Part 21 (1/2)

As I pa.s.sed out I heard a faint voice call, ”Mother!”

Going to the door of Adah's room I saw that she was conscious, and feebly trying to rise. As I entered she looked at me in utter bewilderment, then shrank with instinctive fear from the presence of a seeming intruder. I saw the impulse of her half-conscious mind, and called Miss Warren, who came at once, and her presence seemed rea.s.suring.

”What's the matter?” she asked, with the same thick utterance that I had noted in Mr. Yocomb's voice. It seemed as if the organs of speech were partially paralyzed.

”You have been ill, my dear, but now you are much better. The doctor will be here soon,” Miss Warren said soothingly.

She seemed to comprehend the words imperfectly, and turned her wondering eyes toward me.

”Oh, that the doctor would come!” I groaned. ”Here you have two on your hands, and Mr. Yocomb is calling.”

”Who's that?” asked Adah, feebly pointing to me.

”You remember Mr. Morton,” Miss Warren said quietly, bathing the girl's face with cologne. ”You brought him home from meeting this morning.”

The girl's gaze was so fixed and peculiar that it held me a moment, and gave the odd impression of the strong curiosity of one waking up in a new world. Suddenly she closed her eyes and fell back faint and sick.

At that moment, above the sound of the rain, I heard the quick splash of a horse's feet, and hastened down to greet the doctor.

In a few hasty words I added such explanation of the catastrophe as Reuben's partial account rendered necessary, and by the time I had finished we were at Mrs. Yocomb's door. Mr. Yocomb seemed sufficiently at rest to be left for a while.

”This is Miss Warren,” I said. ”She will be your invaluable a.s.sistant, but you must be careful of her, since she, too, has suffered very severely, and, I fear, is keeping up on the strength of her brave will, mainly.”

The physician, fortunately, was a good one, and his manner gave us confidence from the start.

”I think I understand the affair sufficiently,” he said; ”and the best thing you can do for my patients, and for Miss Warren also, Mr. Morton, is to have some strong black coffee made as soon as possible. That will now prove an invaluable remedy, I think.”

”I'll show you where the coffee is,” Miss Warren added promptly.

”Unfortunately--perhaps fortunately--Mrs. Yocomb let the woman who a.s.sisted her go away for the night. Had she been here she might have been another burden.”

Even though I had but a moment or two in the room, I saw that the doctor was anxious about little Zillah.

As Miss Warren waited on me I said earnestly, ”What a G.o.dsend you are!”

”No,” she replied with a tone and glance that, to me, were sweeter and more welcome than all the June suns.h.i.+ne of that day. ”I was here, and you were sent.” Then her eyes grew full of dread, reminding me of the gaze she had bent on the storm before which she had cowered. ”The house was on fire,” she said; ”we were all helpless--unconscious. You saved us. I begin to realize it all.”

”Come, Miss Warren, you now are 'seeing double.' Here, Reuben,” I said to the young fellow, who came dripping in from the barn. ”I want to introduce you in a new light. Miss Warren doesn't half know you yet, and I wish her to realize that you are no longer a boy, but a brave, level-headed man, that even when stunned by lightning could do as much as I did.”

”Now, Richard Morton, I didn't do half as much as thee did. How's mother?” and he spoke with a boy's ingenuousness.

”Doing well under the care of the doctor you brought,” I said; ”and if you will now help me make this dying fire burn up quickly, she will have you to thank more than any one else when well again.”

”I'm going to thank you now,” Miss Warren exclaimed, seizing both of his hands. ”G.o.d bless you, Reuben! You don't realize what you have done for us all.”

The young fellow looked surprised. ”I only did what Richard Morton told me,” he protested, ”and that wasn't much.”

”Well, there's a pair of you,” she laughed. ”The fire put itself out, and Dapple went after the doctor.” Then, as if overwhelmed with grat.i.tude, she clasped her hands and looked upward, as she said, in low, thrilling tones: ”Thank G.o.d, oh thank G.o.d! what a tragedy we have escaped!”