The Purchase Price Part 17

He pursed a lip as he gazed down over his steel bowed gla.s.ses. "I ought to get back, my dear, because I have other patients, don't you see, and it's a long ride. Why can't you let me go? You're young and healthy as a wild deer. You're a perfectly splendid girl. Why, you'll be out of this in a couple of weeks. How did you happen to fall that way?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Why can't you let me go?]

She nodded toward the window. "I fell out--there--I was frightened."

"Yes, yes, of course--sleep walking, eh?"

Jamieson took snuff very vigorously. "Don't do it again. But pshaw! If I were as young and strong as you are, I'd have my arm broken twice a week, just for fun."

"Doctor, you're going!" she exclaimed. "But you must do something for me--you must be my friend."

"Certainly, my dear, why not? But how can I help you? Dunwody's pledged me to professional secrecy, you know." He grinned, "Not that even Warv' Dunwody can run me very much."

He looked down at her, frowning, but at that moment turned to the door as he heard Dunwody's step.

"How do you find the patient, Doctor?" asked Dunwody. Jamieson moved a hand in cheerful gesture to his patient.

"Good-by, my dear. Just get well, now. I'm coming back, and then we'll have a talk. Be good, now, and don't walk in your sleep any more." He took Dunwody by the shoulder and led him out.

"I don't like this, Dunwody," he said, when they were out of earshot of the room. "What's going on here? I'm your doctor, as we both know; but I'm your friend, too. And we both know that I'm a gentleman, and you ought to be. That's a lady there. She's in trouble--she's scared e'en a'most to death. Why? Now listen. I don't help in that sort of work, my boy. What's up here? I've helped you before, and I've held your secrets; but I don't go into the business of making any more secrets, d'ye see?"

"There aren't going to be any more, Jamieson," rejoined Dunwody slowly. "I've got to keep hers. You needn't keep mine if you don't feel like it. Get her well, that's all. This is no place for her. As for me, as you know very well, there isn't any place anywhere for me."

The old doctor sighed. "Brace up to it, my son. But play the game fair. If it comes to a case of being kind to yourself or kind to a woman, why, take a gamble, and try being kind to the woman. They need it. I'm coming back: but now I must be getting on. First, I'm going to get something to eat. Where's the whisky?"

Dunwody for the time left him, and began moodily to pace apart, up and down the gallery. Here presently he was approached by Jeanne, the maid.

"Madame will speak to you!" announced that person loftily, and turned away scornfully before he had time to reply. Eager, surprised, he hastened up the stair and once more was at her bedside. "Yes?" he said. "Did you wish me for anything?"

Josephine pushed herself back against the head board of the bed, half supported by pillows. With her free hand she attempted to put back a fallen lock of dark hair. It was not care for her personal appearance which animated her, however, although her costume, arranged by her maid, now was that of the sick chamber. "Jeanne,"

she said, "go to the armoire, yonder. Bring me what you find there. Wait," she added to Dunwody. "I've something to show you, something to ask you, yes."

Jeanne turned, over her arm now the old and worn garments which Sally earlier had attempted to remove.

"What are these?" exclaimed Josephine of the man who stood by.

He made no reply, but took the faded silks in his own hands, looking at them curiously, as though he himself saw something unexpected, inexplicable.

"What are they, sir? Whose were they? You told me once you were alone here."

"I am," he answered. "Look. These are years old, years, years old."

"What are they? Whose were they?" she reiterated.

"They are grave clothes," he said simply, and looked her in the face. "Do you wish to know more?"

"Is she--was she--is she out there?" He knew she meant to ask, in the graveyard of the family.

"Why do you wish to know?" he inquired quietly. "Is it because you are a woman?"

"I am here because I am a woman. Well, then."

He looked at her, still silently, for a time. "She is dead," he said slowly. "Can't you let her lie dead?"

"No. Is she out there? Tell me."

"No."

"Is she dead? Who was she?"

"I have told you, I am alone here. I have told you, I've been alone, all my life, until you came. Isn't that enough?"

"Yes, you've said that; but that was not the truth."

"It depends upon what you mean by the truth."

"The man who could do what you have done with me would not stop at anything. How could I believe a word you said?" Then, on the instant, much as she had cause to hate him, she half regretted her speech. She saw a swift flush spring to his cheek under the thin florid skin. He moved his lips, but did not speak. It was quite a while before he made reply.

"That isn't just," he said quietly. "I wouldn't lie to you, not even to get you. If that's the way you feel about me, I reckon there couldn't, after all, be much between us. I've got all the sins and faults of the world, but not just that one. I don't lie."

"Then tell me."

"No. You've not earned it. What would be the use, if you didn't believe what I said?"

He held up the faded things before his eyes, turning them over calmly, looking at them directly, unshrinkingly. She could not read what was in his mind. Either he had courage or long accustomedness, she thought.

"I asked Sally," she half smiled.

"Yes?"

"And I'll ask her again. I don't want--I can't have, a--a room which belongs to another woman, which has belonged to another.

I've not, all my life, been used to--that sort of place, myself, you see."

"You are ent.i.tled to first place. Madam, wherever you are. I don't know what you have been." He pointed to her own garments, which lay across a chair. "You don't know what she has been;" he indicated these that he held in his hand. "Very well. What could a mere liar, a coward, do to arrange an understanding between two women so mysterious? You sprang from the earth, from the sea, somewhere, I do not know how. You are the first woman for me. Is it not enough?"

"I told Sally, it might have been a sister, your mother--"

"Dead long ago. Out there." He nodded to the window.

"Which?" she demanded.

He turned to her full now, and put out a hand, touching the coverlid timidly almost. "You are ill," he said. "Your eyes s.h.i.+ne. I know. It's the fever. It isn't any time now for you to talk. Besides, until you believe me, I can not talk with you any more. I've been a little rough, maybe, I don't know; but as G.o.d made this world, those trees, that sun yonder, I never said a word to you yet that wasn't true. I've never wanted of you what wasn't right, in my own creed. Sometimes we have to frame up a creed all for ourselves, don't you know that? The world isn't always run on the same lines everywhere. It's different, in places."

"Will you tell me all about it--about her, sometime?"

"If you are going away, why should you ask that? If you are going to be nothing to me, in all the world, what right have you to ask that of me? You would not have the right I've had in speaking to you as I have. That was right. It was the right of love. I love you! I don't care if all the world knows it. Let that girl there hear if she likes. I've said, we belong together, and it seems truth to me, the very truth; yes, and the very right itself. But some way, we hurt each other, don't we? Look at you, there, suffering. My fault. And I'd rather it had cost me a limb than to see you hurt that way. It cuts my heart. I can't rest over it.

And you hurt me, too, I reckon, about as bad as anything can.

Maybe you hurt me more than you know. But as to our rights to anything back of the curtain that's before us, before your life and mine, why, I can't begin until something else has begun. It's not right, unless that other is right, that I've told you. We belong together in the one big way, first. That's the premise. That's the one great thing. What difference about the rest, future or past?"