CHAPTER XXVI.

SAVED FROM THE RIVER.

WHEN Dr. Arundel turned from seeing his wife on her way, he called a cab, and placing the poor woman and her baby in it, drove quickly to Cromer Street, directing the man to stop at a house near the middle.

His "nurse" was at home, and came directly to the cab door.

"I have brought you another patient," said Dr. Arundel cheerfully; "and a baby this time, too."

The nurse held out her arms for it, and the poor weak mother, after a glance at her kind face, yielded it to her, tottering, however, after her as quickly as she could.

"Give her two or three spoonfuls of beef-tea at once, and get her to bed, and in about twenty minutes I will call in and see how she is."

With an unspoken explanation, which the nurse seemed to comprehend, he turned away to visit another patient near.

The nurse helped the sick woman into the back room, and proceeded to lay the now sleeping babe upon one of the two beds, in the second of which was an elderly woman who was asleep. Everything in the room was the picture of cleanliness; there was a curtain which could be drawn from side to side, and the nurse now noiselessly drew this on its easy rings, and then went into her own room to place a little saucepan of beef-tea on the fire.

Meanwhile the poor woman had sunk on a chair exhausted; the little spark of life which had carried her thus far seemed failing.

"I'll undress you, my dear," said the nurse kindly; "take no trouble, I'll do everything; just sit still, you're too weak to help yourself."

"Indeed I am," moaned the sick woman. "No one knows what I have gone through the last week or two with my poor baby; at last—"

"There, don't talk," said the nurse, noticing the pallor which overspread her face at these words, "you shall tell me everything when you are nicely in bed."

Meanwhile she had been swiftly and tenderly unfastening the poor shabby clothes, and soon her patient was resting in the soft bed, with clean and fresh linen round her, and her own old garments noiselessly removed to the other room, to be seen to and hung up presently.

The nurse returned with the beef-tea, and proceeded to feed her with it spoonful by spoonful.

"How kind you are," she exclaimed, looking up. "Oh, what it is not to hear baby crying!"

"Yes, my dear; now be quiet. See, your baby is quite happy by you, and if it wakes, I'll see to it; don't you fret."

"This is rest," said the woman, giving her aching body up to the sense of repose.

The nurse looked at her fixedly. "My dear," she said, "I ought not to let you go to sleep without saying one word about Him who has given you this rest."

"The doctor?" asked the woman.

"No; better than that; Jesus, the Saviour. You feel helpless enough, don't you? Ill, and weak, and fainting?"

"God knows I do," answered the weary creature.

"Aye, God knows you do! Well, that is just the time when He can take us in hand. 'While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.'"

"I don't care about that," said the woman wearily. "Oh, let me rest!"

The doctor, with his quiet footstep, now stood beside the bed; he had come in, finding the door open.

"My dear," he said kindly, "supposing your rest which you so crave should end in your not waking again—end in death?"

She moved slightly without opening her eyes. "Let me rest," she entreated. "I should have been dead now but for you; so what does it matter when it is?"

"Not if you are content to go to the end of the journey," said the doctor in a tone intended to rouse her. "Where are you going, do you think?"

"I can't think; I only know I meant to take my baby with me, and we should have been together."

"I do not think you would," said the doctor; "but you may be for ever if you like."

"What?" she said.

"Go to be for ever with your child, if both of you look to Jesus."

The woman's dulled senses here failed her, and she fell into a heavy sleep which was almost stupor.

The nurse's and doctor's eyes met.

"We must let her sleep for an hour, and then I shall try to awaken her. How awful it is to see a soul dying without God!"

He went into the other room and sat down, while the nurse quickly cleared up the poor woman's things, and put the kettle on for a cup of tea for her dear doctor, who however sat very silent, his heart rising in imploring supplication that this soul might be plucked as a brand from the burning.

He drank his tea almost in silence, after motioning to the nurse to take hers.

"You will need your strength, I expect," he said, "so eat a good tea."

He asked her a few questions as to other cases she had in her charge, and then they sat silent again; while the doctor drew out his Bible and read it near the window, to catch the remaining light in that dull little street.

By-and-by he looked at his watch, and went into the other room with the nurse. The woman and her babe still slept the sound sleep of the utterly exhausted.

Doctor Arundel poured a little beef-tea, which had been kept warm on the hob, into a teacup, and going to the bedside with it, he began to raise the poor creature's head.

"Let me sleep," she murmured, burying her face deeper in her pillow.

"After you have swallowed this nice beef-tea," said the doctor.

She still resisted obstinately, and he tried another plan. "If you don't take it, as I wish, you will wake your baby up, and what a pity that would be!"

"Oh, don't wake her for the world!" murmured the woman, yielding slightly to their touch.

"Then drink this," urged the doctor, "or she will wake."

So she drank it, and, as he expected, it roused her a little from her dead slumber.

"It is too late for me," she said half to herself, as if continuing something she had been saying in her dream; "I never gave it a thought before, and now it is too late, too late."

Oh the mournful sound of those dreadful words in that plaintive voice!

"If your baby had fallen into the river, and you could pull it out, would you stop on the bank, and say it was 'too late'?" asked the doctor earnestly.

"No!" said the woman. "At least, not if it fell in alone, and I was safe on the shore."

"Supposing it was in a burning house, and you could still rush up the staircase, would you wring your hands at the bottom, and say it was 'too late' to rescue it?"

"No, no!" exclaimed the woman, now fully awake, and turning to clasp her baby to her breast. "No, no, never while I could get to it. My baby! My baby!"

"Ah, then, it is not too late for you. You are drowning, you are in a burning house; but Jesus has come to seek you, to save you. Oh, stretch out your arms to Him now, my dear! Do, or you will be lost."

The woman looked in the face of her babe earnestly and longingly, with unspeakable yearning, and at last she whispered, "Did you say we might be separated after all?"

"Indeed you might. There is only blessedness with Jesus, and if you will not believe He died for your sins, if you will not look to Him to save you, you can never go to be with Him, where I hope your baby will go."

The woman still clasped her child, but did not answer. She was thinking deeply, with what little power of thought she had left.

"When He was on earth," resumed the doctor, "He took such little babies as yours up in His arms, and said He should like to have them with Him in heaven."

"Did He?" said the poor woman. "Was He ever fond of little babies?"

"He was indeed, and He loves you and your baby so much that He died to save you."

"It was kind of Him," she said dreamily; "let me rest now."

She sank down again, and the exhausted frame was once more at rest in profound slumber, nor did she even wake when her baby stirred; but the nurse gently withdrew the tiny little thing from her arms, and took it into her own room, where she fed it, and washed it, and made it more comfortable than its poor sick and poverty-stricken mother had been able to do for many a long day.

Meanwhile Dr. Arundel had left, promising to return by-and-by.

The nurse then took the babe back, laid it by the side of its sleeping mother, and afterwards went to her other patient, and told her a little of what she had gathered of the young woman's history.

She had explained to Dr. Arundel in the cab that her husband had died two or three months ago, and that ever since she had been struggling with poverty and ill health, until at length she had been forced to abandon what little work she could find, and begin the downward road of selling her things one by one to obtain food. At last illness and starvation had deprived her of all hope, and she had given herself up to utter despair.

"And no wonder," added the nurse; "for what must such a life be without God to trust in?"

They spoke low, and so the evening hours passed away, and it grew on to ten o'clock.

The nurse was sitting silent watching the dying woman, when she perceived that she had opened her eyes, and was looking at her earnestly.

"You shall have some beef-tea," she said, rising and fetching it, without attending to the woman's shake of the head.

"Just a mouthful to please me," she said as she held it to the white lips.

The woman was going to refuse, but altered her mind, and took it. She seemed very grave, but there was a clear look about her eyes which the nurse had not seen since her arrival.

"I have not been asleep all the time," she said in a whisper; "I have been thinking about the Saviour that held the little babies."

"Have you?" said the nurse. "And what about Him, my dear?"

"I have been telling Him I should like Him to take care of my little baby when I am gone. Do you think He will?"

"I'm quite sure of it."

"Are you?" she asked, her eyes full of the deepest longing. "You cannot know how awful it is to me to think of her being taken to the workhouse!"

"If you tell Jesus about it, He will see to her."

"I have told Him; but, oh, I deserve it all! Did you know, did I tell you, if I had not fainted, or been brought here, I and my baby would be lying now in the cold, dark river? Think of that!"

"Dreadful," said the nurse, shuddering; "but you are sorry now, my dear?"

"Very sorry," said the poor creature, her eyes filling with long dried-up tears; "I hope He'll forgive me."

"He will, He will," said the nurse earnestly. "He gave His own life to save you, and to bring you to God."

The poor woman was silent and exhausted; and then suddenly she leant towards the nurse, and seizing her hand, kissed it over and over again.

"I am going, I think," she said feebly, falling back, "but you said He died to save me; will He save me after I have been so wicked? How can He love me?"

"He loved you before you felt yourself wicked. Oh, trust Him!"

The woman looked upwards. "I will," she said; "for I have no one else; and please, dear Saviour, take care of my poor little child."

Again she appeared to become unconscious, but the nurse and the other patient, who had also been listening to and praying for her, rejoiced with the angels over the repenting sinner.

About half-past ten Dr. Arundel came in, and after feeling her pulse and examining her features closely, took a chair by the bedside and waited. The slight touch of his fingers, however, roused her again, and she spoke to the nurse in a painful whisper, "I can't breathe; do put me up higher."

The nurse raised her, and placed more pillows at her back.

"Let me hold my baby once more," she gasped; and the nurse quickly and kindly obeyed, placing the little creature in the poor trembling arms.

"She is not hungry now?" asked the mother, looking up with imploring eyes.

"Oh, no! She has been washed and fed. See how much better she looks," said the nurse.

The poor woman bent over her and kissed her passionately; then laid her face against the little head and wept tears of anguish. "I can't leave her," she sobbed; "I never can leave her, and yet I must!"

"Do you remember," said the nurse soothingly, "you were going to trust her to Jesus? He loves her."

The woman listened; she relaxed her passionate hold, though still clasping her babe tenderly and protectingly.

"I remember now," she answered; "and as He has loved me, He'll love her! Yes; I can leave her to Him."

She hid her face again in the tiny little bosom, and sobbed as if her heart would break; but the listeners knew that the weeping was submissive this time, and they rejoiced that the loving Saviour was gently bringing the weary sheep home to the fold.

"The way is rough," said the doctor, turning to the nurse; "but, oh, the glory!"

"I have a message for you about your baby, if you can bear it," he said to the poor creature.

"Yes," she said faintly.

"A dear young lady who loves the Lord Jesus has offered to take care of her, feed her, and clothe her, and bring her up happily, and teach her about heaven, where you will be."

The woman once more kissed her baby passionately; and they heard her murmur words of thanksgiving over its little head. "He's so good, baby," she whispered, "so kind; He's given you a home, and my child must love Him, and thank Him, and come to mother some day, because He died to save us both."

They were her last words; for she seemed to fall asleep with her child still on her bosom; but after a little while they saw she had gone "home," and was with "the multitude whom no man can number, who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

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