The Spirit of Sweetwater | Page 6

think he fears I may die while he is gone."
Clement leaned forward till his eyes were on a level with those of the
girl, and his voice was very calm and penetrating as he said:
"What can I do for you, Miss Ross? I have the profoundest conviction
that I can do you good."
A startled look came into the big brown eyes. She looked at him as a
babe might, striving to comprehend.
He went on, "Here I am a millionaire, a strong young man--what can I
do for you?"
"I think I understand you," she said slowly. "It's very good of you, but

you can do nothing."
"It is impossible," he broke forth in answer, and his voice gave her a
perceptible shock. "There must be something I can do. If it will help
you there is my arm--its blood is yours." He stammered a little. "It isn't
right that one so young and beautiful should die. We won't let you die.
There must be something I can do. This wind and sun--and the good
water will work with us to do you good."
His voice moved her, and she smiled with the tears on her lashes. "It
does me good just to look at you. You are so big and brown. I saw you
at the spring last night. Perhaps I have come at last----" She coughed--a
weak, flat sound which made him shudder.
She tried to reassure him. "Really, I have coughed less than at any time
during the last five months."
He faced her again. "Miss Ross, I felt last night a sudden desire to help
you. I believed I had the power to help you--I don't know why--I'm not
a healer." He smiled for the first time. "But I felt perfectly sure I could
do you good. I feel that way now. I never had such a feeling toward any
person before. It is just as strange to me as it is to you."
She was looking at him now with musing eyes.
"That is the curious part of it," she said. "It doesn't seem strange at all.
It seems as if I had been wanting to hear your voice--as if I had known
of you all my life----" She tried to suppress her coughing, and he was in
agony during the paroxysm. The nurse came hurrying out, and while he
waited at one side Clement felt that if he could have taken her by the
hands he could have prevented it. It was a singular conviction, but it
was most definite, and had a peculiar air of actuality.
When she lay quiet he approached again and said: "I'll go now. I must
not tire you. But remember, I'm going to come and see you, and I'm
going to do you good. Every time I see you I am going to will to you
some of my vitality--my love of life. For I love life--it is beautiful to
live."

She gave him her hand, and he bowed and left her.
She lay quietly after he went away and smiled, a little, wan smile,
which made her pallor the more pitiful. It was all so romantic and
wonderful--this big man's coming. He was so unspoiled and so direct of
manner. She had the hope he would come again, and it seemed not
impossible that he might help her, his voice was so stirring and his
hands so big and strong.
Yet she was beyond the reach of even the conjectures of passion. She
had come to a certain exterior resignation to her fate. The world had
lost its poignant interest--it was now a pageant upon which she was
looking for the last time, yet she was too tired, too indifferent to lift her
hand to stay it in its course even had it been within her power.
At times, however, she rebelled at her fate. There were hours, even yet,
when she lay alone in her bed hearing her father's regular stertorous
breathing till a great wave of longing to live swept upon her, and she
was forced to turn her face to her pillow to stifle her mingled coughing
and sobbing.
"Oh, Father, let me live! I want to live like other women. Oh, dear
Father, grant me a little life!"
These waves of passionate rebellion left her weaker, sadder, more
indifferent than ever, and as coldly pallid almost as if death had already
claimed her.
On the night following Clement's talk with her she fell asleep while
musing upon one mind's influence upon another. Perhaps if she could
only believe she might be helped; perhaps he was sent to help her. It
had been long since such a personality had stood before her--indeed, no
such man had ever touched her hand or looked into