Part 53 (1/2)
”What about me, Mummy?” A rather fretful little voice interrupted the speaker, as Molly pressed closely to her side. ”What's me and Rosa going to do? There isn't any beds and the bench is so hard!”
”Poor kiddie!” Anstice's heart was touched by this lamentable wail.
”Suppose you let me see what I can do to make you a bed, Molly! I'm a doctor, you know, and doctors know more about making beds than ordinary people!”
The child regarded him with lack-l.u.s.tre eyes which were quite devoid of any childish gaiety; and for a moment she appeared to revolve the question in her mind. Finally she decided that he was to be trusted, for she nodded her weary little head and put her thin, hot hand into the one he extended to her.
”The room opposite to this is our bedroom,” said Iris, with a faint smile. ”Shall I come too, Molly, and show Dr. Anstice where to find the things?”
”Yes. You come too.” The other moist hand sought Iris' cooler one; and between them they led the poor child into the room Iris indicated.
Here, with a little ingenuity, a bed was made up of chairs and cus.h.i.+ons, which Molly was too worn out to resist; and having seen her sink at once into an uneasy slumber, the two returned to the larger room, where the others still held whispered conclave.
”Dr. Anstice”--Iris laid her hand on his arm, her voice full of the sweetest contrition--”you have had nothing to eat and you must be famished.”
”I'm not hungry,” he a.s.sured her truthfully; but she refused to listen to his protests; and calling Mrs. Wood to her a.s.sistance she soon had a meal ready for him. Although the resources of the establishment were limited to tinned food and coffee boiled over a little spirit stove, Anstice was in no mood to criticize anything which Iris set before him.
Indeed he could hardly take his eyes from her as she ministered to him; and the food he ate might have been manna for anything he knew to the contrary.
Having finished his hasty meal and a.s.sured his kind hostesses that he felt a hundred per cent better thereby, Anstice turned to Mr. Wood with a new seriousness.
”It is nearly eleven o'clock,” he said, ”and I suppose we should be thinking of taking up our positions? If you and Mr. Garnett are ready, I'll call Ha.s.san to take charge of the other window for a little while, and have a look at my patient yonder.”
The other men agreed; and Anstice left them stationing themselves at their posts while he entered the next room and relieved the frightened Rosa from her task of watching the invalid.
As he approached Cheniston's side he saw that as yet no fatal change had occurred. Bruce still lay in a kind of stupor, half-sleep, half-unconsciousness; but his pulse was not perceptibly weaker, and for a wild moment Anstice considered the possibility of his patient's recovery--a possibility which, however, he dared hardly entertain as he looked at the haggard face, the sunken eyes, the peeling lips.
When Iris entered a minute or two later Anstice gave her a few directions, bidding her call him immediately should Bruce awaken; and as she acquiesced and sat down on the hard chair lately vacated by the maid, Anstice looked at her with a feeling of rather helpless compa.s.sion.
”Mrs. Cheniston, I'm so awfully sorry to have to ask you to sit up.
You're worn out, I know, and I wish you could get some sleep.”
”Oh, don't bother about me!” She smiled up at him, and his heart contracted within him at the look of fatigue in her face. ”I'm immensely strong, you know--and I can sleep to-morrow. Only”--the smile faded out of her eyes, leaving them very sad--”do you think there is any possibility of Bruce being better in the morning?”
”Yes--he is no worse than when I saw him an hour or two ago,” Anstice a.s.sured her. ”And in a bad case like this even a negative boon of that kind is something to be thankful for.”
She looked at him again, rather wistfully this time; but he did not meet her eyes; and presently he withdrew, leaving her to her lonely watch; while he went to take up his vigil at the window in preparation for any possible attack.
But that night pa.s.sed without adventure of any kind.
CHAPTER IV
It was on the afternoon of the following day that a new and serious complication arose.
The night had pa.s.sed without incident of any kind; and shortly after sunrise the little party met to compare notes of their respective vigils.
All through the night Anstice had come and gone by Cheniston's bedside; but although there was no improvement in his patient's condition, neither did he seem to have progressed any further into the grim Valley of the Shadow; and although this extreme weakness and prostration were ominous enough, Anstice still cherished that very faint, very timid hope which had been born on the previous night.
He had never wished so fervently for the power to save a life as in this particular case. Gone was all remembrance of the former ill-feeling between them, of the unfair and cruel bargain which this man had forced upon him to the utter destruction of his life's happiness. He forgot that Bruce Cheniston had been unjust, callous, a very Shylock in his eager grasping of his pound of flesh; and he remembered only that this man had won Iris' love, and thereby established his claim to any service which the man who had also loved Iris might reasonably bestow.