-dollar bill at the hospital. Some instinct taught him that it was the last she had!

He grew more and more nervous and impatient as he neared his destination.

He sprang up the narrow stairs that had grown so familiar to him the past week, watching anxiously the crack under the door to see if there was a light. But it was all dark! He tapped at the door lightly. But of course she would have gone to bed at once after the exertion of the journey! He tapped louder, and held his breath to listen. But no answer came!

Then he tapped again, and called, in half-subdued tones: "Miss Brentwood! Are you there?"

A stir was heard at the other end of the hall, the sound of the scratching of a match. A light appeared under the door of the front room, the door opened a crack, and a frowsy head was thrust out, with a candle held high above it, and eyes that were full of sleep peering into the darkness of the hall.

"Has Miss Brentwood returned? Have you seen her?" he asked.

"Not as I knows on, she 'ain't come," said a woman's voice. "I went to bed early. She might ov and I not hear her, she's so softly like."

"I wonder if we could find out? Would you mind coming and trying?"

The woman looked at him keenly. "Oh, you're the young feller what come to the fun'rul, ain't you? Well, you jest wait a bit an' I'll throw somethin' on an' come an' try." The woman came in an amazing costume of many colors, and called and shook the door. She got her key and unlocked the door, stepping cautiously inside and looking about. She advanced, holding the candle high, Courtland waiting behind. He could see one withered white rosebud on the floor. There was no sign of Bonnie! Her room was just as she had left it on the day of the funeral!

Where was Bonnie Brentwood?

CHAPTER XIV

Suddenly, as Courtland stood in the narrow, dark street alone and in uncertainty, he was no longer alone. As clearly as if he felt a touch upon his sleeve he knew that One was there beside him, and that this errand he was upon had the sanction of that Presence which had met him once in the fiery way and promised to show him what to do.

"G.o.d, show me where to find her!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, and then, as if one had said, "Come with me!" he turned as certainly as if a pa.s.ser-by had directed him where he had seen her, and walked up the street. That is, _they_ walked up the street.

Always in thinking of that walk afterward he thought of it as "they walking up the street"--himself and the Presence.

The first thing he remembered about it was that he had lost that sense of uncertainty and anxiety. How long the route was or where it was to end did not seem to matter. Every step of the way was companioned by One who knew what He was about. It came to him that he would like to go everywhere in such company; that no journey would be too far or arduous, no duty too unpleasant if all could be as this.

He stepped into the telephone-office and began calling up hospitals.

There were one or two that reported young women brought in, but the description was not at all like the girl of whom he was in search. He jotted them down in his note-book, however, with a feeling that they might be a last resort.

As he turned the pages of the 'phone-book his eye caught the name of the city's morgue, and a sudden horror froze into his mind. What if something had happened to her and she had been taken there? What if she had ended the life which had looked so lonely and impossible to her? No, she would never do that, not with her faith in the Christ! And yet, if her vitality was low, and her heart was taxed with sorrow, she would perhaps scarcely be responsible for what she did.

He rang up the morgue sharply and put tense, eager questions.

Yes, a young woman had been brought in about an hour ago.... Yes, dressed in black--had long light hair and was slender. "_Some looker!_"

the man who answered the 'phone said.

Courtland shuddered and hung up. He felt that he must go to the morgue.

When they entered the gruesome place of the unknown dead, although the Presence entered with him, yet he felt that it was there already, standing close among the dead; had been there when they came in!

Courtland's face was white, and set as he pa.s.sed between the silent dead laid out for identification. An inward shudder went through him as he was led to the spot where lay the latest comer, a slim young girl with long golden hair, sodden from the river where she had been found, her pretty face sharpened and coa.r.s.ened by sin.

He drew a deep breath of relief and turned away quickly from the sight of her poor drowned eyes, rejoicing that they had not been the eyes of Bonnie. It was terrible to think of Bonnie lying so, all drenched and her spirit put out. He was glad he might still think of her alive, and go on searching for her. But a dart of pain went through his heart as he looked again at this little wreck of womanhood, going out of a life that had dealt hardly with her; where she had reached for brightness and pleasure, and had found ashes and bitterness instead. Going into a beyond of darkness, hoping, perhaps, for no kindlier hands to greet her than those that had been withheld from her in this world! What would the resurrection mean to a poor little soul like that? What could it mean?

Ah! Perhaps it had not all been her fault! Perhaps there were others who had helped push her down, smug in self-righteousness, to whom the resurrection would be more of a horror than to the pretty, ignorant child whose untaught feet had strayed into forbidden paths! Who knew? He was glad to look up and feel the Presence there! Who knew what might have pa.s.sed between the soul and G.o.d? It was safe to leave that little sinful soul with Him who had died to save. It was good to go out from there knowing that the pretty, sinful girl, the hardened, grizzled sot, the poor old toothless crone, the little hunchback newsboy who lay in the same row, were guarded alike and beloved by the same Presence that would go with him.

Around the little newsboy huddled a group of street gamins, counting out their few pennies, and talking excitedly of how they would buy him some flowers. There were tear-stains down their grimy cheeks and it was plain they were pitying him, they who had perhaps yet to tread the paths of sin and deprivation and sorrow for many long years. And the Presence there! So near them, with the pitying eyes! The young man knew the eyes were pitying! If the children could only see! He felt an impulse to turn back and tell them as he pa.s.sed out into the street, yet how could he make them understand--he who understood so feebly and intermittently himself? He felt a great ache in himself to go out and shout to all the world to look up and see the Presence that was in their midst, and they saw Him not!

He was entirely aware that his present mental state would have seemed to him little short of insanity twenty-four hours before; that it might pa.s.s again as it had done before; and a kind of mental frenzy seized him lest it would. He did not want to lose this a.s.surance of One guiding through a world that was so full of sorrow as this one had recently revealed itself to him to be. And with the world-old anguished "Give me a sign!" the cry of the soul reaching out to the unknown, he spoke aloud once more: "G.o.d, if You are really there, let me find her!"

And yet if any had asked him just then if he ever prayed he would have told them no. Prayer was to him a thing utterly apart from this cry of his soul, this longing for an understanding with G.o.d.