FullReads

Once, weeks ago, before he became so ill, she had told him of the brother. This in itself was wrong and against the ethics of the profession. One does not speak of oneself or one’s family.

“If you won’t try to sleep, shall I read to you?”

“Read what?”

“I thought–the Bible, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Certainly,” he agreed. “I suppose that’s the conventional thing; and if it makes you feel any better—- Will you think over what I’ve been saying?”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, soothing him like a fretful child, and brought her Bible.

The clock on the near-by town hall struck two as she drew up her chair beside him and commenced to read by the shaded light. Across the courtyard the windows were dim yellowish rectangles, with here and there one brighter than the others that told its own story of sleepless hours. A taxicab rolled along the street outside, carrying a boisterous night party.

The Nurse had taken off her cap and put it on a stand. The autumn night was warm, and the light touch of the tulle had pressed her hair in damp, fine curves over her forehead. There were purple hollows of anxiety and sleeplessness under her eyes.

“The perfect nurse,” the head of the training school was fond of saying, “is more or less of a machine. Too much sympathy is a handicap to her work and an embarrassment to her patient. A perfect, silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine!”

Poor Junior Nurse!

Now Billy Grant, lying there listening to something out of Isaiah, should have been repenting his hard-living, hard-drinking young life; should have been forgiving the Lindley Grants–which story does not belong here; should have been asking for the consolation of the church, and trying to summon from the depths of his consciousness faint memories of early teachings as to the life beyond, and what he might or might not expect there.

What he actually did while the Nurse read was to try to move his legs, and, failing this, to plan a way to achieve the final revenge of a not particularly forgiving life.

At a little before three o’clock the Nurse telephoned across for an interne, who came over in a bathrobe over his pajamas and shot a hypodermic into Billy Grant’s left arm. Billy Grant hardly noticed. He was seeing Mrs. Lindley Grant when his surprise was sprung on her. The interne summoned the Nurse into the hall with a jerk of his head.

“About all in!” he said. “Heart’s gone–too much booze probably. I’d stay, but there’s nothing to do.”

“Would oxygen—-“

“Oh, you can try it if you like. It’s like blowing up a leaking tire; but if you’ll feel better, do it.” He yawned and tied the cord of his bathrobe round him more securely. “I guess you’ll be glad to get back,” he observed, looking round the dingy hall. “This place always gives me a chill. Well, let me know if you want me. Good night.”

The Nurse stood in the hallway until the echo of his slippers on the asphalt had died away. Then she turned to Billy Grant.

“Well?” demanded Billy Grant. “How long have I? Until morning?”

“If you would only not talk and excite yourself—-“

“Hell!” said Billy Grant, we regret to record. “I’ve got to do all the talking I’m going to do right now. I beg your pardon–I didn’t intend to swear.”

“Oh, that’s all right!” said the Nurse vaguely. This was like no deathbed she had ever seen, and it was disconcerting.

“Shall I read again?”

“No, thank you.”

The Nurse looked at her watch, which had been graduation present from her mother and which said, inside the case: “To my little girl!” There is no question but that, when the Nurse’s mother gave that inscription to the jeweller, she was thinking of the day when the Staff Doctor had brought the Nurse in his leather bag, and had slapped her between the shoulders to make her breathe. “To my little girl!” said the watch; and across from that–“Three o’clock.”