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Page 57
Miss Douglass returned, followed by Rownie carrying a tray. When the
mulatto had gone, after arranging Lloyd's supper on a little table near
the couch, the fever nurse drew up a chair.
"Now we can talk," she said, "unless you are too tired. I've been so
interested in this case at Medford. Tell me what was the immediate cause
of death; was it perforation or just gradual collapse?"
"It was neither," said Lloyd quickly. "It was a hemorrhage."
She had uttered the words with as little consciousness as a phonograph,
and the lie had escaped her before she was aware. How did she know what
had been the immediate cause of death? What right had she to speak? Why
was it that all at once a falsehood had come so easy to her, to her
whose whole life until then had been so sincere, so genuine?
"A hemorrhage?" repeated the other. "Had there been many before then?
Was there coma vigil when the end came? I--"
"Oh," cried Lloyd with a quick gesture of impatience, "don't, don't ask
me any more. I am tired--nervous; I am worn out."
"Yes, of course you must be," answered the fever nurse. "We won't talk
any more about it."
That night and the following day were terrible. Lloyd neither ate nor
slept. Not once did she set foot out of her room, giving out that she
was ill, which was not far from the truth, and keeping to herself and to
the companionship of the thoughts and terrors that crowded her mind.
Until that day at Medford her life had run easily and happily and in
well-ordered channels. She was successful in her chosen profession and
work. She imagined herself to be stronger and of finer fibre than most
other women, and her love for Bennett had lent a happiness and a
sweetness to her life dear to her beyond all words. Suddenly, and within
an hour's time, she had lost everything. Her will had been broken, her
spirit crushed; she had been forced to become fearfully instrumental in
causing the death of her patient--a man who loved and trusted her--while
her love for Bennett, which for years had been her deep and abiding joy,
the one great influence of her life, was cold and dead, and could never
be revived.
This in the end came to be Lloyd's greatest grief. She could forget that
she herself had been humbled and broken. Horrible, unspeakably horrible,
as Ferriss's death seemed to her, it was upon Bennett, and not upon her,
that its responsibility must be laid. She had done what she could. Of
that she was assured. But, first and above all things, Lloyd was a
woman, and her love for Bennett was a very different matter.
When, during that never-to-be-forgotten scene in the breakfast-room of
the doctor's house, she had warned Bennett that if he persisted in his
insane resolution he would stamp out her affection for him, Lloyd had
only half believed what she said. But when at last it dawned upon her
that she had spoken wiser than she knew, that this was actually true,
and that now, no matter how she might desire it, she could not love him
any longer, it seemed as though her heart must break. It was precisely
as though Bennett himself, the Bennett she had known, had been blotted
out of existence. It was much worse than if Bennett had merely died.
Even then he would have still existed for her, somewhere. As it was, the
man she had known simply ceased to be, irrevocably, finally, and the
warmth of her love dwindled and grew cold, because now there was nothing
left for it to feed upon.
Never until then had Lloyd realised how much he had been to her; how he
had not only played so large a part in her life, but how he had become a
very part of her life itself. Her love for him had been like the air,
like the sunlight; was delicately knitted and intertwined into all the
innumerable intricacies of her life and character. Literally, not an
hour had ever passed that, directly or indirectly, he had not occupied
her thoughts. He had been her inspiration; he had made her want to be
brave and strong and determined, and it was because of him that the
greater things of the world interested her. She had chosen a work to be
done because he had set her an example. So only that she preserved her
womanliness, she, too, wanted to count, to help on, to have her place in
the world's progress. In reality all her ambitions and hopes had been
looking toward one end only, that she might be his equal; that he might
find in her a companion and a confidante; one who could share his
enthusiasms and understand his vast projects and great aims.
And how had he treated her when at last opportunity had been given her
to play her part, to be courageous and strong, to prevail against great
odds, while he stood by to see? He had ignored and misunderstood, and
tossed aside as childish and absurd that which she had been building up
for years. Instead of appreciating her heroism he had forced her to
become a coward in the eyes of the world. She had hoped to be his equal,
and he had treated her as a school-girl. It had all been a mistake. She
was not and could not be the woman she had hoped. He was not and never
had been the man she had imagined. They had nothing in common.
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