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Page 63
But before Lloyd went to bed that night Miss Bergyn knew the whole truth
as to what had happened at Dr. Pitts's house. The superintendent nurse
had followed Lloyd to her room almost immediately, and would not be
denied. She knew very well that Lloyd Searight had never left a dying
patient of her own volition. Intuitively she guessed at something
hidden.
"Lloyd," she said decisively, "don't ask me to believe that you went of
your own free will. Tell me just what happened. Why did you go? Ask me
to believe anything but that you--no, I won't say the word. There was
some very good reason, wasn't there?"
"I--I cannot explain," Lloyd answered. "You must think what you choose.
You wouldn't understand."
But, happily, when Lloyd's reticence finally broke Miss Bergyn did
understand. The superintendent nurse knew Bennett only by report. But
Lloyd she had known for years, and realised that if she had yielded, it
had only been after the last hope had been tried. In the end Lloyd told
her everything that had occurred. But, though she even admitted
Bennett's affection for her, she said nothing about herself, and Miss
Bergyn did not ask.
"I know, of course," said the superintendent nurse at length, "you hate
to think that you were made to go; but men are stronger than women,
Lloyd, and such a man as that must be stronger than most men. You were
not to blame because you left the case, and you are certainly not to
blame for Mr. Ferriss's death. Now I shall give it out here in the house
that you had a very good reason for leaving your case, and that while we
can't explain it any more particularly, I have had a talk with you and
know all about it, and am perfectly satisfied. Then I shall go out to
Medford and see Dr. Pitts. It would be best," she added, for Lloyd had
made a gesture of feeble dissent. "He must understand perfectly, and we
need not be afraid of any talk about the matter at all. What has
happened has happened 'in the profession,' and I don't believe it will
go any further."
* * * * *
Lloyd returned to Bannister toward the end of the week. How long she
would remain she did not know, but for the present the association of
the other nurses was more than she was able to bear. Later, when the
affair had become something of an old story, she would return, resuming
her work as though nothing had happened.
Hattie met her at the railway station with the phaeton and the ponies.
She was radiant with delight at the prospect of having Lloyd all to
herself for an indefinite period of time.
"And you didn't get sick, after all?" she exclaimed, clasping her hands.
"Was your patient as sick as I was? Weren't his parents glad that you
made him well again?"
Lloyd put her hand over the little girl's mouth.
"Let us not talk any 'shop,' Hattie," she said, trying to smile.
But on the morning after her arrival Lloyd woke in her own white room of
the old farmhouse, abruptly conscious of some subtle change that had
occurred to her overnight. For the first time since the scene in the
breakfast-room at Medford she was aware of a certain calmness that had
come to her. Perhaps she had at last begun to feel the good effects of
the trial by fire which she had voluntarily undergone--to know a certain
happiness that now there was no longer any deceit in her heart. This she
had uprooted and driven out by force of her own will. It was gone. But
now, on this morning, she seemed to feel that this was not all.
Something else had left her--something that of late had harassed her and
goaded her and embittered her life, and mocked at her gentleness and
kindness, was gone. That fierce, truculent hatred that she had so
striven to put from her, now behold! of its own accord, it had seemed to
leave her. How had it happened? Before she had dared the ordeal of
confession this feeling of hatred, this perverse and ugly changeling
that had brooded in her heart, had seemed too strong, too deeply seated
to be moved. Now, suddenly, it had departed, unbidden, without effort on
her part.
Vaguely Lloyd wondered at this thing. In driving deceit from her it
would appear that she had also driven out hatred, that the one could not
stay so soon as the other had departed. Could the one exist apart from
the other? Was there, then, some strange affinity in all evil, as,
perhaps, in all good, so that a victory over one bad impulse meant a
victory over many? Without thought of gain or of reward, she had held to
what was right through the confusion and storm and darkness. Was this to
be, after all, her reward, her gain? Possibly; but she could not tell,
she could not see. The confusion was subsiding, the storm had passed,
but much of the darkness yet remained. Deceit she had fought from out
her heart; silently Hatred had stolen after it. Love had not returned to
his old place, and never, never would, but the changeling was gone, and
the house was swept and garnished.
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