Part 66 (1/2)

”Let him die!” he cried. ”What is that to you? You are Daisy Randolph. Do you remember whose daughter you are? _You_ making a spectacle of yourself, for a hundred to look at!”

But this shot quite overreached its mark. Preston saw it had not touched me.

”You did not use to be so bold,” he began again. ”You were delicate to an exquisite fault. I would never have believed that _you_ would have done anything unwomanly. What has taken possession of you?”

”I should like to take possession of you just now, Preston, and keep you quiet,” I said. ”Look here, - your tea is coming.

Suppose you wait till you understand things a little better; and now - let me give you this. I am sure Dr. Sandford would bid you be quiet; and in his name, I do.”

Preston fumed; but I managed to stop his mouth; and then I left him, to attend to other people. But when all was done, and the ward was quiet, I stood at the foot of the dying man's bed, thinking, what could I do more for him? His face looked weary and anxious; his eye rested, I saw, on me, but without comfort in it. What could I say, that I had not said? or how could I reach him? Then, I do not know how the thought struck me, but I knew what to do.

”My dear,” said Miss Yates, touching my shoulder, ”hadn't you better give up for to-night? You are a young hand; you ain't seasoned to it yet; you'll give out if you don't look sharp.

Suppose you quit for to- night.”

”O no!” I said hastily - ”Oh no, I cannot. I cannot.”

”Well, sit down, any way, before you can't stand. It is just as cheap sittin' as standin'.”

I sat down; she pa.s.sed on her way; the place was quiet; only there were uneasy breaths that came and went near me. Then I opened my mouth and sang -

”There is a fountain filled with blood, ”Drawn from Immanuel's veins; ”And sinners plunged beneath that flood, ”Lose all their guilty stains.”

”The dying thief rejoiced to see ”That fountain in his day; ”And there may I, as vile as he, ”Wash all my sins away.”

I sang it to a sweet simple air, in which the last lines are repeated and repeated and drawn out in all their sweetness.

The ward was as still as death. I never felt such joy that I could sing; for I knew the words went to the furthest corner and distinctly, though I was not raising my voice beyond a very soft pitch. The stillness lasted after I stopped; then some one near spoke out -

”Oh, go on!”

And I thought the silence asked me. But what to sing? that was the difficulty. It had need be something so very simple in the wording, so very comprehensive in the sense; something to tell the truth, and to tell it quick, and the whole truth; what should it be? Hymns came up to me, loved and sweet, but too partial in their application, or presupposing too much knowledge of religious things. My mind wandered; and then of a sudden floated to me the refrain that I had heard and learned when a child, long ago, from the lips of Mr. Dinwiddie, in the little chapel at Melbourne; and with all the tenderness of the old time and the new it sprung from my heart and lips now -

”In evil long I took delight, ”Unawed by shame or fear; ”Till a new object struck my sight, ”And stopped my wild career.”

”O the Lamb - the loving Lamb!

”The Lamb on Calvary ”The Lamb that was slain, but lives again, ”To intercede for me.”

How grand it was! But for the grandeur and the sweetness of the message I was bringing, I should have broken down a score of times.

As it was, I poured my tears into my song, and wept them into the melody. But other tears, I knew, were not so contained; in intervals I heard low sobbing in more than one part of the room. I had no time to sing another hymn before Dr. Sandford came in. I was very glad he had not been five minutes earlier.

I followed him round the ward, seeking to acquaint myself as fast as possible with whatever might help to make me useful there. Dr. Sandford attended only to business and not to me, till the whole round was gone through. Then he said, -

”You will let me take you home now, I hope.”