In the Valley of the Shadow | Page 7

at each other.
From then the time raced on incredibly. The great surgeon, with his two
assistants, was in the hall; he was on the stairs; he was lost to sight.
There was a momentary rush and bustle, the closing of a door. Peter
came out, whispering to himself, and disappeared somewhere. The
others, clustered in the library, spoke fitfully.
"They carried her on a cot into the west room," somebody murmured
close to Belden. It was little Margaret. "I saw her. She waved her hand
at me! I threw her a kiss. Miss Strong smiled at me--I love Miss

Strong."
Aunt Lucia sobbed. Susy bit her lip and played with Billy's unwilling
hand.
"Where's my father? Where's he gone?" he demanded. "Who's that
other woman with the apron?"
Miss Strong appeared at the door. "She has taken the ether very well
indeed; they are much pleased," she said softly. They hung on her
words, they overwhelmed her with questions. She soothed them like
children.
It grew suddenly clear to Belden that Caddy would die. It must be so.
He wondered that they had hoped for anything else. He was sorry for
them all. He watched indifferently while Miss Strong led the children
away--he knew she was taking them to their father. Later, while Aunt
Lucia, on her knees, read through streaming eyes from her prayer-book,
and Susy talked nervously to him, he watched the firm, full figure of
the woman pacing up and down the piazza outside, her arm drawn
through his restless boy's.
"God bless her!" he said aloud.
Afterwards he could never recall the consecutive happenings of the end.
He saw only separate pictures.
In one, a strange young man opened the door and said the words that
frightened them with delight.
In another, a drawn, old, white-faced man--surely not Dr.
Jameson--leaned weakly in a chair, while a woman handed him a tiny
glass of colored liquid.
In yet another, a father hid his face in his little daughter's bosom and
sobbed, with shaking shoulders; his tall son smiled bravely over the
bent head.

In the last picture he himself bore a part; for when he came upon his
shy, suspicious boy clasped in the kind arms of the woman whose
brown eyes, once seen, had haunted his thoughts ever since, he
gathered them both to him irresistibly. As he laid his cheek against hers,
he felt that it was wet with tears.
"It lies with you now," he whispered in her ear, "to give her back to us,
well and strong. He says you can. Afterwards--"
She drew away from him.
"I--I must go. I am so glad--I will do my best," she answered
unsteadily.
He caught her hand. "And afterwards?" he repeated, a growing mastery
in his voice. She tried to meet his eyes, but her own fell, conquered.

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