An Unwilling Guest (28 page)

Evelyn's white face attracted her father's attention during the trip to the meeting. They were in a crowded car and were separated, but her large eyes had a restless, unsteady fire in them that made him uneasy. They had a few steps to walk after getting out of the car and he asked
her if she was quite well and still felt equal to a meeting. She answered that she was quite well, scarcely knowing what she said. Indeed, she seemed to herself to be walking thro
ugh a strange, unknown land, al
ways with that whitewashed room before her and the Chinaman stretched on the bed beside the man who was writing. Her eyes felt hot and dry, and seemed as if they were burning the lids when she let them close a moment as they came into the bright church.

They were late. The meeting had already begun. The church was crowded. The heat was intense, though outside it had been clear and coo
l. A place was made for the new
comers back by the door. Evelyn did not seem to see the throng of people before her, she was looking straight through them, miles and miles over land and sea, watching every moment for the creeping diabolical fiends to rush about that white room. She could see the man stop his writing and bend over to attend to the patient. She knew the very tenderness of his touch and the gentleness of his voice. She could see the earnest gaze of the sick man and knew he was judging the
Saviour
by his physician. Then quick to her watch again. She could see them now, those devils, stealing through the dark. There was singing all about her. Her hand held one side of her father's book,
but she did not know it. Her eyes were fixed upon the dark objects. There were so many of them and they were coming now so much fast
er since it was all still. Some
one was praying, thanking God for his martyrs; ah, that word, he was martyr as well as hero, sitting there so quietly with death standing at the door. They were a great mass outside now, and were yelling, and what was that? A shot! She saw him fall, and the ball seemed to go through her own heart. She fell back in her father's arms.

It was all confusion of kindness in a moment. They bore her out to the air and o
ffered various assistance. Some
one called a carriage and they took her gently home. A doctor who had been in the meeting went with them. She had come to herself just a moment. The young man kept his finger on the pulse. He talked to Mr. Rutherford about the meeting and the mission work, and confided his own desire to go out on the field. The father scarcely heard. He had sent for Doctor
Atlee. He did not trust these young, inexperienced graduates. He was glad when the ride was ended and they had placed the still, white girl on her own bed.

Then began the reign of white-capped skillful nurses while Evelyn lay in the grip of fever and knew naught of what went on about her. Always there was that same tragedy to be acted over and over again. He loved her—and he was there—ahead of her—in danger—and she could not save him—and then that shot!

"I want to bring a former colleague of mine in to look at her," said Doctor Atlee, as he drew on his gloves one morning preparatory to leaving. "It is almost
time
for the crisis and with your permission I will let him watch her through. He is exceedingly skillful in such cases. I would trust him as myself. I cannot be here so const
antly as I would like, and someone should be within call to
night"

"Certainly," said the grave father. "Anything you think best, doctor. We trust you, you know." There was something almost pitifully wistful in the fathe
r's appeal to the doctor's skill.

"I count it a Providence that he is here at this time," went on the doctor. "He just arrived by a roun
dabout way from China this morn
ing. He was for going to his people in t
he West at once, but I have per
suaded him to wait over and help me f
or a few days. He has had a mar
velous experience among the Boxers; was saved as by a miracle after they thought him dead. He was nursed by an old Chinese whose child he had saved from blindness and smuggled out of the country by an unusual route and he has just lan
ded in New York. You will be in
terested in talking to him. Good-morning."

"Ah, indeed," said Mr. Rutherford
dryly. He did not wish to be im
polite to the great doctor, but he did not wish to hear any more of Boxers or missionaries. Was it not a missionary meeting that was the cause of Evelyn's sickness? This he firmly believed.

W
hat! Here?" said the younger doctor as the carriage stopped. "Not Evelyn Rutherford?" and there was something startling in his voice which made Doctor Atlee look at him curiously.

"Why, yes. Do you know her? Didn't I mention the name before?"

"Yes, I know her," answered Doctor Grey, his voice under perfect control but his face white and anxious as he tried to recall everything the doctor had said about the case. Th
ere was very little hope. He re
membered that. And it was an "obscure case."

It was with his own quiet manner that he entered the sick-room and looked with grave eyes at the wasted face of the beautiful girl. Her eyes were bright and restless and she seemed not to see what was going on about her.

He laid his
practiced
finger on her wrist. For one instant her eye seemed to be caught by his, and then the restless tossing went on and a low, inarticulate moaning.

Doctor Grey studied the nurse's chart carefully.

"Her pulse is very irregular," he said in a low voice to Doctor Atlee, and then bent his head to listen to her heart. The soft rattle of thin paper caught his ear as he bent down to listen. He stepped back and called the nurse. "What is this pape
r, nurse? I cannot hear well be
cause of the rattle."

"It is a letter, doctor, which she put there when she was first taken. She will not let us touch it
.
It makes her so much worse that we have left it there."

"It must come out for a little," he said. "Let me try."

"Miss Rutherford." He spoke in
a quiet tone which usually com
manded attention. She fixed her bright eyes on his face.

"I want to move this letter for a moment," he said, still in the same firm voice. "I will put it back."

Whether she comprehended anything or not she did not stir her eyes
from his face as he gently took the little parcel which the nurse had wrapped in a soft white handkerchief when she found that the letter must be left in its hiding-place. He laid it beside the pillow where it could be easily given back and went on with his examination of the heart. At last he raised his head.

"I will stay," he said to Doctor Atlee, his professional unreadable mask on; but Doctor Atlee thought he detected a strange tremble to the usually firm voice.

He did not leave her side. The night came on. The father and brother came in and wrung the hand of the watching doctor with grave welcome, but daring not to ask a question. T
hey had heard of his won
derful rescue by this time, but it was no time to speak of rescues. Death as grim, if not so horrible, stood waiting to snatch another dear one from them. They went out and each strong man sobbed in the silence of his room. They knew as if by instinct that the crisis was at hand.

There settled upon the household
the hush of expectancy which al
ways comes when the last hope has been tried and the dear one seems to be slipping, slipping into the beyond.

The new doctor was very particular, the day nurse told the night nurse. He did everything himself and seemed to think no one else knew how.

As the evening drew toward midnight he did not leave the bedside nor take his eyes from Evelyn's face. She was sleeping now and had been for several hours. They would soon know whether it was a sleep unto life or death. He had given orders that the father and brother be near at hand that they might be instantly called if there was any change. As the hands of his watch neared the hour when he expected to see a change of some sort he signed to the nurse to go and prepare some nourishment which had been previously ordered. She had scarcely slipped from the room when the great eyes opened and fixed
themselves upon the doctor with what looked to him like recognition. They seemed to light with a sudden joy:

"Is this heaven?" she asked in the thin, high-keyed voice of those
who are almost over the border
land. There was wonder and delight in her tone.

"No, dear, this is your own room," he answered gently, his heart sinking.

A shadow of disappointment seemed to cross her face. She made a quick motion to her breast as if she had remembered something and found it gone. He divined her intention and put in her hand the letter still wrapped in the handkerchief as the nurse had laid it by, but she did not seem to recognize it. Her hand kept fumbling for the letter where she had placed it, an agonized expression coming into the great, hollow eyes.

"My letter! Was it all a dream? You wrote me a letter sitting by the sick man in the little whitewashe
d room, and the Boxers were com
ing!" she said.

He was unfolding the handkerchief to show her the letter, but he started suddenly and almost lost his professional control of himself until he remembered the great necessity for care. With a superhuman effort he steadied his voice to reply as he spread his own letter before her eyes and his own astonished ones.

"Yes, darling! It is all true. The letter is here and I wrote it." His voice steadied as he spoke with the great love for her that was in his heart.

He was calling her that dear name at last as naturally as if he had always been allowed the precious privilege and had not been longing for it for months, yes, and years. But in this supreme moment no thought of it came to him. She was dying, perhaps, but she loved him. He loved her and he would save her if he could. She must be quiet.

The nurse came in with the nourishment and he gave her some.

"You must not talk," he said. "You must sleep. You have been ill"

"But you were dead," said Evelyn, her eyes still upon his face.

"No, I did not die. I am well and here, and now you must sleep and get well. Then I will tell you all about it."

She half smiled and said, "Kiss me," as a child would say it to its mother.

He stooped and kissed the white forehead, much to the amazement of the nurse, who could not understand this strange doctor and disapproved entirely of so much conversation.

Evelyn smiled and closed her eyes obediently, then opened them again and made a little groping motion with her hand.

He sat down beside her and held the wasted hand in his own. She smiled again and fell asleep as gently and naturally as a little child.

But the watcher, when he had dismissed the nurse by a sign to the other end of the room, sat immovable, scarcely daring to breathe. Gradually the truth was dawning upon him. It was his letter. He had known it at once. But how did it get here, since he had never placed it in the crack between the two stones as it said? The shot had taken him unaware. He had fallen near the sick man's cot, and the old faithful servant hurrying in had dragged him beneath the Chinaman's bed and hastily spread the bedclothes so that they would hide him as he lay. Then the faithful Chinese friend had go
ne out and told how all the for
eign devils and the secondary foreign devils had fled to Peking and left only a poor old Chinaman who was lying very ill with his heart cut out, and begged that they would keep that quarter as quiet for his sake as possible. When they learned who it was that was sick and had sent a representative to look inside, who found it was true, they went away most marvelously and left them, so that after a few hours the faithful old cook dared to bring out his beloved doctor and friend and hide him in a little loft over the kitchen, where under careful directions he had dressed the wound and nursed him back to some degree of strength, and then smuggled him by night in strange ways until he found assistance to reach home. But the letter! How did it get to America? It must have fallen on the floor when he was shot. He had questioned the cook, but he said he knew nothing of it and supposed it must
have been destroyed. A wave of thanksgiving went up from the heart of the young doctor that God had taken the matter out of his hands and sent the letter in spite of
him, since it had come to a wel
come here.

But his face remained the same, as t
he nurse from her post of obser
vation from time to time glanced tha
t way. He did not change his po
sition. He held close the small white
hand, though the breathing con
tinued steadily on and the sleeper did not move. He shook his head when the nurse, with the importance of her office which seemed to be ignored, rustled up, by and by, and offered to take his place and let him rest From time to time his watch came out and he studied the fluttering pulse. Little by little the strain of anxiety relaxed, and he watched her
face hungrily as Evelyn slept on
. Toward dawning she opened her eyes, took medicine and nourishment, smiled, and slept again.

He watched her for a while, then drew a long sigh, and turning to the nurse, who had come to take the medicine glass, he said:

"You may tell her father that I think she will live."

She crept slowly out from under the shadow of danger like some ship that has almost foundered and is scarcely yet sure of her way. But close beside her day and night stayed her faithful physician.

"If anybody could save her I knew Grey could," said Doctor Atlee the next morning, and the nurse heard him and bit her lip in vexation. It was her opinion that Doctor Grey was entirely too officious.

Evelyn, when she came to herself, lay smiling and obedient, content to lie and rest and be at peace. Her
Saviour
had "had his own way" with her, and though it had led her through sorrow, it had come out into a blossoming way of peace and joy. She did not question at all during those first days. It was enough to see Maurice Grey and to have his ministry. The vision of the whitewashed room was not with her now. It had vanished at his voice. One morning she put her white hand shyly on his as he gave her some medicine, and said:

"Maurice, I love you."

It was to them both an answer to his letter.

"Dear heart," he murmured low, and touched her closed eyelids with his lips, getting back to his dignified position just in
time for the nurse to appear in
the room.

The days of convalescence were sweet He would not let her talk much of the time that had gone between this and their last meeting. He
feared the excitement of recalling those sad days, but together they went back over their brief meetings and told each other all that was in their hearts.

"Do you think that I shall be too stupid to ever be able to help you just a little in your work when we get back to China?" she asked him suddenly one day almost timidly. "I would rather have died than feel that I should be a hindrance to you."

She never seemed to doubt for an instant that he would go back as soon as the way opened and it was safe to go, and she seemed to take delight in making little plans for the voyage and their home when they should reach there.

"Well, young man," said Mr. Rutherford one evening, when he had been spending a little time in his daughter's room, the first night that she was allowed to lie on the sofa after the evening meal, "it seems that you have saved this girl for us, and now the only thing in decency that I can do to reward you is to give her to you. She tells me she can only be happy hereafter converting Boxers in China. It's a good deal you ask, sir, but I guess you deserve it
," and the father went out hast
ily, wiping his eyes.

After that Evelyn's strength came rapidly. She began to walk a few steps about the room.

After a triumphal procession one evening across the length of her room and back in the presence of her father and brother, she lay down on her bank of soft pillows smiling.

Doctor Grey turned to Mr. Rutherford, Sr., a curiously grave look upon his face. "Now, with your permission, father," he said, "I will marry her and take her down to the shore. I think the sea air would be just the thing at this time of year."

The father looked up a little surprised, but he was too practical a man to be long astonished at anything that appealed to his good sense.

"When?" he asked laconically, after the two had looked one another calmly in the eye for a moment.

"To
morrow," answered Maurice Grey promptly.

"Well, I suppose that'll be a very sensible thing to do," answered the
father, after a moment's thought. "What do you say, Evelyn? Can you get ready for your wedding in one day?"

"I'm ready now, father," said Evelyn smiling
, and closing her eyes lest any
one should see the too-much joy shining there, that was meant only for one.

"Well, upon my word, you are rus
hing things," said Richard Ruth
erford in amazement. "Why, here Allison thinks she can't get together enough flounces and feathers in six months to be married, and you, Evelyn, are willing to go wrapped in a blanket. I declare I never saw two such people in my life." There was jealousy in his tone and the rest only laughed, and they all separated quietly as if nothing unusual had taken place.

In the middle of the morning, with only Doctor Atlee and her father and brother for witnesses—with
Marie and the nurse in the back
ground—Evelyn was married by the same minister who had once preached a sermon to the bride a
nd bridegroom some two years be
fore. They had dressed her in
a soft white china
silk wrapper, "Because I am going to China, you know," she laughingly explained, and when the ceremo
ny was over they wrapped her in
a great white fleecy shawl and laid her on the sofa with the windows open, so that she might get a breath of outside a
ir
while she rested. She ate her wedding breakfast of beef tea obediently and went to sleep a little while before the carriage came to take them to the train.