The Box with Broken Seals | Page 6

rendered, so am I in his. He
has called upon me to pay. He has begged me to make all the
arrangements for his immediate transportation to his native country."
She nodded sympathetically.
"It is a very natural wish," she observed, "so long as it does not
endanger his life."
"It does not endanger his life," her visitor replied, "because that is
already forfeit. I come now to the condition which involves you, which
explains my presence here this afternoon. It is also his earnest desire
that you should attend him so far as London as his nurse."
The look of vague apprehension which had brought a questioning
frown into Katharine Beverley's face faded away. It was succeeded by
an expression of blank and complete surprise.
"That I should nurse him--should cross with him to London?" she
repeated. "Why, I do not know this man Phillips. I never saw him in my
life! I have not even been in Ward Fourteen since he was brought
there."

"But he," Jocelyn Thew explained, "has seen you. He has been a visitor
at your hospital before he was received there as a patient. He has
received from various doctors wonderful accounts of your skill.
Besides this, he is a superstitious man, and he has been very much
impressed by the fact that you have never lost a patient. If you had been
one of your own probationers, the question of a fee would have
presented no difficulties, although he personally is, I believe, a poor
man. As it is, however, his strange craving for your services has
become a charge upon me."
"It is the most extraordinary request I ever heard in my life," Katharine
murmured. "If I had ever seen or spoken to the man, I could have
understood it better, but as it is, I find it impossible to understand."
"You must look upon it," Jocelyn Thew told her, "as one of those
strange fancies which comes sometimes to men who are living in the
shadowland of approaching death. There is one material circumstance,
however, which may make the suggestion even more disconcerting for
you. The steamer upon which we hope to sail leaves at four o'clock
to-morrow afternoon."
The idea in this new aspect was so ludicrous that she simply laughed at
him.
"My dear Mr. Jocelyn Thew!" she exclaimed. "You can't possibly be in
earnest! You mean that you expect me to leave New York with less
than twenty-four hours' notice, and go all the way to London in
attendance upon a stranger, especially in these awful times? Why, the
thing isn't reasonable--or possible! I have just consented to take the
chairmanship of a committee to form field hospitals throughout the
country, and--"
"May I interrupt for one moment?" her visitor begged.
The stream of words seemed to fall away from her lips. There was a
touch of Jocelyn Thew's other manner--perhaps more than a touch. She
looked at him and she shivered. She had seen him look like that once
before.

"Your attitude is perfectly reasonable," he continued, "but on the other
hand I must ask you to carry your thoughts back some little time. I shall
beg you to remember that I have a certain right to ask this or any other
service from you." "I admit it," she confessed hastily, "but--there is
something so outlandish in the whole suggestion. There are a score of
nurses in the hospital to any one of whom you are welcome, who are all
much cleverer than I. What possible advantage to the man can it be,
especially if he is seriously ill, to have a partially-trained nurse with
him when he might have the best in the world?"
"I think," he said, "I mentioned that this is not a matter for reasoning or
argument. It is you who are required, and no one else. I may remind
you," he went on, "that this service is a very much smaller one than I
might have asked you, and, so far as you and I are concerned, it clears
our debt."
"Clears our debt," she repeated.
"For ever!"
She closed her eyes for several moments. For some reason or other, this
last reflection seemed to bring her no particular relief. When she
opened them again, her decision was written in her face.
"I consent, of course," she acquiesced quietly. "Is there anything more
to tell me?"
"Very little," he replied, "only this. You should send your baggage on
board the City of Boston as early as possible to-morrow morning.
Every arrangement has been made for transporting Phillips in his bed,
as he lies, from the hospital to the boat. The doctor who has been in
attendance will accompany him to England, but it is important that you
should be at the hospital and should