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Page 21
"No, no," she cried half aloud. "I am no better, no stronger than the
others. What does it all amount to when I know that, after all, I am
just a woman--just a woman whose heart is slowly breaking?"
But there was an interruption. Rownie had knocked twice at her door
before Lloyd had heard her. When Lloyd had opened the door the girl
handed her a card with an address written on it in the superintendent's
hand.
"This here jus' now come in f'om Dr. Street, Miss Lloyd," said Rownie;
"Miss Bergyn" (this was the superintendent nurse) "ast me to give it to
you."
It was a call to an address that seemed familiar to Lloyd at first; but
she did not stop at that moment to reflect. Her stable telephone hung
against the wall of the closet. She rang for Lewis, and while waiting
for him to get around dressed for the street.
For the moment, at the prospect of action, even her haunting fear drew
off and stood away from her. She was absorbed in her work upon the
instant--alert, watchful, self-reliant. What the case was she could only
surmise. How long she would be away she had no means of knowing--a week,
a month, a year, she could not tell. But she was ready for any
contingency. Usually the doctors informed the nurses as to the nature of
the case at the time of sending for them, but Dr. Street had not done so
now.
However, Rownie called up to her that her coup� was at the door. Lloyd
caught up her satchels and ran down the stairs, crying good-bye to Miss
Douglass, whom she saw at the farther end of the hall. In the hallway by
the vestibule she changed the slide bearing her name from the top to the
bottom of the roster.
"How about your mail?" cried Miss Douglass after her.
"Keep it here for me until I see how long I'm to be away," answered
Lloyd, her hand upon the knob. "I'll let you know."
Lewis had put Rox in the shafts, and while the coup� spun over the
asphalt at a smart clip Lloyd tried to remember where she had heard of
the address before. Suddenly she snapped her fingers; she knew the case,
had even been assigned to it some eight months before.
"Yes, yes, that's it--Campbell--wife dead--Lafayette Avenue--little
daughter, Hattie--hip disease--hopeless--poor little baby."
Arriving at the house, Lloyd found the surgeon, Dr. Street, and Mr.
Campbell, who was a widower, waiting for her in a small drawing-room off
the library. The surgeon was genuinely surprised and delighted to see
her. Most of the doctors of the City knew Lloyd for the best trained
nurse in the hospitals.
"Oh, it's you, Miss Searight; good enough!" The surgeon introduced her
to the little patient's father, adding: "If any one can pull us through,
Campbell, it will be Miss Searight."
The surgeon and nurse began to discuss the case.
"I think you know it already, don't you, Miss Searight?" said the
surgeon. "You took care of it a while last winter. Well, there was a
little improvement in the spring, not so much pain, but that in itself
is a bad sign. We have done what we could, Farnham and I. But it don't
yield to treatment; you know how these things are--stubborn. We made a
preliminary examination yesterday. Sinuses have occurred, and the probe
leads down to nothing but dead bone. Farnham and I had a consultation
this morning. We must play our last card. I shall exsect the joint
to-morrow."
Mr. Campbell drew in his breath and held it for a moment, looking out of
the window.
Very attentive, Lloyd merely nodded her head, murmuring:
"I understand."
When Dr. Street had gone Lloyd immediately set to work. The operation
was to take place at noon the following day, and she foresaw there would
be no sleep for her that night. Street had left everything to her, even
to the sterilising of his instruments. Until daylight the following
morning Lloyd came and went about the house with an untiring energy, yet
with the silence of a swiftly moving shadow, getting together the things
needed for the operation--strychnia tablets, absorbent cotton, the
rubber tubing for the tourniquet, bandages, salt, and the like--and
preparing the little chamber adjoining the sick-room as an
operating-room.
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