Out on the end of the long pier that juts far into the Saint Lawrence, Nancy Howard was idly tossing scraps of paper into the choppy surface of the mighty river. Behind her, Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré was rapidly putting on her winter guise. The last pilgrimage ended, the good saint lost no time in packing up her relics for safe keeping, until the next year’s pilgrims should turn their faces towards her shrine. Nancy had returned from the telegraph office, two days before, past rows of dismantled booths and of shops whose proprietors were already taking inventory of their remaining possessions. The heaped-up missals and rosaries made little impression upon her; but even her stalwart Protestantism rebelled at sight of the bare-armed priestess who was scrubbing a plaster Virgin with suds and a nailbrush. Nancy would have preferred the more impersonal cleansing administered by the garden hose. Even Nancy Howard had been forced to admit that the Good Sainte Anne had earned her money. Excitement had not been lacking, during the past two days. It was one thing to come to her father’s aid with an offer to play nurse; it was quite another matter to give several hours of each day to the whims of a man who was as unused to pain as he was to the thwarting of his plans. Nancy had expected a playful bit of masquerade. She promptly discovered that she was doomed to work as she had never worked before. She had informed Barth that it was her custom to leave all financial arrangements in the hands of the doctor. She had no idea what value it might have pleased her father to set upon her services. She had a very distinct idea, however, that, whatever the value, she fully earned it. Arrogant and desponding, masterful and peevish by turns, Cecil Barth was no easy patient. Accustomed all his life to being served, he now had less notion than ever of lifting a finger to serve himself. Moreover, Nancy Howard had a rooted objection to being smoked at. Her objection was based upon chivalry, not antipathy to nicotine; nevertheless, it was active and permanent. She only regained her lost poise, when she tried to reduce to systematic orthography the unspellable accent of her patient, most of all that prolonged Oh-er, raahther! which appeared to represent his superlative degree of comparison.
“Oh, nurse?”
Barth’s voice met her on the threshold, as, capped with a bit of lawn and covered with an ample apron from the wardrobe of Madame Gagnier, she opened the door of the invalid’s room.
“Yes, sir.”
“I thought you would never come back.”
“You have needed something?”
“Yes. The room is too warm, and I think it is time for the rubbing.”
“Not for fifteen minutes,” Nancy answered calmly. “I told you I would be back in time.”
“Yes. But it is so warm here.”
“Why didn’t you call Madame Gagnier to open a window?”
“Because she is so very clumsy. Please open it now.”
Nancy repressed a sudden longing to cross the room on her heels. Barth was sitting up, that day; but the lines around his lips and the brilliant patch of scarlet on either cheek betrayed the fact that the past two days had worn upon him.
“Is your foot aching now?” she asked, as she returned to her seat.
“Yes, intensely. Do you suppose that doctor knows how to treat it?”
Nancy’s eyes flashed.
“He ought to,” she answered shortly.
Barth turned argumentative.
“It is not a question of obligation; it is a mere matter of training and experience,” he observed.
“He is the best doctor in the city,” Nancy persisted.
“In Quebec?”
“No; at home.”
For the dozenth time since his catastrophe, Barth regretted the loss of his glasses. Nancy’s tone betrayed her irritation. Unable to see her face distinctly, he was also unable to fathom the cause of her displeasure. He peered at her dubiously for a moment; then he dropped back in his chair.
“Very likely,” he agreed languidly. “Now will you please move the foot-rest a very little to the right?”
“So?”
“Yes. Thank you, nurse.”
“Is there anything else?”
He pointed to the table at his elbow.
“My pipe, please; and then if you wouldn’t mind reading aloud for a time.”
Nancy did mind acutely; but she took up the book with an outward showing of indifference, while Barth composed himself to smoke and doze at his pleasure.
For a long hour, Nancy read on and on. Now and then she glanced out at the sunshiny lawn beneath the window; now and then she looked up at her patient, wondering if he would never bid her cease. In spite of her rebellion at her captivity, however, she was forced to admit that Barth had his redeeming traits. His faults were of race and training; his virtues were his own and wholly likable. Moreover, in all essential points, he was a gentleman to the very core of his soul and the marrow of his bones.
“‘Still of more moment than all these cures, are the graces which God has given, and continues to give every day, through the intercession of good Sainte Anne, to many a sinner for conversion to better life.’” Nancy’s quiet contralto voice died away, and M. Morel’s old story dropped from her hands. Barth’s eyes were closed, and she decided that he had dropped to sleep; but his voice showed her mistake.
“It’s a queer old story. Do you believe it all, nurse?”
A sudden spice of mischief came into Nancy’s tone.
“Yes, and no. I doubt the epilepsy and paralysis; it remains to be seen about the conversions to a better life.”
“I suppose one could tell by following up the cases,” Barth said thoughtfully.
“Certainly.” Nancy’s accent was incisive. “I accept nothing on trust.”
Barth took a prolonged pull at his pipe.
“But it’s not so easy to follow up cases two hundred and fifty years old,” he suggested.
Nancy laughed.
“No; I’ll content myself with the modern ones.”
“Do you suppose there are any modern ones?”
“Oh, yes. The priests claim that there are several new cases, every year.”
“And you can get on the track of them?” he asked, with a sudden show of interest.
“Surely. I have my eye on one of them now,” Nancy responded gravely.
“A Sainte Anne miracle?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me where it is?” he urged.
She shook her head.
“I can’t. It concerns somebody besides myself,” she replied, with a decision which he felt it would be useless to question.
There was a prolonged pause. It was Barth who broke it.
“Strange we never heard of the place at home!” he said reflectively.
“How long since you came here?” Nancy asked, rather indifferently.
“Two weeks.”
“And you like it?”
“For a change. It is a change from the ’Varsity, though.”
“Which was your university?” she inquired, less from any interest in the answer than because she could see that her patient was in an autobiographical frame of mind, and even her brief experience of mankind had taught her to let such moods have their way.
“Kings, at Cambridge. I was at Eton before that.”
“What sent you out here?”
“Ranching. My brother went in for the army, and we didn’t care to have two of a kind in the same family.”
“It might be a little monotonous,” she assented gravely. “But where is your ranch?”
“I haven’t any yet. I am stopping in Quebec for the winter, and I shall go out, early in the spring.”
“Is Quebec a pleasant place?” she asked, as she crossed the room to the window and stood looking out at the river beneath.
“It’s rather charming, only I don’t know anybody there.”
“Why don’t you get acquainted, then?”
“How can I? I brought some letters; but the people have moved to Vancouver.”
“Yes; but they aren’t the only people in Quebec.”
“Of course not; but I don’t know any of the others.”
“But you can?”
“How?” Barth queried blankly.
“Why, talk to them, do the things they do—oh, just get acquainted; that’s all,” the girl answered, with some impatience.
He raised his brows inquiringly. It was not the first time that Nancy had been annoyed by the expression.
“Talk to people, before you have been introduced to them?”
“Yes. Why not?”
“No reason; only it’s not our way.”
“Whose way?”
“The way we English people do.”
“Oh, what a Britisher you are!” she said, with a momentary impatience that led her to forget her self-imposed r?le as hireling.
His lips straightened.
“Certainly. Why not?” he asked quietly.
Baffled, she attempted another line of attack.
“But you were never introduced to me,” she told him.
“Oh, no.”
“And you talk to me.”
“Yes. But that is different.”
“How different?” she demanded.
“You are my nurse.”
Her color came hotly.
“I wasn’t at first.”
Too late she repented her rashness, as Mr. Cecil Barth made languid answer,—
“No. Still, if I remember clearly, it was you who first spoke to me. Oh,—nurse!”
But the door banged sharply, and Barth found himself alone with his ankle and with his thoughts.
“Where is the nurse?” he asked Dr. Howard, a long hour later.
“She went out for a walk.”
“Again?”
“Yes. Have you needed her?”
“Not exactly; but—” Barth hesitated. Then, like the honest Englishman he was, he went straight to the point. “The fact is, doctor, I am afraid I said something that vexed her. I didn’t mean to; I really had no idea of annoying her. I should dislike to hurt her feelings, for she has been very good to me.”
For the first time in their acquaintance, Dr. Howard could confess to a liking for his patient. Nevertheless, he only nodded curtly, as he said,—
“You couldn’t have had a better or more loyal nurse.”
According to her custom, Nancy remained on duty, that evening, until nine o’clock. Then she moved softly up and down, setting the room in order for the night. Barth had been lying quiet, staring idly up at the mammoth shadow of Madame Gagnier, rocking to and fro just outside the door. Then, as Nancy paused beside him, he turned to face her.
“Can I do anything more, sir?” she asked, with the gentle seriousness which marked her moods now and then.
“Nothing, thank you. I am quite comfortable.”
“I am glad. I hope you may have a quiet night.”
“Thank you. I hope I may. You have been very good to me, nurse, and—” his speech hurried itself a little; “I appreciate it. As I understand, your wa—salary is paid through the doctor; but perhaps some little thing that—”
His gesture was too swift and sure to be avoided. The next instant, Nancy Howard found herself stalking out of the room with blazing cheeks and with a shining golden guinea clasped in the hot palm of her left hand.