What a Man Wills Part 4

"That is a very short time. I am afraid I can hardly promise that."

"How soon can you make me better?"

"These skin troubles are sometimes lengthy affairs. It will be necessary for you to have a course of treatment. I should like to see Mr--er--your husband, and talk the matter over with him."

But at that Claudia swept forward with a commanding air.

"It is impossible! I forbid it! He does not know that I am here to-day. He must not know! If there is anything to be done, I must do it without his knowledge! I cannot tell him. I dare not tell him: What is it that is wrong with my face? It is only a little rash. _Why do you look at me like that_? For G.o.d's sake say that it won't take long, that it won't get worse; that I shall be able to--_to hide_ it from him; to keep my beauty! _What is the matter_? Why don't you speak? You must tell me. If you know! Whatever it is I _must_ bear it alone! I daren't tell him--he must never know!"

The great doctor turned away his face. His lips moved, once and again, before at last the dread word echoed through the room:

"_Lupus_!"

CHAPTER THREE.

THE GIRL WHO WISHED FOR ADVENTURE.

The girl who had wished for adventure journeyed back to her native village two days after the New Year's party, and spent the following eighteen months in tramping monotonously along a well-worn rut. The only difference made by that oft-remembered conference was in her point of view. Before that date she had sighed for the unattainable; after it, the unattainable became the possible. Some day, if she but waited, opportunity would come; some day the end of a thread would float downward towards her hand, and grasping it, she would be led into a new world! To the best of her power, she cultivated this att.i.tude, and each monotonous month, as it dragged past, added strength to her determination to s.n.a.t.c.h the first opportunity that came her way.

At the end of eighteen months the girl packed up her trunk, and left home to pay a dull visit to a great-aunt.

"Don't expect me to write letters," she said to her family at parting, and the family groaned in chorus, and cried: "Please, don't! It's quite enough for one of us to be victimised. Spare us the echoes of Aunt Eliza! Just send a postcard when you're coming back."

Great-aunt Eliza was a daunting old lady who prided herself upon speaking the truth.

"Goodness! How you have gone off," was the first remark which she hurled at her great-niece's head, after the conventional greetings had been exchanged. She poured out a cup of strong, stewed tea, and offered a slice of leathery m.u.f.fin. "And you used to be quite nice looking!"

Juliet smiled with the laboured brightness of a wallflower in a ballroom, and said, but did not for a moment mean:

"I'm growing old, Aunt Eliza."

"You are, my dear," agreed Aunt Eliza. "Twenty-eight, is it, or twenty-nine? And three other girls at home. Pity you haven't married!

Your father will have precious little to leave."

Juliet, who was twenty-six, and had never had a real definite proposal, smiled more laboriously than before, but the m.u.f.fin tasted bitter as gall.

On the third day of the visit, Aunt Eliza read a letter at the breakfast-table, and said suavely:

"I shall have to curtail your visit, my dear! Cousin Maria Phillips writes that she is in the neighbourhood, and wishes to come over to see me. I can't refuse to receive Maria, but two guests would upset the servants. You must come again later on. Perhaps there are some other friends you would like to visit?"

Juliet replied haughtily that there were many other friends. When would Aunt Eliza wish--

"Oh, there's no hurry. Perhaps to-morrow," said the old lady calmly.

"This afternoon, my dear, I want you to go to the hospital for me. I distribute flowers in the Mary Wright Ward every Thursday, but I have a slight cold to-day, and daren't venture out. Be ready by three, and the brougham will take you there. You can walk home."

At half-past three o'clock, therefore, Juliet entered the long bare stretch of the Mary Wright Ward, dedicated to female surgical cases, and pa.s.sed from bed to bed, distributing little bunches of drooping flowers affixed to little white cards inscribed with texts. The patients accorded but a lukewarm welcome to these offerings, but were unaffectedly pleased to welcome the handsome girl whose coming made a break in the monotonous day. Some of the patients were sitting upright against their pillows, progressed so far towards convalescence as to be able to enjoy a chat; others could only give a wan smile of acknowledgment; at the extreme end of the ward the sight of a screened-off bed told its own sad tale.

The woman in the nearest occupied bed related the story in a stage aside.

"Accident case, brought in this morning. Dying, they think! Run over by a motor in the street. And only a bit of a girl like yourself!

Mumbles a bit at times, delirious-like--nothing you can understand.

There! she's beginning again!"

The sound of the thin, strained voice sent a s.h.i.+ver down Juliet's spine, for there was in it a note which even her unaccustomed ears recognised.

She turned to depart, with the natural shrinking of the young and healthy, but her haste made her careless, and the remaining bunches of flowers tilted out of her basket and rolled along the polished floor.

Those that had fallen the farthest were almost touching the screen, and as Juliet bent to pick them up the mumbled voice seemed suddenly to grow into distinctness.

It was a number that the voice was mumbling; number whispered over and over.

"Eighty-one! ... Eighty-one! ... Grosvenor. Are you there? ...

Eighty-one, are--you--there?"

The mumbling died away, rose again, was lost in groans. Despite the weakness and the haste, the listener realised a quality in the voice which differentiated it from those of the other occupants of the ward.

It was the voice of a woman of education and refinement, a woman belonging to her own cla.s.s.

Juliet s.h.i.+vered, and, clutching her flowers, walked quickly down the ward. Half-way down its length she met the Sister, and put a tentative question, to which was vouchsafed a cool, professional reply:

"Yes. Very sad! Internal injuries. Sinking rapidly. Evidently a girl in good circ.u.mstances."

"Do you know her name--anything about her?"

The Sister shrugged slightly.

"Her clothes are marked 'Alice White,' and she had some American addresses and steams.h.i.+p tickets in her purse. The _Lusitania_ landed her pa.s.sengers this morning. She has said nothing coherent, and, of course, cannot be questioned. The matron is making inquiries--"

At that moment the quiet of the ward was broken by a sound of a cry of terrible import. Juliet quailed before it, and the Sister, darting forward, disappeared behind the screen.

Alas for Alice White, who but a few hours ago had been young and strong, and heedless of disaster! Juliet descended the staircase of the hospital thrilling with horror at the remembrance of that cry, her mind seething with agitated questions. Who was Alice, and who--a thrill of excitement ran through her veins--who was Eighty-one, Grosvenor, with whom the dying girl's thoughts had sought communion?

Grosvenor? That meant London. Alice White, then, had friends in London. Would it not be better to communicate with them, rather than with mere officials in an office?

At the door of the great building, Juliet hesitated and turned from the street as if to retrace her steps. Should she go back to the Mary Wright Ward, tell the Sister what she had overheard, and suggest telephoning forthwith? For a moment the suggestion found favour, then, with her foot outstretched to remount the first step, she drew back and walked rapidly away. In the flash of a moment it had darted into her brain as a crystallised resolution to give her information into no second hand, but to go herself to the nearest call office and ring up Eighty-one Grosvenor. The woman in the nearest bed had spoken of mutterings. The sister had caught no coherent words. If death had immediately followed her own interview, it seemed probable that no one but herself had overheard the number.

Juliet's eyes brightened, and a flush of colour showed in her cheeks.

The information received might be of the driest; the sequel of reporting it to the hospital authorities promised but small excitement; nevertheless, in her uneventful life, small things counted as great, and the touch of uncertainty fired her blood.

She seated herself in the little boxed-off room, and at the end of ten minutes' wait received an affirmative answer to the oft-repeated question.

"Yes. This is Eighty-one, Grosvenor. Who is speaking?"

Though she had waited so long, Juliet was still pondering how to word her inquiries. It seemed useless to mention an unknown name, so on the impulse of the moment she decided to give a simple account of the accident.

"Alice White--" She was about to add--"has been mortally injured," or some such statement, when, cutting swiftly across her words, came a cry of relief from the other end of the wire:

"Alice White! _At last_! We've been expecting to hear from you all day. It's urgent. Why didn't you wire?"

"I--I--" Juliet stammered in confusion, and the voice, a woman's voice, interrupted again, in a sharp, businesslike accent: