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Page 39
The fire coughed twice, as if it would have liked to remind her that it
was May Eve, but felt it might be an intrusion.
"I believe," she continued, speculatively--"I believe I am going to
begin to think things and do them again; and what's more, I believe I
am going to like doing them."
The fire chuckled again, and danced about for a minute in an absurd
fashion; it was so absurd that one of the logs broke a sap-vessel.
After that the fire settled down to its intended vocation, that of
making dream-pictures out of red and gold flames, and black, charred
embers.
The widow of the Richest Trustee watched them happily for a long time,
until they became very definite and actual pictures. Then she got up,
went to her desk, and wrote two letters.
The first was addressed to "The Board of Trustees of Saint Margaret's
Free Hospital for Children"; the second was addressed to "Miss Margaret
MacLean." They were both sealed and mailed that night.
What befell the other trustees does not matter, either from the
standpoint of Fancy or of what happened afterward; moreover, it was
nearly midnight, and what occurs after that on May Eve does not count.
IX
THE LOVE-TALKER
All through the evening Saint Margaret's had been frankly miserable.
Nurses gathered in groups in the nurses' annex and talked about the
closing of the incurable ward and the going of Margaret MacLean. The
passing of the incurables mattered little to them, one way or another,
but they knew what it mattered to the nurse in charge, and they were
just beginning to realize what she had meant to them all. The
Superintendent felt so much concerned that she dropped her official
manner when she chanced upon Margaret MacLean on her way from supper.
"Oh, my dear--my dear"--and the Superintendent's voice had almost
broken--"what shall we do without you? You have kept Saint Margaret's
human--and wholesome for the rest of us."
The House Surgeon had been miserable unto the third degree. It had
forced him into doing all those things he had left undone for months
passed; and he bustled through the building--from pharmacy to
laboratory and from operating-room to supply-closets--giving the
impression of a very scientific man, while he was inwardly praying for
a half-dozen minutes alone with Margaret MacLean. He had passed her
more than once in the corridors, but she had eluded him each time,
brushing by him with a tightening of the lips and a little shake of the
head, half pleading, half commanding. At last, in grim despair, he
gave up appearances and patrolled the second-floor hall until the night
nurse fixed upon him such a greenly suspicious eye that he fled to his
quarters--vowing unspeakable things.
Even old Cassie, the scrub-woman, shared in the general misery--Cassie,
who had brewed the egg-shell charm against Trustee Days. She had
stayed past her hours for a glimpse of "Miss Peggie," with the best
intention in the world of cheering her up. When the glimpse came,
however, she stood mute--tears channeling the old wrinkled face--while
the nurse patted her hands and made her laugh through the tears. In
fact, Margaret MacLean had been kept so busy doling out cheer and
consolation to others that she had had no time to remember her own
trouble--not until Saint Margaret's had gone to bed.
She was on her way for a final visit to her ward--the visit she had
told Bridget she would make to see if the promise had been kept--when a
line from Hauptman's faery play flashed through her mind: "At dawn we
are kings; at night we are only beggars."
How true it was of her--this day. How beggared she felt! The fact
that she was very nearly penniless troubled her very little; it was the
homelessness--friendlessness--that frightened her. She had never had
but two friends: the one who had gone so long ago was past helping her
now; the other--
No; she had made up her mind some hours before that she should slip
away in the morning without saying anything to the House Surgeon. It
would make it so much easier for him. Otherwise--he might--because of
his friendship--say or do something he would have to regret all his
life. She had been very much in earnest when she had told the Senior
Surgeon on the stairs that such as she laid no claim to the every-day
happiness that felt to the lot of others. That was why she had kept
persistently out of the House Surgeon's way all the evening.
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