|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 62
The table was almost full; only two or three places besides her own were
unoccupied. There was Miss Bergyn at the head; the fever nurse, Miss
Douglass, at her right, and, lower down, Lloyd saw Esther Thielman;
Delia Craig, just back from a surgical case of Dr. Street's; Miss Page,
the oldest and most experienced nurse of them all; Gilbertson, whom
every one called by her last name; Miss Ives and Eleanor Bogart, who had
both taken doctors' degrees, and could have practised if they had
desired; Miss Wentworth, who had served an apprenticeship in a
missionary hospital in Armenia, and had known Clara Barton, and, last of
all, the newcomer, Miss Truslow, very young and very pretty, who had
never yet had a case, and upon whose diploma the ink was hardly dry.
At first, so quietly had she entered, no one took any notice of Lloyd,
and she stood a moment, her back to the door, wondering how she should
begin. Everybody seemed to be in the best of humour; a babel of talk was
in the air; conversations were going forward, carried on across the
table, or over intervening shoulders.
"Why, of course, don't you see, that's the very thing I meant--"
"--I think you can get that already sized, though, and with a stencil
figure if you want it--"
"--Really, it's very interesting; the first part is stupid, but she has
some very good ideas."
"--Yes, at Vanoni's. But we get a reduction, you know--"
"--and, oh, listen; this is too funny; she turned around and said, very
prim and stiff, 'No, indeed; I'm too old a woman.' Funny! If I think of
that on my deathbed I shall laugh--"
"--and so that settled it. How could I go on after that--?"
"--Must you tack it on? The walls are so hard--"
"Let Rownie do it; she knows. Oh, here's the invalid!"
"Oh, why, it's Lloyd! We're so glad you're able to come down!"
But when they had done exclaiming over her reappearance among them Lloyd
still remained as she was, her back against the door, standing very
straight, her hands at her side. She did not immediately reply. Heads
were turned in her direction. The talk fell away by rapid degrees as
they began to notice the paleness of her face and the strange, firm set
of her mouth.
"Sit down, Lloyd," said Miss Bergyn; "don't stand. You are not very well
yet; I'll have Rownie bring you a glass of sherry."
There was a silence. Then at length:
"No," said Lloyd quietly. "I don't want any sherry. I don't want any
supper. I came down to tell you that you are all wrong in thinking I did
what I could with my typhoid case at Medford. You think I left only
after the patient had died. I did not; I left before. There was a crisis
of some kind. I don't know what it was, because I was not in the
sick-room at the time, and I did not go when I was called. The doctor
was not there either; he had gone out and left the case in my charge.
There was nobody with the patient but a servant. The servant called me,
but I did not go. Instead I came away and left the house. The patient
died that same day. It is that that I wanted to tell you. Do you all
understand--perfectly? I left my patient at the moment of a crisis, and
with no one with him but a servant. And he died that same afternoon."
Then she went out, and the closing of the door jarred sharply upon the
great silence that had spread throughout the room.
Lloyd went back to her room, closed and locked the door, and, sinking
down upon the floor by the couch, bowed her head upon her folded arms.
But she was in no mood for weeping, and her eyes were dry. She was
conscious chiefly that she had taken an irrevocable step, that her head
had begun to ache. There was no exhilaration in her mind now; she did
not feel any of the satisfaction of attainment after struggle, of
triumph after victory. More than once she even questioned herself if,
after all, her confession had been necessary. But now she was weary unto
death of the whole wretched business. Now she only knew that her head
was aching fiercely; she did not care either to look into the past or
forward into the future. The present occupied her; for the present her
head was aching.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|