Part 16 (1/2)

The nurse called the doctor and two orderlies, and they carried him into the operating-room.

”I'm not the man I used to be,” Dirty Dan whispered, ”but glory be, ye should see the other fellers.” He opened his hand, and two blood-stained clasp-knives rolled out; he winked knowingly, and indulged in humorous reminiscences of the combat while he was being examined.

”You're cut to strings and ribbons, Dan,” the doctor informed him, ”and they've stuck you in the left lung. You've lost a lot of blood.

We may pull you through, but I doubt it.”

”Very well,” the demon replied composedly.

”Telephone Judge Alton to come and get his dying statement,” the doctor ordered the nurse, but Dirty Dan raised a deprecating hand.

”'Twas a private, personal matther,” he declared. ”'Twas settled satisfacthory. I'll not die, an' I'll talk to no man but Misther Daney. Sew me up an' plug me lung, an' be quick about it, Docthor.”

When Andrew Daney came, summoned by telephone, Dirty Dan ordered all others from the room, and Daney saw that the door was closed tightly after them. Then he bent over Dirty Dan.

”Where's Donald?” he demanded.

”That's neither here nor there, sir,” Mr. O'Leary replied evasively.

”He's safe, an' never knew they were afther him. T'ree o' thim, sir, the naygur and two Greeks. I kidded thim into thinkin' I was Misther McKaye; 'tis all over now, an' ye can find out what two Greeks it was by those knives I took for evidence. I cannot identify thim, but go up to Darrow in the mornin' an' look for a spreckled mulatter, wan Greek wit' a broken right arm, an' another wit' a broken neck, but until I die, do nothin'. If I get well, tell them to quit Darrow for good agin' the day I come out o' the hospital. Good-night to you, sir, an'

thank ye for callin'.”

From the hospital, Andrew Daney, avoiding the lighted main street, hastened to the Sawdust Pile. A light still burned in Caleb Brent's cottage; so Daney stood aloof in the vacant lot and waited. About ten o'clock, the front door opened, and, framed in the light of the doorway, the general manager saw Donald McKaye, and beside him Nan Brent.

”Until to-morrow at five, Donald, since you will persist in being obstinate,” he heard Nan say, as they reached the gate and paused there. ”Good-night, dear.”

Andrew Daney waited no longer, but turned and fled into the darkness.

XIII

Having done that which her conscience dictated, Nan Brent returned to her home a prey to many conflicting emotions, chief of which were a quiet sense of exaltation in the belief that she had played fair by both old Hector and his son, and a sense of depression in the knowledge that she would not see Donald McKaye again. As a boy, she had liked him tremendously; as a man, she knew she liked him even better.

She was quite certain she had never met a man who was quite fit to breathe the same air with Donald McKaye; already she had magnified his virtues until, to her, he was rapidly a.s.suming the aspect of an archangel--a feeling which bordered perilously on adoration.

But deep down in her woman's heart she was afraid, fearing for her own weakness. The past had brought her sufficient anguish--she dared not risk a future filled with unsatisfied yearning that comes of a great love suppressed or denied.

She felt better about it as she walked homeward; it seemed that she had regained, in a measure, some peace of mind, and as she prepared dinner for her father and her child, she was almost cheerful. A warm glow of self-complacency enveloped her. Later, when old Caleb and the boy had retired and she sat before the little wood fire alone with her thoughts, this feeling of self-conscious rect.i.tude slowly left her, and into its place crept a sense of desolation inspired by one thought that obtruded upon her insistently, no matter how desperately she drove her mind to consider other things. She was not to see him again--no, never any more. Those fearless, fiery gray eyes that were all abeam with tenderness and complete understanding that day he left her at the gate; those features that no one would ever term handsome, yet withal so rugged, so strong, so pregnant of character, so peculiarly winning when lighted by the infrequent smile--she was never to gaze upon them again. It did not seem quite fair that, for all that the world had denied her, it should withhold from her this inconsequent delight. This was carrying misfortune too far; it was terrible--unbearable almost--

A wave of self-pity, the most acute misery of a tortured soul, surged over her; she laid her fair head on her arms outspread upon the table, and gave herself up to wild sobbing. In her desolation, she called aloud, piteously, for that mother she had hardly known, as if she would fain summon that understanding spirit and in her arms seek the comfort that none other in this world could give her. So thoroughly did she abandon herself to this first--and final--paroxysm of despair that she failed to hear a tentative rap upon the front door and, shortly, the tread of rough-shod feet on the board walk round the house. Her first intimation that some one had arrived to comfort her came in the shape of a hard hand that thrust itself gently under her chin and lifted her face from her arms.

Through the mist of her tears she saw only the vague outlines of a man clad in heavy woolen s.h.i.+rt and mackinaw, such as her father frequently wore.

”Oh, father, father!” she cried softly, and laid her head on his breast, while her arms went round his neck. ”I'm so terribly unhappy!

I can't bear it--I can't! Just--because he chose to be--kind to us--those gossips--as if anybody could help being fond of him--”

She was held tight in his arms.

”Not your father, Nan.” Donald murmured in a low voice.