It was the work of a moment. Almost as he started forward to restrain her, she had raised herself, and, burying her face in a handkerchief, leant, shaking, against the wall.
Kincaid gazed at her, white and stern, and a tense silence followed, broken by her.
"You can have me dismissed," she said—"he will see his child!"
He answered nothing. The cruelty of the speech which ignored and perverted everything outside the interests of the man by whom she had been wronged seemed the last blow that his pain could have to bear. A sense of the inequality and injustice of life\'s distribution overwhelmed him. Viewed in the light of her defeated enemy, he felt as broken, as far from power or dignity, as if the imputation had been just.
She resumed her seat; and, waiting as long as duty still required, he at last made some remark. She replied constrainedly. The intervention of the pause was demonstrated by their tones, which sounded flat and dull. He was thankful when he could go; and his departure was not less welcome to the woman. To her reactionary weakness the removal of supervision came as balm. He went from her heavily, and she drew her chair yet closer to the bedside.
Tony would see his boy! She had no other settled thought, excepting the reluctant one that she would meet him when he came. The reflection that he would hear of her share in the matter gladdened her scarcely at all; indeed, when she contemplated his enlightenment, she was perturbed. He would learn that his initial faith in her had been justified, and he would be sorry, piteously sorry, for all the hard words that he had used. But by her there was little to be gained; what she had done had been for him. She found it even a humiliation that her act would be known to him—a humiliation which his gratitude would do nothing to decrease. She looked at the watch that she had pawned for the rent of her garret after his renunciation of her, and determined the length of time before he could arrive.
The stress of the last few minutes could not be suffered to beget any abatement of wariness. But by degrees, as the reverberation of the outburst faded, she felt more tranquil than she had done since the Matron joined her earlier in the evening; and the vigil was continued with undiminished care. Archie would die, but now Tony would be present. The closing moments would not pass while he was simulating misery or mirth on a stage. Horror of the averted fate, more dreadful to a woman\'s mind even than to the father\'s own, made the brief protraction appear an almost priceless boon.
It was possible for him to be here already; not likely, perhaps, so soon as this, but possible, supposing that the piece "played quick" and that a cab had been ordered to await him at the door. She listened for the roll of wheels in the distance, but the silence was undisturbed. Archie was lying as calm as when she had entered. If no further impediment occurred, to exhaust the remaining strength more speedily, it seemed safe to think that he might last two hours.
Her misgivings as to her risk were slight. The danger she had run might prove fatal; but the thing had been done with impunity at least once before—she remembered hearing of it. While we have our health, the contingency of sickness appears to us more remote from ourselves than from our neighbours; in her own case, a serious result looked exceedingly improbable. She regarded the benefit of her temerity as cheaply bought. None knew better than she, however, how much completive attention was called for, what alertness of eye and hand was essential afterwards; and, sitting there, her gaze was fastened on the boy as if she sought to hearken to every flutter of his pulse.
Now a cab did approach; she held her breath as it rattled near. It stopped, she fancied, before the hospital gate. Still with her stare riveted on the unconscious child, she strained her ears for the confirmatory tread. The seconds ticked away, swelling to minutes, but no footstep fell. The hope had been a false one! Presently the cab was heard again, driving away. She began to be distressed, alarmed. Making allowance for a too sanguine calculation, it was time that he was here!... The delay was unaccountable; no conjecture could be formed as to its extent. Her fingers were laced and unlaced in her lap nervously. She imagined the rumble of wheels in the soughing of the wind, alternately intent and discomfited. The faint slamming of a cottage-door startled her to expectation. In the profundity of the hush that spread with every subsidence of sound, she seemed to hear the throbbing of her heart.
Out in the town a clock struck twelve, and apprehension verged upon despair. The eyes fixed on the boy were desperate now; she leant over him to contest the advent of the end shade by shade. So far no change was shown; Tony\'s fast dwindling chance was not yet lost. "God, God! Send him quick!" she prayed. Racked with impatience, tortured by the fear that what she had done might, after all, be unavailing, she strove to devise some theory to uphold her. Debarred from venting her suspense in action, she found the constraint of her posture almost physical pain.
The clock boomed the hour of one. It swept suddenly across her mind that the Matron had been doubtful of letting him proceed to the ward on his return: he must have come and gone! She had been reaching forward, and her arm remained extended vaguely. Consternation engulfed her. If during ten seconds she thought of anything but her neglect to ensure his being admitted, she thought she felt the blood in her freezing from head to foot. He had come and gone!—she was thwarted by her own oversight. Defeat paralysed the woman.... Her exploit now assumed an aspect of grievous hazard, enhanced by its futility. She lifted herself faint at soul. Her services were instinctive, mechanical; she resumed them, she was assiduous and watchful; but she appeared to be prompted by some external influence, with her brain benumbed.
All at once a new thought thrilled her stupor. She heard the stroke of three, and the boy was still alive! The ungovernable hope shook her back to sensation. She told herself that the hope was wild, fantastic, that she would be mad to harbour it, but excitement shivered in her; she was strung with the intensity of what she hesitated to own. Every second that might bring the end and yet withheld it, fanned the hope feebly; the passage of each slow, dragging minute stretched suspense more taut. She dreaded the quiver of her lashes that veiled his face from view, as if the spark of life might vanish as her eyelids fell. Between eternities, the distant clock rang forth the quarters of the hour across the sleeping town, and at every quarter she gasped "Thank God!" and wondered would she thank Him by the next. Hour trailed into hour. The boy lingered still. Haggard, she tended and she watched. The dreariness of daybreak paled the blind before the bed. The blind grew more transparent, and hope trembled on. There was the stir of morning, movement in the street; dawn touched them wanly, and hope held her yet. And sunrise showed him breathing peacefully once more—and then she knew that Heaven had worked a miracle and the child would live.
Among the staff that case is cited now and still the nurses tell how Mary Brettan saved his life. The local Examiner gave the matter a third of a column, headed "Heroism of a Hospital Nurse." And, cut down to five lines, it was mentioned in the London papers. Mr. Collins, of Pattenden\'s, glanced at t............