Tomasos Fortune and Other Stories | Page 5

her shoulder, and over the soft folds of her black dress.
"Been gardening?" he asked, coming to the bib of her nursing apron.
It was marvellous how the brain, which was laid open to the day, retained the consciousness of one subject so long.
"Yes--dear," she whispered.
"Your old apron is all wet!" he said reproachfully, touching her breast where the blood--his own blood--was slowly drying.
His hand passed on, and as it touched her, I saw her eyes soften into such a wonderful tenderness that I felt as if I were looking on a part of Sister's life which was sacred.
I saw a little movement as if to draw back, then she resolutely held her position. But her eyes were dull with a new pain. I wonder--I have wondered ever since--what memories that poor senseless wreck of a man was arousing in the woman's heart by his wandering touch.
"Marny," he said, "Marny. It was not TOO hard waiting for me?"
"No, dear."
"It will be all right now, Marny. The bad part is all past."
"Yes."
"Marny, you remember--the night--I left--Marny--I want--no--no, your LIPS."
I knelt suddenly, and slipped my hand within his shirt, for I saw something in his face.
As Sister's lips touched his I felt his heart give a great bound within his breast, and then it was still. When she lifted her face it was as pale as his.
I must say that I felt like crying--a feeling which had not come to me for twenty years. I busied myself purposely with the dead man, and when I had finished my task I turned, and found Sister filling in the papers--her cap neatly tied, her golden hair hidden.
I signed the certificate, placing my name beneath hers.
For a moment we stood. Our eyes met, and--we said nothing. She moved towards the door, and I held it open while she passed out.
Two hours later I received orders from the officer in command to send the nurses back to headquarters. Our men were falling back before the enemy.

A SMALL WORLD

"Thine were the calming eyes That round my pinnace could have stilled the sea, And drawn thy voyager home, and bid him be Pure with their pureness, with their wisdom wise, Merged in their light, and greatly lost in thee."
It was midday at the monastery of Montserrat, and a monk, walking in the garden, turned and paused in his meditative promenade to listen to an unwonted noise. The silence of this sacred height is so intense that many cannot sleep at night for the hunger of a sound. There is no running water except the fountain in the patio. There are no birds to tell of spring and morning. There are no trees for the cool night winds to stir, nothing but eternal rock and the ancient building so closely associated with the life of Ignatius de Loyola. The valley, a sheer three thousand feet below, is thinly enough populated, though a great river and the line of railway from Manresa to Barcelona run through it. So clear is the atmosphere that at the great distance the contemplative denizens of the monastery may count the number of the railway carriages, while no sound of the train, or indeed of any life in the valley, reaches their ears.
What the monk heard was disturbing, and he hurried to the corner of the garden, from whence a view of the winding road may be obtained. Floating on the wind came the sound, as from another world, of shouting, and the hollow rumble of wheels. The holy man peered down into the valley, and soon verified his fears. It was the diligencia, which had quitted the monastery a short hour ago, that flew down the hill to inevitable destruction. Once before in the recollection of the watcher the mules had run away, rushing down to their death, and carrying with them across that frontier the lives of seven passengers, devout persons, who, having performed the pilgrimage to the shrine of our Lady of Montserrat, had doubtless received their reward. The monk crossed himself, but, being human, forgot alike to pray and to call his brethren to witness the scene. It was like looking at a play from a very high gallery. The miniature diligencia on the toy road far below swayed from the bank of the highway to the verge--the four mules stretched out at a gallop, as in a picture. The shouts dimly heard at the monastery had the effect they were intended to create, for the monk could see the carters and muleteers draw aside to let the living avalanche go past.
There were but two men on the box-seat of the diligencia--the driver and a passenger seated by his side. The monk recollected that this passenger had passed two days at Montserrat, inscribing himself in the visitors' book as Matthew S. Whittaker.
"I am