Signing the Contract and What it Cost

Mrs. Heywood had hastened to order a room and bed made ready, and now, returning with such restoratives as were at hand, knelt by the side of the sufferer to apply them.

“How young! how pretty!” she said in surprise, gazing down at the unconscious face with its broad white brow, cheeks now slightly flushed with fever, sweet mouth, and large, lustrous eyes, which suddenly opened wide upon her, then closed again, while a deep moan escaped the lips and the head moved restlessly from side to side.

“She’s very ill, poor dear!” said the old lady. “Ada, my child, don’t come near lest her disease should be contagious. We ought to have the doctor here as soon as possible, Joseph.”

“I’ll go for him,” said Mike, starting for the door.

“Hark!” cried Ada, “there’s a horse galloping up the drive. Who can it be coming at this hour on such a night?”

Mrs. Heywood rose to her feet, and they all stood for a moment intently listening; then, at a “Hallo!” from a familiar voice,

“Why, it’s the doctor himself!” they exclaimed simultaneously, the old gentleman and Ada running out to the hall to greet him.

He had already alighted from his horse, and was coming in.

“All well?” he asked almost breathlessly, not even pausing to say good-evening.

“Yes – no!” returned Mr. Heywood. “This way as quick as you can, doctor; we’ve a poor creature here who is very sick indeed.”

“Ah, that explains it,” remarked the physician, as if thinking aloud, while hastily following his host.

He pronounced his patient in a brain-fever and very ill indeed.

“The poor creature (evidently a lady) must have been half famished for months past, and has hardly strength to cope with the disease,” he said, “yet with the blessing of Providence upon skilful treatment and the best of nursing” – with a bow and a smile directed to Mrs. Heywood – “she may possibly recover.”

“Poor dear! my heart is strongly drawn to her,” said the old lady, twinkling away a tear as she bent over the bed where they had laid the sufferer, and softly smoothed back the hair from the pale forehead, “and she shall not die for lack of anything it is in my power to do for her.”

“Singular!” murmured the doctor meditatively. Then glancing from the face of his patient to those of his old friends, “It doesn’t seem to have occurred to you to wonder how I came here so opportunely to-night,” he remarked.

“Why no, to be sure,” said Mr. Heywood. “How was it? We have been so taken up with this poor creature’s critical condition as to have no thought for anything else.”

“Just so. Well, I was hurrying home from the bedside of a patient some two miles from here; very anxious to get home, too, out of the darkness and storm; when suddenly it was strongly impressed upon my mind that I was needed here and ought to come at once. It was a good half-mile out of my way, as you know; bad road, too, through the thickest of the woods, where the wind was blowing down trees, and one might at any moment fall on and crush me and my horse; but so strong was the impression I speak of that I really could not resist. And there surely was a providence in it,” he added reverently, “for by to-morrow morning medical aid would have come too late to give this poor woman even a chance for life.”

“I am sure of it,” said the old lady; “and in her coming here also. I shall watch with her through the night, doctor.”

“And I shall share your vigil,” he replied.

The morning sun rose bright and clear, but its cheerful light brought no alleviation of the wanderer’s pain. She lay tossing on her couch unconscious of all the solicitude felt for her, all the kindness lavished upon her, now muttering incoherently, now crying out for “her child, her Ethel, her sweet, darling baby.”

Immediately after breakfast Mr. Heywood went himself in search of a nurse, and having procured one, and seen her established by the bedside, he and Mike again drove over to the depot at Clearfield, reaching there in time for the morning train. When they returned Rolfe was with them.

CHAPTER III

ONE FOR LIFE

“And doth not a meeting like this make amends
For all the long years I’ve been wand’ring away?” —

    Anon.
A noble, handsome fellow was Rolfe Heywood, and though the suffering stranger guest was neither forgotten nor neglected, “joy crowned the board” at Sweetbrier upon his return, and the weeks that followed were full of quiet happiness to himself, parents, and sister.

He was succeeding well in the new State of his adoption, and hoped to persuade these dear ones to join him there at some not very distant day.

He took a benevolent interest in the sick woman, and rejoiced with the others when the physician pronounced the crisis of the disease past and the patient in a fair way to recover.

“She’s come to her full senses now, and there ain’t no doing anything with her,” announced the nurse a few days later, looking in at the open door of the room where the family were at breakfast. “Not a morsel of food will she take, not a drop of medicine will she swallow. She just lays there with her eyes shut, and every once in a while I see a big tear a-rollin’ down them thin, white cheeks o’ hern.”

She withdrew with the last words, and while finishing their meal the family held a consultation on the case.

On leaving the table, Mrs. Heywood repaired to the sick-chamber.

The face resting on the snowy pillows was not only wan and emaciated, but wore an expression of deepest melancholy. The eyes were closed, but not in sleep, as Mrs. Heywood at first thought. Stepping softly to the bedside, she stood silently gazing upon her, thinking how sad it was that one so young and fair should be already weary of life.

“My baby, my baby!” came from the pale lips in low, heart-broken accents, and tears trembled on the long silken lashes that lay like dark shadows on the white cheeks.

“My poor, poor child,” said the old lady, bending down to press a gentle kiss upon her brow, “do not despair. Try to get well, and who knows but we shall be able to find your treasure and restore her to you.”

“Yes, to be sure,” said the nurse, putting a spoon to her patient’s lips. “Swallow this that the doctor left for you, there’s a dear, and then take a little of this beef-tea, and I’ll warrant you’ll feel a heap better.”

“No, no, take it away. Let me die in peace,” she sighed, averting her face, and with her wasted hand feebly putting the spoon aside.

“I want to die – I’ve nothing to live for now.” And great tears rolled down the pale sad face. “Ah, me! I gave her to them, and they will never, never give her up! Oh, my darling! my baby! my little Ethel!” she cried, bursting into hysterical weeping.

Endearments, persuasions, caresses, reasoning, exhortation on the duty of doing everything in our power to preserve the life God has given – all were tried by turns, but in vain. She lay there in silent despair, seeming neither to hear nor heed.

Though nearly as much interested in the suffering stranger as were his parents and sister, Rolfe had not ventured into the sick-room, and so had never yet seen her face; nor had he ever heard her voice or learned her name, of which last, indeed, they were all ignorant.

Something was taking him to his own apartments that evening on leaving the tea-table, when he met Mrs. Scott, the nurse, coming down the stairs.

“Do you leave your patient alone?” he asked.

“Never for long. I’m going down to my supper, and I’ll speak to Miss Ada to come up and take my place for a bit.”

She had left the door of the sick-room ajar. A moan caught Rolfe’s ear in passing, then the words, “Oh, my baby, my baby!” He started violently, a strange pallor suddenly overspreading his face. He stood still, intently listening. The words were repeated; and hastily pushing the door open, he stepped to the bedside.

“Ethel, Ethel! Can it be? Oh, Ethel, my light, my life!”

“Rolfe!” she cried, starting up in the bed, with both hands extended, the large, lustrous eyes full of joy and amazement.

He took her in his arms, seating himself on the side of the bed; her head dropped upon his shoulder, and folding her to his heart, “Yes, it is Rolfe,” he said. “Oh, Ethel, have I found you again? Are you mine at last?”

“Yes, yes,” she faintly whispered. “But they told me you were married to another; then – ”

“Never, never, my darling! I have loved you always – you alone. Oh, why did you write so coldly, rejecting my offered heart and hand, and telling me that another had won you?”

There was no answer. The strength excitement had supplied for the moment was gone, and she lay apparently lifeless in his arms.

With a sharp cry of agony he laid her back upon her pillow, and began chafing the cold hands and pressing passionate kisses on the pale lips.