PAGE 8
On the Fever Ship
by
She turned her head and looked up fearfully at the young Doctor.
“Tell me, why does he look at me like that?” she asked. “He doesn’t know me. Is he very ill? Tell me the truth.” She drew in her breath quickly. “Of course you will tell me the truth.”
When she asked the question he felt her arms draw tight about his shoulders. It was as though she was holding him to herself, and from some one who had reached out for him. In his trouble he turned to his old friend and keeper. His voice was hoarse and very low.
“Is this the same young lady who was on the transport–the one you used to drive away?”
In his embarrassment, the hospital steward blushed under his tan, and stammered.
“Of course it’s the same young lady,” the Doctor answered, briskly. “And I won’t let them drive her away.” He turned to her, smiling gravely. “I think his condition has ceased to be dangerous, madam,” he said.
People who in a former existence had been his friends, and Her brother, gathered about his stretcher and bore him through the crowd and lifted him into a carriage filled with cushions, among which he sank lower and lower. Then She sat beside him, and he heard Her brother say to the coachman, “Home, and drive slowly and keep on the asphalt.”
The carriage moved forward, and She put her arm about him, and his head fell on her shoulder, and neither of them spoke. The vision had lasted so long now that he was torn with the joy that after all it might be real. But he could not bear the awakening if it were not, so he raised his head fearfully and looked up into the beautiful eyes above him. His brows were knit, and he struggled with a great doubt and an awful joy.
“Dearest,” he said, “is it real?”
“Is it real?” she repeated.
Even as a dream, it was so wonderfully beautiful that he was satisfied if it could only continue so, if but for a little while.
“Do you think,” he begged again, trembling, “that it is going to last much longer?”
She smiled, and, bending her head slowly, kissed him.
“It is going to last–always,” she said.