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Page 24
But it was the agency that had called, and Miss Douglass informed her
that a telegram had arrived there for her a few moments before. Should
she hold it or send it to her by Rownie? Lloyd reflected a moment.
"Oh--open it and read it to me," she said. "It's a call, isn't
it?--or--no; send it here by Rownie, and send my hospital slippers with
her, the ones without heels. But don't ring up again to-night; we're
expecting a crisis almost any moment."
Lloyd returned to the sick-room, sent away the servant, and once more
settled herself for the night. Hattie had roused for a moment.
"Am I going to get well, am I going to get well, Miss Searight?"
Lloyd put her finger to her lips, nodding her head, and Hattie closed
her eyes again with a long breath. A certain great tenderness and
compassion for the little girl grew big in Lloyd's heart. To herself she
said:
"God helping me, you shall get well. They believe in me, these
people--'If any one could pull us through it would be Miss Searight.' We
will 'pull through,' yes, for I'll do it."
The night closed down, dark and still and very hot. Lloyd, regulating
the sick-room's ventilation, opened one of the windows from the top. The
noises of the City steadily decreasing as the hours passed, reached her
ears in a subdued, droning murmur. On her bed, that had for so long been
her bed of pain, Hattie lay with closed eyes, inert, motionless, hardly
seeming to breathe, her life in the balance; unhappy little invalid,
wasted with suffering, with drawn, pinched face and bloodless lips, and
at her side Lloyd, her dull-blue eyes never leaving her patient's face,
alert and vigilant, despite her long wakefulness, her great bronze-red
flame of hair rolling from her forehead and temples, the sombre glow in
her cheeks no whit diminished by her day of fatigue, of responsibility
and untiring activity.
For the time being she could thrust her fear, the relentless Enemy that
for so long had hung upon her heels, back and away from her. There was
another Enemy now to fight--or was it another--was it not the same
Enemy, the very same, whose shadow loomed across that sick-bed, across
the frail, small body and pale, drawn face?
With her pity and compassion for the sick child there arose in Lloyd a
certain unreasoned, intuitive obstinacy, a banding together of all her
powers and faculties in one great effort at resistance, a steadfastness
under great stress, a stubbornness, that shut its ears and eyes. It was
her one dominant characteristic rising up, strong and insistent the
instant she knew herself to be thwarted in her desires or checked in a
course she believed to be right and good. And now as she felt the
advance of the Enemy and saw the shadow growing darker across the bed
her obstinacy hardened like tempered steel.
"No," she murmured, her brows levelled, her lips compressed, "she shall
not die. I will not let her go."
A little later, perhaps an hour after midnight, at a time when she
believed Hattie to be asleep, Lloyd, watchful as ever, noted that her
cheeks began alternately to puff out and contract with her breathing. In
an instant the nurse was on her feet. She knew the meaning of this sign.
Hattie had fainted while asleep. Lloyd took the temperature. It was
falling rapidly. The pulse was weak, rapid, and irregular. It seemed
impossible for Hattie to take a deep breath.
Then swiftly the expected crisis began to develop itself. Lloyd ordered
Street to be sent for, but only as a matter of form. Long before he
could arrive the issue would be decided. She knew that now Hattie's life
depended on herself alone.
"Now," she murmured, as though the Enemy she fought could hear her, "now
let us see who is the stronger. You or I."
Swiftly and gently she drew the bed from the wall and raised its foot,
propping it in position with half a dozen books. Then, while waiting for
the servants, whom she had despatched for hot blankets, administered a
hypodermic injection of brandy.
"We will pull you through," she kept saying to herself, "we will pull
you through. I shall not let you go."
The Enemy was close now, and the fight was hand to hand. Lloyd could
almost feel, physically, actually, feel the slow, sullen, resistless
pull that little by little was dragging Hattie's life from her grip. She
set her teeth, holding back with all her might, bracing herself against
the strain, refusing with all inborn stubbornness to yield her position.
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