Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise | Page 6

windows. With a
curse at her stupidity Stevens kicked over the table, used his foot
vigorously in thrusting it to the wall. "Now!" exclaimed he, taking his
stand in the center of the room and gauging the distance of ceiling,
floor and walls.
Nora, her back against the window frame, her fingers sunk in her big
loose bosom, stared petrified. Stevens, like an athlete swinging an
indian club, whirled the body round and round his head, at the full
length of his powerful arms. More and more rapidly he swung it, until
his breath came and went in gasps and the sweat was trickling in
streams down his face and neck. Round and round between ceiling and
floor whirled the naked body of the baby--round and round for minutes
that seemed hours to the horrified nurse--round and round with all the
strength and speed the young man could put forth--round and round
until the room was a blur before his throbbing eyes, until his expression
became fully as demoniac as Nora had been fancying it. Just as she was
recovering from her paralysis of horror and was about to fly shrieking
from the room she was halted by a sound that made her draw in air
until her bosom swelled as if it would burst its gingham prison. She
craned eagerly toward Stevens. He was whirling the body more
furiously than ever.
"Was that you?" asked Nora hoarsely. "Or was it----" She paused,

listened.
The sound came again--the sound of a drowning person fighting for
breath.
"It's--it's----" muttered Nora. "What is it, Doctor?"
"Life!" panted Stevens, triumph in his glistening, streaming face.
"Life!"
He continued to whirl the little form, but not so rapidly or so vigorously.
And now the sound was louder, or, rather, less faint, less
uncertain--was a cry--was the cry of a living thing. "She's alive--alive!"
shrieked the woman, and in time with his movements she swayed to
and fro from side to side, laughing, weeping, wringing her hands,
patting her bosom, her cheeks. She stretched out her arms. "My prayers
are answered!" she cried. "Don't kill her, you brute! Give her to me.
You shan't treat a baby that way."
The unheeding doctor kept on whirling until the cry was continuous, a
low but lusty wail of angry protest. Then he stopped, caught the baby
up in both arms, burst out laughing. "You little minx!" he said--or,
rather, gasped--a tenderness quite maternal in his eyes. "But I got you!
Nora, the table."
Nora righted the table, spread and smoothed the cloths, extended her
scrawny eager arms for the baby. Stevens with a jerk of the head
motioned her aside, laid the baby on the table. He felt for the pulse at
its wrist, bent to listen at the heart. Quite useless. That strong, rising
howl of helpless fury was proof enough. Her majesty the baby was mad
through and through--therefore alive through and through.
"Grand heart action!" said the young man. He stood aloof, hands on his
hips, head at a proud angle. "You never saw a healthier specimen. It'll
be many a year, bar accidents, before she's that near death again."
But it was Nora's turn not to hear. She was soothing and swaddling the
outraged baby. "There--there!" she crooned. "Nora'll take care of you.

The bad man shan't come near my little precious--no, the wicked man
shan't touch her again."
The bedroom door opened. At the slight noise superstitious Nora paled,
shriveled within her green and white checked gingham. She slowly
turned her head as if on this day of miracles she expected yet
another--the resurrection of the resurrected baby's mother, "poor Miss
Lorella." But Lorella Lenox was forever tranquil in the sleep that
engulfed her and the sorrows in which she had been entangled by an
impetuous, trusting heart. The apparition in the doorway was
commonplace--the mistress of the house, Lorella's elder and married
sister Fanny--neither fair nor dark, neither tall nor short, neither thin
nor fat, neither pretty nor homely, neither stupid nor bright, neither neat
nor dowdy--one of that multitude of excellent, unobtrusive human
beings who make the restful stretches in a world of agitations--and who
respond to the impetus of circumstance as unresistingly as cloud to
wind.
As the wail of the child smote upon Fanny's ears she lifted her head,
startled, and cried out sharply, "What's that?"
"We've saved the baby, Mrs. Warham," replied the young doctor,
beaming on her through his glasses.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Warham. And she abruptly seated herself on the big
chintz-covered sofa beside the door.
"And it's a lovely child," pleaded Nora. Her woman's instinct guided
her straight to the secret of the conflict raging behind Mrs. Warham's
unhappy face.
"The finest girl in the world," cried Stevens, well-meaning but tactless.
"Girl!" exclaimed Fanny, starting up