Part 9 (2/2)

”It's Major Rathbone,” said Katy, panting; ”John ran into him coming out the carriage gate. The horses slipped and he had his umbrella down and didn't see. I was coming from the grocery.”

”Oh,” said Alexina; ”Katy, oh--”

Harriet had heard and was already in the hall and struggling with the outer door. ”I can't--it won't--oh, Alexina, help me!”

Katy had reached the door too, and put her hand on the k.n.o.b. ”They've already started to the infirmary with him, Miss Harriet, John and that young doctor across the street, before I came in. He told them to take him there himself. He was half up, holding to the fence, before John was off the box. 'Stop the doctor there getting in his buggy,' he said to John, 'and get me around to the infirmary.'”

”And the doctor--what did he say?” demanded Alexina.

”He said 'Good Lord, man!' and he swore just awful at John being so slow helping get him in the carriage.”

Harriet all at once was herself, perfectly controlled.

”Go get me my long cloak, please, Katy,” she said.

”Oh, Miss Harriet,” from Katy; ”you ain't thinking of goin' out--it's sleetin' awful--without the carriage!”

But Harriet already had reached the stairs going for the wrap herself.

Alexina followed her. ”What is it, Aunt Harriet?” she begged. ”Where are you going?”

Harriet answered back from her own doorway. ”To the infirmary.”

Action is the one thing always understood by youth. Alexina entirely approved. ”I'll go, too,” she said, and ran into her room to change her wrap for a darker one.

There was but one infirmary at the time in the city, and that a Catholic inst.i.tution. They could walk a square and take a car to the door. Alexina, in her haste, never thought of money, but Harriet, as she came down, had her purse.

Neither spoke on the way; it was all they could do to keep umbrellas open in the fierce drive of wind and sleet. Alexina bent her head to catch breath; the sleet whipped and stung her face, the wind seized her loose cape, her light skirts, bellying them out behind her. But Harriet, ahead, tall, poised, went swiftly on, and, in the light from the street gas-post as they waited for a car, her face showed no consciousness of storm or of aught about her. Yet it was Harriet who stopped the car, who made the change, and paid the fares. The ride into town was in silence. It was Harriet who rang the bell before the infirmary building, who led the way over the icy pavement, up the wide brick walk through the grounds; it was Harriet who rang the bell at the big central door, and it was she who entered first past the little Sister who opened that door.

Not that the little Sister meant to permit it--it was against rules, she a.s.sured them, visiting hours were over. She could tell them nothing. The doctors were with the gentleman now.

But she let them in. Prison doors must have opened to Harriet that night, she would have put the little Sister aside if need be and walked in, Alexina felt that. Perhaps the little Sister felt it too.

She glanced at Harriet furtively, timidly, and, murmuring something about going to see, glided away.

The two stood in the hall, Alexina gazing at the patron Saint of the place, in marble on his pedestal. After a time the little Sister returned and told them the doctor would see them presently and said something about the parlour, but Harriet shook her head.

Again they waited, the woman and the girl sitting in chairs against the painted wall, facing the Saint in his niche. The instincts of long ago arose within Alexina, and unconsciously her lips moved for comfort to herself in a prayer to the benign old Saint before her, there being nothing incongruous to her that she was using a little form of child's prayer taught her by her Presbyterian aunt.

And still they waited, so long that Alexina felt she could not stand the silence longer, or the waiting. She looked at Harriet, who was gazing before her, her face colourless, her eyes unseeing. Alexina began to wonder if the Sister had forgotten they were there.

But at last she came stealing noiselessly back, and, following her, a young man.

Alexina recognized him at once as the young doctor she had seen going in and out the cottage, and whose name she remembered was Ransome.

Harriet arose to meet him. He was young and boyish and looked unnerved. ”The others will be down in a moment--the other doctors”--he told her; ”when I saw it was bad--you know I'm just beginning--I turned it over.”

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