CHAPTER III.
DR. WINTHROP BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH SALOME.
Meantime, how fared it with the heroic young nurse, who had so trustfully surrendered herself into the hands of Dr. Hunt, and sacrificed so much to save the life of another?
Pale as a snow-flake, and weak as an infant from the loss of blood, of which the physician, in his eagerness to make sure of the life he was trying to save, had taken a more generous supply than was perhaps wise—she lay in a large sunny room, tenderly cared for by an efficient nurse, and closely and anxiously watched by Dr. Hunt.
She did not rally as rapidly as he had hoped and expected; her blood did not make as fast as it ought to have done, under the nourishing diet and judicious treatment that she was receiving, and the good man was greatly troubled as well as puzzled.
It pained him deeply, and kept him wretchedly anxious to see her lying there day after day so languid and weak; so spiritless and nerveless—all her natural energy and vigor apparently exhausted.
“What am I going to do with you, my girl, if you do not hurry up and get back your strength?” Dr. Hunt asked her one morning, with an assumed playfulness which he was far from feeling, and experiencing something very like a sense of guilt beneath the heavy glance of Salome’s great eyes. “I can hardly forgive myself for having robbed you of your strength.”
“Pray, do not regret your experiment, since it has proved such a success,” the young girl began.
“I shall not account it a success if it should result in prolonged injury to you,” he interrupted gravely.
“Oh, it will not,” she answered, trying to speak reassuringly; “I shall soon be better. I do not suffer; I am only a little weak. But how is he—your patient—to-day?” she added, drooping her heavily fringed lids, while she nervously toyed with her handkerchief.
“He is doing excellently,” Dr. Hunt answered with animation, for he had been jubilant over the success of his experiment. “So well,” he added, “that he is going to leave the hospital to-morrow.”
“To-morrow!” breathed Salome, in a startled tone, a faint flush leaping to her waxen cheek, while her heart began to flutter strangely.
“Yes; it is ten days since he began to rally, and he has improved very rapidly; but I am afraid he has drawn heavily upon your vitality, my child,” the physician concluded with a sigh.
Salome smiled slightly; for she realized, if Dr. Hunt did not, something of the secret of her present weakness; for while she lay upon that other cot beside that noblelooking man, her whole soul had been concentrated upon the one thought of giving him life.
“Take the best, the very best that I can give—only let him live!” had been her continuous prayer as she watched every compression of the bulb which had served to pump her life-current into his veins, until it had seemed to her as if she had literally willed and infused her strength and vigor into him.
“Never mind,” she said, with a quick upward glance, in which he seemed to read a gleam of exultation, “it will soon come again, and—I am very glad.”
There was so much of self-abnegation in what she said, that Dr. Hunt felt a suspicious moisture filling his eyes.
“You are the noblest girl I ever knew,” he said, with evident emotion. Then he added, with an effort at self-control: “But Dr. Winthrop begs the favor of an interview with you that he may personally express his gratitude for the inestimable gift you have bestowed upon him. I was commissioned to ask if you would receive him to-day—that is, if you feel able. Or,” as he studied her downcast face critically, “shall I tell him to wait until you are stronger?”
He was at a loss how to explain her case; he could not understand it; it baffled him.
He reasoned that, strong and vigorous as her constitution naturally was, she should have rallied at once; that a couple of weeks, at the most, should have served to put her where she was before. But nearly two weeks had already elapsed, and she had scarcely strength to turn on her pillow, while, strangest of all, she expressed no anxiety or impatience to get well and go about her duties again.
Could he have read her heart, he would have been puzzled no longer. Could he have known that from the moment when he had led her to the young physician’s side, when she had looked into his face, and realized at a glance the kind of man he was—could he have known that as he was pumping the blood from her veins into his, all the finest and tenderest sensibilities of her nature were being absorbed in him, that henceforth she would feel herself a part of him, that life away from him would never hold any charm for her—he might not have wondered at her present condition; it would have explained everything to him, and then, perhaps, he might have felt that he was responsible for a broken heart as well as an impaired constitution.
Strange as this may seem in a girl of such mental strength as Salome Howland, it was nevertheless true.
She realized that she was no longer her own, that she had given herself with her life-blood to another, and that other a stranger whom she had seen but once, whom perhaps she might never see again, who—dreadful thought!—for aught she knew might already be the husband of another.
She felt shamed, humiliated, terrified, when she awoke to a consciousness of such sentiments as these. Shamed and humiliated, because she had been so weak as to give her love unsought, and found that she had no power to rise above it; terrified because of the miserable blank that seemed to lie before her, if this man were destined to vanish as suddenly out of her life as he had come into it. How could she live with the mainspring of life—love—thus rudely wrenched out of her being forever?
This was why she had no incentive, no real desire to recover—why the duties which hitherto had been the chief object of her life had suddenly lost their charm and interest.
This, too, was why, when Dr. Hunt told her that Dr. Winthrop desired an interview, she was oppressed by a sudden sense of guilt, which caused her head to droop and the conscious color to leap to her very brow in a hot crimson tide.
Her judgment told her that it would be better to deny him the interview, for to see him again would only serve to intensify the sudden and, as she believed, hopeless passion that had taken possession of her.
Yet, in opposition to this, a feeling of ecstasy thrilled her at the thought of being again in his presence—his living, conscious presence; of meeting the glance of his eyes—brown, black, or blue, she knew not which; or hearing the tones of his voice and, perchance, feeling the touch of his hand—that hand which, but for her, would now have been cold and rigid in death.
“Only for once,” she told herself. Just once she would see him and listen to his voice, and then she would hide the memory of it in the depths of her heart to live upon during all the lonely future which must now lie before her.
“Yes, I will see him to-day,” she said to Dr. Hunt, with a little quiver of her delicate lips; “only please ask him not to speak of—gratitude.”
“Of course he will speak of gratitude, dear child,” returned the physician. “Pray do not deny him that slight return when you have given him the most precious boon this side of heaven, and at such a sacrifice, too.”
Salome flushed again, but of course she could not argue the question further, and Dr. Hunt remarked, as he turned to leave the room:
“You may look for a call from my other patient between two and three this afternoon.”
All day, after that, the nurse who cared for her wondered if it was simply excitement that caused that delicate sea-shell pink to linger in the cheeks of the fair invalid and her eyes to gleam with a light such as she had never seen in them before.
At half-past two there came a tap on Salome’s door, and the next moment Dr. Hunt, followed by Dr. Winthrop, entered the room.
The physician led his companion directly to his patient, saying in his frank, hearty fashion:
“This, my young friend, is the noble girl who rendered you such valuable service a while ago. Miss Howland, allow me to introduce Dr. Winthrop to you.”
A queer little smile wreathed Dr. Hunt’s lips as he performed this ceremony, while his kind eyes rested admiringly upon the fair invalid before him.
Hitherto, he had seen Salome in her plain dark dress only, with her nurse’s cap and apron, and he had thought her very attractive in that simple garb; but now she appeared strikingly beautiful, despite her pallor and loss of flesh.
In anticipation of the call, the young girl had sent her nurse to her room, to bring a pretty crimson cashmere wrapper, which had lain unused in her trunk ever since her admission to the hospital.
It was beautifully made and richly trimmed with quilted satin of the same shade, and there were full ruchings at the throat and wrists of finest Valenciennes lace. The dress was extremely becoming to her complexion, with her dark hair and eyes, and she certainly was a lovely vision, with the delicate flush still on her cheeks and that gleam of light in her eyes.
“There is certainly some mystery about this girl,” said Dr. Hunt to himself. “She was never intended for a nurse in a common hospital, in spite of her peculiar adaptation to such work; there is some peculiar reason for her being here, or I am greatly mistaken. I’d wager a round sum that she belongs, or has belonged, to some wealthy and aristocratic family.”
“What a perfectly lovely girl!” was Dr. Winthrop’s mental observation, as he went forward and bent over and clasped Salome’s white hand, a thrill of reverence and gratitude stirring his heart.
She raised her eyes to his as she greeted him, and looking into those deep blue orbs, so kind, so frank, so genial, she read there something of the man’s nobility of soul, something of his grand and lofty character, and a feeling of exultation took possession of her.
“My blood flows in his veins—my life mingles with his! I have saved this man from death!” was the glad thought that leaped to her brain, sending a deeper flush to her cheeks, a brighter light into her expressive eyes. Was there some peculiar magnetism in the mutual clasp of their hands?
There might or might not have been—no one can tell; but the fact remains that during that brief interval, in that simple touch, in that one swift glance, soul met soul, heart spoke to heart, and each was conscious that a vital change had suddenly come over their lives; that the hitherto quiet and undisturbed pool in the depths of their nature had been agitated by some unseen spirit, and the ripples widening into ever-increasing circles would influence all their future.
Was it the magnetism—the spirit of love?
All this was concentrated into a moment of time; the next Salome’s eyes drooped beneath the earnest, admiring look of her companion, and the color mounted to her temples.
The young man noticed her embarrassment and gently released her hand, which he found himself holding in a closer clasp than was warrantable in a total stranger.
“Miss Howland,” he said, in tones that trembled with emotion, “I am deeply moved by this meeting and all the thoughts it arouses, and I find myself tongue-tied before you, when I should be eloquent from gratitude and admiration.”
“Pray, do not magnify a simple duty,” Salome began, lifting an appealing glance to him.
“A simple duty!” he repeated, interrupting her. “It was a priceless gift that you bestowed upon me—I feel it a debt that I can never repay.”
“Do not say that,” she returned, looking slightly troubled. Then she added with a smile and a glance that made his heart leap, “a free gift can never become a debt, so please do not be longer burdened, Dr. Winthrop.”
“Heaven bless you, Miss Howland,” the young man said, leaning toward her, and speaking with evident effort. “I see that you are sensitive upon the subject of my obligation,” he added, “but just let me tell you that henceforth my life will be doubly precious, since something of the life of so noble a woman is mingled with it, and I shall treasure the memory of your lofty deed as the most sacred of all memories. Now tell me that you are really better to-day, for if my strength has been restored at the permanent sacrifice of yours I fear it will be a perpetual burden upon my conscience.”
“Yes, I am better,” Salome answered brightly. “Truly, I feel stronger this afternoon. If,” with a shy smile and a saucy little nod at the elder physician “if Dr. Hunt would not make quite such a baby of me, I believe I should get about my duties more quickly.”
“Baby, indeed!” retorted the good doctor, “when people have only the pulse of a baby they must be treated accordingly; eh, Winthrop?”
He came forward as he spoke and laid his skilled fingers upon her wrist.
But it was no baby’s pulse that he counted then!
Her blood was rushing at a racehorse speed through her veins, and the man regarded her with a curious glance, while he marvelled at her almost bewildering beauty, heightened as it was by the brilliant flush on her cheeks and the light in her eyes.
“I trust that Miss Howland will be patient and allow herself to be properly cared for until she entirely recovers her strength,” Dr. Winthrop gravely remarked, while his glance lingered wistfully upon her face.
“We shall have her in a fever if we subject her to too much excitement,” Dr. Hunt remarked, with his fingers still upon her bounding pulse, “so, Winthrop, if you please, we will not prolong our call to-day.”
The young physician arose at once.
“I hope we have not already taxed your strength too much by this interview, Miss Howland?” he said regretfully. “I shall be in Boston for two or three weeks longer, and, if you will allow me—if I shall not intrude, it would give me pleasure to call upon you again and see for myself how you are. Believe me, I shall not know a moment’s peace until you are entirely recovered.”
“You are very kind, Dr. Winthrop,” Salome responded, with downcast eyes and a rapidly beating heart, “and I shall be glad to see you if you care to come again.”
“Thank you,” he heartily returned; then, after a handclasp in farewell, he followed Dr. Hunt from the room.
“What an exquisitely beautiful girl!” he exclaimed, as they passed down the long corridor together, “she is an entirely different person from what I imagined from your description of her.”
“Hum! I didn’t know she was quite so pretty myself until to-day,” said Dr. Hunt reflectively. “I’ve never seen her in anything but the hospital uniform before—perhaps that’s the reason.”
“Is she obliged to make nursing her business?” inquired the younger man.
“I suppose so; at least, I imagine she is obliged to do something for her own support, and perhaps, having a love for this profession, she chose it in preference to anything else.”
Dr. Winthrop looked thoughtful, but did not speak again until they reached Dr. Hunt’s office, when he took leave of him, and departed to meet his friend, Dr. Cutler, and begin his tour of investigation in the different institutions of the city.
Two days later he made another call upon Salome, and thought her somewhat better.
He chatted nearly an hour, and was surprised to find her as cultivated mentally as she was beautiful personally.
He took pains to draw her out, and Salome, delighted to find her companion so genial and interesting, forgot herself and was really charming.
“She is far too lovely to bury herself in a sick-room—nursing is too hard, too thankless a task for one so gifted, mentally and physically, as she,” the young man mused as he left her.
The next morning a basket of luscious fruit and a great cluster of Maréchal Niel roses found their way to Salome’s room, and in the midst of the latter, she discovered a card bearing the name of “T. H. Winthrop, M. D.”
She seemed greatly changed from the sad-eyed, grave-faced girl who had applied for entrance to the hospital as a nurse on that dismal November day. She was brighter and more animated in her manner; there was always a happy smile on her lips, a brilliant, almost joyous light in her eyes, and yet she did not seem to gain strength. The slightest exertion set her panting like a frightened hare. If she attempted to walk from her bed to her chair she would be exhausted, almost fainting from the effort, and Dr. Hunt was greatly exercised over her peculiar symptoms.
“If this experiment of mine should develop an affection of the heart, I should find it hard to forgive myself for having taken her blood,” he muttered one day on leaving her, after imagining that he had detected signs of such a disorder.
Dr. Winthrop went almost every day to see her, and always with some dainty offering of fruit or flowers, or perchance some entertaining book or periodical—these latter were often productive of an interesting discussion—and when he was unable to pay his usual call, he sent some reminder of himself.
Salome was very generous with these gifts, and shared them with many a suffering patient, but she was never without some bud or spray of these precious mementos in her hands or on her breast, while every day she became more and more conscious that she was growing to love the giver even to the verge of idolatry.
She would not, however, allow herself to analyze her feelings, though she was now and then smitten with a consciousness of approaching sorrow or danger. She simply lived from day to day in the joyful expectation of his coming, and the delight of his presence, without questioning the wisdom of thus bestowing the wealth of her love upon him, or what life would be to her when he should return to his home and practice in New York.
One day he told her that he was to spend the whole of the coming week in that hospital, to witness two or three critical operations and their subsequent treatment.
Salome’s heart leaped with sudden joy.
For a whole week she was to live beneath the same roof with him, and see him every day, perhaps oftener.
The rich color surged up over her face, and her lips quivered in a tender smile.
“After that,” added Dr. Winthrop with an unconscious sigh, “I must go home to my duties.”
A sudden blindness, a sense of dizziness, rushed over her as she realized what his departure would mean to her. For the first time she fully comprehended how blank, how devoid of all that could make life desirable to her the world would be when he should be gone. A deadly paleness overspread her features, she gasped once or twice, and then sank quietly back in her chair, where she lay without life or motion, like some beautiful spirit from another world.