University of Virginia Library

14. XIV.

The terrible touch of pain, beneath Dr. Ruthven's
hand, brought back the child to life, only for her
to lose consciousness again, unable to bear its
burden. The broken bones, one of which had been
bruised almost to fragments, were set at last, and
the child was put to rest in Catherine's bed, if
rest there might be for her; and Catherine hung
over her night and day, refusing to yield her
place to servants, sleepless and tireless, supported
by the one wild fear lest the child should
die and the blood be on her head. Gaston
himself never imagined the real reason of her
devotion: he supposed it to be but the natural
treatment of a child by any woman. He only
saw that Catherine through it all was very calm
and composed where his own hand would have
shaken. McRoy and his wife were as useless as
two children themselves. They came into the room
and sat stupidly staring at their child, and then

broke out into sobs and cries till they had to be
taken away. Catherine was father and mother
both to the suffering little thing that lay in her
bed. The sudden horror had awakened her from
her lethargy; she saw the precipice to which the
current on which she reposed had been bearing
her; she was alert and alive on her own behalf
with watchful fire.

The guests had left the house to its hosts.
Gaston roamed up and down the empty apartments
like a shadow, galloped off to the water-works
and back again at all unseasonable hours,
as heated and unquiet as the blast of a sirocco.
Caroline betook herself to her bed, and required
in one day more nursing and attendance from
Rose, her mother, and the maid, than the child
whose life hung in the balance — and whom
Beaudesfords and Catherine never left — required
in all her illness. Catherine watched the Doctor's
face at morning and night, as if her own salvation
depended on it: for May grew worse with pain
every hour, and at length, after a night of agony
in which it seemed as if day might never dawn,
or could only dawn in the blackness of death
when it did come, Catherine left Beaudesfords
with her charge, and ran over the crisp, white

fields to bring the Doctor herself, as the day began
to issue gray and pallid from the night, — Beaudesfords
unable to detain her, and feeling sure the
clear cold outside air was only a needed tonic.

“Bring every thing!” she cried. “I am
afraid — I don't know what I fear! It may have
mortified — you will have to amputate — Oh, if
she only lives, no matter how, Beaudesfords will
adopt her, for my sake, — we will make her our
own child! Doctor, you must, you must save
her!”

“I do not know,” said Dr. Ruthven, when he
had examined the cause of alarm, and stepped
into the adjoining room, “if it is best or not.
Her parents should decide. Beaudesfords, call
McRoy.”

But the man had been waiting without, summoned
by Catherine as she returned to the house.
The Doctor went up to him, and laid his hand on
his shoulder. “My poor man,” he said, “if I
perform this operation, in which, God granting,
the child shall feel no particle of pain, she may
live, — crippled, it is true, but well and happy,
and cared for by these kind friends. If I do not
perform it, she cannot live till night.”

“And why are ye waiting?” whispered the

gardener. “Haste! haste, man! Be quick with
you, — and life and death hanging from your
hands!”

“Oh, you are right, McRoy!” cried Catherine,
though in no loud key. “But there is something
to make us hesitate. She may not have the
strength; and though she will not suffer — she
will not suffer, — she may die before it is done.”

“But there is a chance?” he asked, looking
with strange, scared eyes from one to another.

“A chance,” said Dr. Ruthven, “a chance, —
not a certainty, — but a hope.”

“Then out with your knife, sir, and never
spare a thrust! Every cut will strike my heart,
but I shall have my child when all 's done, — my
dear, my little May! We shall have her back —
have her back!” And staying only to see Catherine's
arm beneath her, — while strengthened
by the fresh air she had inhaled in her run across
the fields, and by her longing for the child's life,
Catherine herself held the napkin and the blessed
ether, — he was away to bring his wife, and wait,
out of hearing of a groan, till the word of joy or
of despair should be spoken.

As the gardener went down, Gaston met him
on the stairway. His face, so whitened, and lately

grown old and furrowed, struck Gaston as if he
had seen a ghost. Instead of seeking his own
apartment, he went boldly onward, drawn, he
knew not by what instinct or what fear, and
paused in the inner doorway, and remained there
looking on the scene, — whether he had no right
to shelter himself from one stroke of that knife,
— whether it was destined that he should see
Catherine hold the child without a tremor, while
the warm blood gushed upon her and offended
her. Not a soul spoke, no one stirred, there was
not a breath of sound, save that made by the swift
movements of the Doctor. When it was all over,
the bandages bound tightly down, the napkin
taken away, and the Doctor had swallowed a glass
of raw spirits to steady his hands, that had no
innate love of surgery, and after their work was
done began to shake like two leaves, then the
child opened her eyes, wide and quiet, and gazed
up at Catherine. “The angels will look like you,”
she breathed: “I shall be one of them. Then I
— shall take care of — you. I would — like to
see my father.”

As if he had heard the half-articulate breath
through walls and doors, McRoy was in the room,
as it seemed, with a single bound, and down beside

the bed with his head on his child's heart.
May placed both her pretty hands in his hair, held
up her face to Catherine for a kiss, — a trembling
kiss, — and Catherine closed her eyes. Then the
mother, who had followed her husband, all dazed
and numbed, sat down in Catherine's seat, and
gazed before her into the emptiness, and uttered
at last a loud, wild cry. The Doctor went to her,
knowing better how to solace her than any other
could; and Catherine passed through the doorway
where Gaston stood, and looked him level in
the face with eyes that said, “Your work and
mine!”