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Page 44
Later in the evening she took the temperature in the armpit, noted the
condition of the pulse, and managed to get Ferriss--still in his quiet,
muttering delirium--to drink a glass of peptonised milk. She
administered the quinine, reading the label, as was her custom, three
times, once as she took it up, again as she measured the dose, and a
last time as she returned the bottle to its place. Everything she did,
every minute change in Ferriss's condition, she entered upon a chart, so
that in the morning when Dr. Pitts should relieve her he could grasp the
situation at a glance.
The night passed without any but the expected variations of the pulse
and temperature, though toward daylight Lloyd could fancy that Ferriss,
for a few moments, came out of his delirium and was conscious of his
surroundings. For a few seconds his eyes seemed to regain something of
their intelligence, and his glance moved curiously about the room. But
Lloyd, sitting near the foot-board of the bed, turned her head from
him. It was not expedient that Ferriss should recognise her now.
Lloyd could not but commend the wisdom of bringing Ferriss to Dr.
Pitts's own house in so quiet a place as Medford. The doctor risked
nothing. He was without a family, the only other occupants of the house
being the housekeeper and cook. On more than one occasion, when an
interesting case needed constant watching, Pitts had used his house as a
sanatorium. Quiet as the little village itself was, the house was
removed some little distance from its outskirts. The air was fine and
pure. The stillness, the calm, the unbroken repose, was almost
Sabbath-like. In the early watches of the night, just at the turn of the
dawn, Lloyd heard the faint rumble of a passing train at the station
nearly five miles away. For hours that and the prolonged stridulating of
the crickets were the only sounds. Then at last, while it was yet dark,
a faint chittering of waking birds began from under the eaves and from
the apple-trees in the yard about the house. Lloyd went to the window,
and, drawing aside the curtains, stood there for a moment looking out.
She could see part of the road leading to the town, and, in the
distance, the edge of the town itself, a few well-kept country
residences of suburban dwellers of the City, and, farther on, a large,
rectangular, brick building with cupola and flagstaff, perhaps the
public school or the bank or the Odd Fellows' Hall. Nearer by were
fields and corners of pasture land, with here and there the formless
shapes of drowsing cows. One of these, as Lloyd watched, changed
position, and she could almost hear the long, deep breath that
accompanied the motion. Far off, miles upon miles, so it seemed, a
rooster was crowing at exact intervals. All at once, and close at hand,
another answered--a gay, brisk carillon that woke the echoes in an
instant. For the first time Lloyd noticed a pale, dim belt of light low
in the east.
Toward eight o'clock in the morning the doctor came to relieve her, and
while he was examining the charts and she was making her report for the
night the housekeeper announced breakfast.
"Go down to your breakfast, Miss Searight," said the doctor. "I'll stay
here the while. The housekeeper will show you to your room."
But before breakfasting Lloyd went to the room the housekeeper had set
apart for her--a different one than had been occupied by either of the
previous nurses--changed her dress, and bathed her face and hands in a
disinfecting solution. When she came out of her room the doctor met her
in the hall; his hat and stick were in his hand. "He has gone to sleep,"
he informed her, "and is resting quietly. I am going to get a mouthful
of fresh air along the road. The housekeeper is with him. If he wakes
she'll call you. I will not be gone fifteen minutes. I've not been out
of the house for five days, and there's no danger."
Breakfast had been laid in what the doctor spoke of as the glass-room.
This was an enclosed veranda, one side being of glass and opening by
French windows directly upon a little lawn that sloped away under the
apple-trees to the road. It was a charming apartment, an idea of a
sister of Dr. Pitts, who at one time had spent two years at Medford.
Lloyd breakfasted here alone, and it was here that Bennett found her.
The one public carriage of Medford, a sort of four-seated carryall, that
met all the trains at the depot, had driven to the gate at the foot of
the yard, and had pulled up, the horses reeking and blowing. Even before
it had stopped, a tall, square-shouldered man had alighted, but it was
not until he was half-way up the gravel walk that Lloyd had recognised
him. Bennett caught sight of her at the same moment, and strode swiftly
across the lawn and came into the breakfast-room by one of the open
French windows. At once the room seemed to shrink in size; his first
step upon the floor--a step that was almost a stamp, so eager it was, so
masterful and resolute--set the panes of glass jarring in their frames.
Never had Bennett seemed more out of place than in this almost dainty
breakfast-room, with its small, feminine appurtenances, its fragile
glassware, its pots of flowers and growing plants. The incongruous
surroundings emphasized his every roughness, his every angularity.
Against its background of delicate, mild tints his figure loomed
suddenly colossal; the great span of his chest and shoulders seemed
never so huge. His face; the great, brutal jaw, with its aggressive,
bullying, forward thrust; the close-gripped lips, the contracted
forehead, the small eyes, marred with the sharply defined cast, appeared
never so harsh, never so massive, never so significant of the
resistless, crude force of the man, his energy, his overpowering
determination. As he towered there before her, one hand gripped upon a
chair-back, it seemed to her that the hand had but to close to crush the
little varnished woodwork to a splinter, and when he spoke Lloyd could
imagine that the fine, frail china of the table vibrated to the
deep-pitched bass of his voice.
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