Leerie

by Ruth Sawyer

  Chapter V

  THE LAST OF THE SURGICAL

  Things have a way of beginning casually, so casually that you think theyare bound to spin themselves out into airy nothings. The first inkling youhave to the contrary is that headlong plunge into one of the big momentsof your life, perhaps the biggest. But you never cease to wonder at theinnocent, inconsequential way it began. These are the moments when you canpicture Fate, sitting like an omnipotent operator before some giantswitchboard, playing with signals and the like. I dare say he grins like amischievous little boy who delights in turning things topsy-turvy wheneverhe has a chance.

  Fate had been busy at this for some time when the sanitarium, quiteoblivious of any signal connection, set itself to the glorious business ofgetting Sheila O'Leary married. Grief, despair, disappointment came oftento the San, death not infrequently, but happiness rarely, and there hadnever before been such a joyous, personal happiness as this one. Smallwonder that the San should gather it close to its heart and gloat over it!Was not Sheila one of its very own, born under its portals, trained in itsschool, placed above all its nurses, and loved beyond all else? And PeterBrooks. Had not the San given him his life and Sheila? It certainly was atime for rejoicing. As Hennessy had voiced it:

  "Sure, half the weddin's ye go to ye sit miserable, thinkin' the man isn'tgood enough for the lass, or the lass is no mate for the man. But, glorybe to Pether! here's a weddin' at last that God Almighty might be cryin'the banns for."

  They were to be married within the month. Every one was agreed to this,from the superintendent down to Flanders, the bus-driver--yes, and eventhe lovers themselves. The San forgot its aches and sorrows in theexcitement of planning an early summer wedding.

  "We'll make the chapel look lovely," chirped the Reverend Mrs. Grumble,clasping and unclasping her hands in a fidget of anticipation. "There'llbe enough roses and madonna lilies in the gardens to bank every pew andmake an arch over the chancel."

  "Well, if Leerie's married in the chapel, half of us can't get in." AndMadam Courot shook her head in emphatic disapproval. "She'd better takethe Congregational church. That's the only place large enough to holdeverybody who will want to come."

  A mutinous murmur rose and circled the patients on the veranda. Notmarried at the San! It was unthinkable. So this point and the final dateSheila settled for them.

  "We'll have the wedding in the gardens, save all the fuss and waste ofpicking the flowers, be ever so much prettier, and everybody and hisneighbor can come."

  When Hennessy heard of it he shirred his mouth into a pucker and whistledecstatically. "'Tis like her, just! Married out-o'-doors wi' the growin'things to stand up wi' her and the blessed sun on her head. Faith,Hennessy will have to be scrubbin' up the swans an' puttin' white satinbows round their necks."

  Sheila chose the hour before sunset on an early day of June, and the Sanspeedily set itself to the task of praying off the rain and arranging thedelightful details of attendants, refreshments, music, and all the othernon-essentials of a successful wedding. Miss Maxwell, the superintendentof nurses, took the trousseau in hand and portioned out piles of naperyand underwear to the eager hands of the nurses to embroider. The wholesanitarium was suddenly metamorphosed into a Dorcas Society; patientsforgot to be querulous, and refused extra rubbings and all unnecessarytending, that more stitches might be taken in the twenty-four hours of thehospital day. A great rivalry sprang up between the day and night nursesas to which group would finish the most, and old Mr. Crotchets, thecynical bachelor with liver complaint and a supposedly atrophied heart,offered to the winning shift the biggest box of candy New York could putup.

  Through the first days of her happiness Sheila walked like a lambent beingof another world, whose radiance was almost blinding. Those who had knownher best, who had felt her warmth and beauty in spite of that bitternesswhich had been her shield against the hurt she had battled with so long,looked upon her now with unfathomable wonder. And Peter, who had worshipedher from the moment she had taken his hand and led him back to the ways ofhealth, watched her as the men of olden times must have watched thegoddesses that occasionally graced their earth.

  "Beloved, you're almost too wonderful for an every-day, Sunday-editionnewspaper-man like me," Peter whispered to her in the hush of onetwilight, as they sat together in the rest-house, watching Hennessy feedthe swans.

  "Every woman is, when the miracle of her life has been wrought for her.Man of mine," and Sheila reached out to Peter's ever waiting arms,"wouldn't God be niggardly not to let me seem beautiful to you now?"

  Peter laughed softly. "If you're beautiful now, what will you be when--"

  Sheila hushed him. "Listen, Peter, our happiness frightens me, it's sotremendous for just two people--almost more than our share of life. I knowI seem foolish, but long ago I made up my mind I should have to dowithout love and all that goes with it, and now that it has come--sorrow,death, never frightened me, but this does."

  "Glad I have the courage for two, then. Look here, Leerie, the morehappiness we have the more we can spill over into other lives and thebrighter you can burn your lamp for the ones in the dark. This old worldneeds all the happiness it can get now. So?"

  Sheila smiled, satisfied. "You always understand. If I ever write out aprescription for love, I shall make understanding one-third of the dose.Let's go into partnership, Brooks and O'Leary, Distillers and Dispensersof Happiness."

  "All right, but the firm's wrong. It's going to be Brooks and Brooks," andPeter kissed her.

  "There is one thing," and Sheila gently disentangled herself. "There aredays and days before the wedding, and if everybody thinks I am going to donothing until then, everybody is very much mistaken. I'm going in thisminute to sign up for my last case in the Surgical."

  It must have been just at this moment that Fate turned on an arbitrarysignal-light and changed a switch. I should like to think that back of hisgrin lurked a tiny shadow of contrition.

  "And what am I going to do?" Peter called dolefully after her.

  "Oh, I don't know. You might write an article on the dangers anduncertainties of marrying any woman in a profession." And she blew him afarewell kiss.

  The train from the city, that night, brought a handful of patients, andone of these wore the uniform and insignia of a lieutenant of theEngineers. His mother came with him. She had been an old patient, andbecause of extraordinary circumstances--I use the government term--she hadobtained his discharge from a military hospital and had brought him to theSan to mend.

  "The wounds are slow in closing, and there's some nervous trouble," MissMaxwell explained to Sheila. "The boy's face is rather tragic. Will youtake the case?"

  She accepted with her usual curt nod and a hasty departure for heruniform. A half-hour later she was back in the Surgical, her fear as wellas her happiness forgotten in the call of another human being in distress.The superintendent of nurses was right: the boy's face was tragic, and afrail little mother hovered over him as if she would breathe into hislungs the last breath from her own. She looked up wistfully, a littlefearsomely, as Sheila entered; then a smile of thanksgiving swept her facelike a flash of sunlight.

  "Oh, I'm so glad! I remember you well. I hoped--but it hardly seemedpossible--I didn't dare really to expect it. When I was here before, youwere always so needed, and my boy--of course there is nothingserious--only--" and the shaking voice ended as incoherently as it hadbegun.

  The nurse took the withered hands held out to her in her young, warm ones.In an instant she saw all that the little mother had been through--therenunciation months before when she had given her boy up to his country;the long, weary weeks of learning to do without him; the schooling it hadtaken to grow patient, waiting for the letters that came sparingly or notat all; and at last the news that he was at the front, under fire, whenthe papers published all the news there was to be told. Sheila saw itall, even to her blind, frantic groping for the God she had only halfknown and into whose hands she had never wholly given the keeping
of herloved ones. And after that the cable and the waiting for what was left ofher boy to come home to her. As she looked down at her, Sheila had thestrange feeling that this frail little mother was dividing the care of herboy between God and herself, and she smiled unconsciously at this newpartnership.

  Gently she laid her hand on the lean, brown one resting on the coverlet;the boy opened his eyes. "It's going to be fine to have a soldier for apatient; I expect you know how to obey orders. You are our first, andwe're going to make your getting well just the happiest time in all yourlife, the little mother and I."

  The boy made no response. He looked at his mother as if he understood, andthen with a groan of utter misery he turned away his head and closed hiseyes again. "Ah-h-h!" thought Sheila, and a little later she drew themother into the corridor beyond earshot.

  "There's something ailing him besides wounds. What is it?"

  "Clarisse." The promptness of the answer brought considerable relief tothe nurse. It was easy to deal with the things one knew; it was the hiddenthings, tucked away in the corners of the subconscious mind or thesuper-sensitive soul, that never saw the light of open confession, thatwere the baffling obstacles to nursing. Sheila never dreaded what sheknew.

  "Well, what's the matter with Clarisse?" she asked, cheerfully.

  The little mother hesitated. Evidently it was hard to put it into words."They're engaged, she and Phil, and Phil doesn't want to see her, shrinksfrom the very thought of it. That's what's keeping him from gettingbetter, I think. She's very young and oh, so pretty. They were both youngwhen Phil went away--but Phil--" She stopped and passed a fluttering handacross her forehead; her lips quivered the barest bit. "Phil has come backso old. That's what war does for our boys; in just a few months it turnsthem into old men, the serious ones--and their eyes are older than anyliving person's I ever saw."

  "And Clarisse is still young. I think I understand."

  "That's why I brought him here. In the city there would have been noreason for her not coming to the hospital, but she couldn't come hereunless we sent for her--could she?" Again the fluttering hand groped as ifto untangle the complexity of thoughts and feelings in the poor confusedhead. "I write her letters. I make them just as pleasant as I can. I don'twant to hurt her; she's so young."

  Sheila nodded. "Does he love her?" That was the most important, for toSheila love was the key that could spring the lock of every barrier.

  "He did, and I think she loves him--I think--"

  Sheila went back to her patient and began the welding of a comradeshipthat only such a woman can weld when her heart is full with love foranother man. Day by day she made him talk more. He told her of hissoldiering; apparently everything that had happened before held little orno place in his scheme of life, and he told it as simply and directly asif he had been a child. He made her see the months of training in camp,when he grew to know his company and feel for the first time what thebrotherhood of arms meant. He told of the excitement of departure, thespiritual thrill of marching forth to war with the heart of a crusader inevery boy's breast. His eyes shone when he spoke of their renunciation, ofthe glory of putting behind them home and love until the world should bemade clean again and fit for happiness.

  Sheila winced at this, but the boy did not notice; he was too absorbed inthe things he had to tell.

  He told of the days of waiting in France, with the battle-front beforethem like a mammoth drop-curtain, screening the biggest drama their liveswould ever know. "There we were, marking time with the big guns, wonderingif our turn would come next. That was a glorious feeling, worth all thatcame afterward--when the curtain went up for us."

  He raised himself on an elbow and looked into Sheila's cool, gray eyeswith eyes that burned of battle. "God! I can't tell you about it. Therehave been millions of war books written by men who have seen more than Ihave and who have the trick of words--and you've probably read them; youknow. Only reading isn't seeing it; it isn't _living it_." He turnedquickly, shooting out a hand and gripping hers hard. "Tell me; you've seenall sorts of operations--horrible ones, where they take out great piecesof malignant stuff that is eating the life out of a man. You've seenthat?"

  The nurse nodded.

  "Did you forget it afterward, when the body was clean and whole again?Could you forget the thing that had been there? For that's war. That'swhat we're fighting, the thing that's eating into the heart of a decent,sound world, and since I've seen the horror of it I can't forget. I can'tsee the healing--yet."

  "You will. Not at first, perhaps, but when you're stronger. That is one ofGod's blessed plans: He made beauty to be immortal and ugliness to die andbe forgotten. And even the scars where ugliness was time whitens andobliterates. Give time its chance."

  It was the next day that the boy spoke of Clarisse. "Will time make themall right, too? Leerie," he had picked up the nickname from the othernurses and appropriated it with all the ardent affection of worshipingyouth, "we're miles--ages--apart. Can anything under God's canopy bring ustogether, I wonder?"

  "Perhaps." Sheila smiled her old inscrutable smile. "Tell me more."

  And so he told her of the girl who was so young, and oh, so pretty. It hadall seemed right before he had gone to camp; it was the great love forhim, something that had made his going seem the worthier. But at camp thedistance between them had begun to widen, her letters had failed to bridgeit, and through those letters he had discovered a new angle of her, anangle so acute that it had cut straight to the heart and destroyed all thelove that had been there. At least that was what he thought.

  "I knew she was young, of course, not much more than a child, and I knewshe loved fun and good times, and all that, but--Why, she'd write aboutweek-end parties, and how becoming her bathing-suit was, and what TommyFlint said about her fox-trotting. Lord!" He writhed under the coverletand ground his nails into his palms. "We marched through places wherethere wasn't a shred of anything left for anybody. We saw old womenhanging on to broken platters and empty bird-cages because it was all theyhad left--home, children, everything gone. And on top of that would come aletter telling how much she'd spent on an evening gown, and how Bob Wylietook them out to Riverdale and blew in a hundred and twenty dollars on theday's trip. A hundred and twenty dollars! That would have bought a youngocean of milk over there for the refugee kids I saw starving."

  He jerked himself up suddenly and sat huddled over, his eyes kindling witha vision of purging the world. Sheila knew it was useless to stop him, soshe propped him up with pillows and let him go on.

  "And that wasn't all. Between the lulls in the fighting they moved usalong to a quiet sector, to freshen up, where we were so close to theGerman side that we could look into one of their captured villages. Therewe could see the French girls they'd carried off going out to work, sawthem corralled at night like--" He broke off, hesitated, then wentdoggedly on. "With field-glasses we could see them plainly, the loadsthey had to lift and carry, the beatings they got, the look in theirfaces. Their shoulders were crooked, their backs bent from the longslaving. They were wraiths, most of them--and some with babies at theirbreasts. After I got back from seeing that, I found another letter fromClarisse. She said the girls just couldn't buckle down to much Red Crosswork; it was so hard to do anything much in summer. They'd no sooner getstarted than some one would say tennis or a swim. _And I saw women dyingover there--and bearing Boche babies!_"

  All the agony of soul that youth can compass was poured forth in thoselast words. The boy leaned back on his pillows, weary unto death with thehopelessness of it all. So Sheila let him lie for a while before sheanswered him.

  "Do the boys want their girls to know the full horror of it all? I thoughtthat was one of the things you were fighting for, to keep as much of itaway from them as you could."

  The boy raised a hand in protest, but Sheila silenced him. "Wait a minute;it's my turn to talk now. I know what's in your mind. You think thatClarisse--and the girls like her--are showing unforgivable callousnessand flippancy in the fac
e of this world tragedy. Instead of becoming womenas you have become men, they stay silly, unthinking, irresponsiblecreatures who dance and play and laugh while you fight and die. Thecontrast is too colossal; it all seems past remedy. Isn't that so? Well,there's another side, a side you haven't thought of. The girls are givingyou up. The little they know of life, as it is now, looks veryoverwhelming to them. Perhaps it frightens them. And what do frightenedchildren do in the dark?"

  The boy did not try to answer; he waited, tensely eager.

  "Why, they sing; they laugh little short-breathed laughs; they tellstories to themselves of nonsensical things to reassure them. All the timethey are trying not to think of what terrors the dark may hold; they aretrying not to cry out for some one to come and sit with them. Some of ourgirls are doing a tremendous work. They meet trains at all hours of theday or night and feed the boys before they sail; they wait all day in thecanteens until they're ready to drop; they put in a lot more time, makingcomfort-kits, knitting, and rolling bandages, than they ever own to. Andsuppose they don't grow dreadfully serious; isn't it better that way? Thegirls are doing their bit as fast as they are learning how. It isn't fairof the boys to judge them too soon. It isn't fair of you to judge yourClarisse without giving her a chance."

  "You didn't read those letters."

  "Letters! Most of us, when we write, keep back the things that reallymatter and skim off the surface of our lives to tell about. There may notbe the sixteenth part of your girl in those letters."

  The boy's lips tightened stubbornly. "It wasn't just one--it was all ofthem. Anyhow, I haven't the nerve or the heart to find out."

  Again Sheila let the silence fall between them. When she spoke, her voicewas very tender. "Tell me, boy, what made you love her?"

  He smiled sheepishly. "Oh, I don't know. She was always a good sport,never got grumpy over things that happened, never got cold feet, either.She had a way of teasing you to do what she wanted, would do anything toget her way; and then she'd turn about so quickly and give you your way,after all--just make you take it. And she'd be so awfully sweet about it,too. And she'd always play fair, and she had a way of making you feel thebest ever. Oh, I don't know--" The boy looked about him helplessly. "Theysound awfully foolish reasons for loving a girl."

  Sheila's face had become suddenly radiant; her eyes sparkled likerushlights in a wind. They actually startled the boy so that hestraightened up in bed again and gripped her hand. "I say, Leerie, what isit? I never saw you look like this before. You're--Are you in love?"

  "With one of the finest men God ever made. He's so fine that he trusted methrough a terrible bungle--believed in the real woman in me when I wouldhave denied it. That's what a man's love can do for a woman sometimes,keep her true to the best in her."

  That night, after many fluttering protests, the little mother wrote aletter to Clarisse. It was dictated by Sheila and posted by her, and itcontained little information except what might have been extracted from anon-committal railroad guide. It did mention at the last, however, thatPhil was slowly gaining.

  With this off her mind, Sheila went to find Peter. She hadcharacteristically neglected him since she had been on the case, and ascharacteristically he made no protest. Instead he met her with that quickunderstanding that she had claimed as one of love's ingredients. He lookedher over well and proudly, then tapped his head significantly.

  "I see, there's more to this soldier-boy case than just wounds. Want me torun you down the boulevard while you work it out?"

  "Thank God for a man!" breathed Sheila, and then aloud: "No, it's workedout. But you might run me down, just the same."

  "Feels almost like frost to-night," said Peter as he put the car intofirst. "Do you think it will hold pleasant enough for--"

  "For what?" Sheila's tone sounded blank.

  Peter chuckled. "For the gardens and the old ladies, of course. Have youby any chance forgotten that there's going to be a wedding in four days?"

  "Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday--" counted Sheila. "Why, so it is!"Then she echoed Peter's chuckle, "Oh yes, there's going to be a wedding, abeautiful wedding in four days."

  A strange little twinge took Peter's heart there in the dark at the queer,impersonal note in what she had said. What did it mean?

  Sheila gave the girl twenty-four hours to reach the San after receivingthe letter; she came in eighteen, and the nurse rejoiced at this goodomen. She had delegated Peter to meet all trains that day, take the girlto her room, send for her at once, and tell nobody. Peter obeyed, andearly in the afternoon Sheila looked up from her reading to the boy to seePeter standing in the doorway, the message on his lips.

  "Baggage delivered," was Peter's announcement.

  "Thank you. I'll come in a minute and see if my key fits." She hunted upthe little mother, left her in charge, and hurried over to the nurses'home.

  There in the big living-hall, perched in a wicker chair under the posterof Old King Cole, Sheila found the girl, who was young and oh, so pretty.She looked about as capable of taking a plunge into the grim depths oflife and coming out safely as a toy Pom of weathering the waters of theDevil's Hole. "How shall I ever push her in?" thought Sheila as she heldout her hand in greeting.

  Clarisse took it with all the hectic impulsiveness of youth. "You're hisnurse. Isn't it great his coming back this way? All our set is engaged--orabout to be--but I'm the only one that's got her man back with battlescars all over him. Makes me feel like a story-book heroine."

  Sheila O'Leary didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. She endedby doing what probably surprised her more than it did the girl. She satdown in the wicker chair herself and gathered the girl into her lap. "Oh,you blessed, blessed baby!" she crooned softly.

  The girl pouted adorably. It was very evident that she liked to be petted,coaxed, and spoiled. If there was a woman slumbering under all thisdimpling, infantile charm, she was quite indiscernible to the woman whoheld her.

  Slowly she bent over the girl and let her face show all the delight shecould feel in her prettiness and baby ways. There must be sympathy betweenthem or her task would be hopeless. "There, let me untie that bewitchingbonnet of yours and take off your gloves. We have a lot to tell each otherbefore you see your soldier."

  "But Phil--won't he be waiting, wondering why I don't come? Oh, I'm justcrazy to see him!"

  "He doesn't know you're here yet."

  "Oh!" The smooth, white forehead did its utmost to manage a frown. "Why,didn't he send for me?"

  "No."

  "Who did? His mother wrote."

  "I sent."

  The round, childish eyes filled with apprehension; she wrenched herselffree of Sheila's arms. "He isn't going to--The letter said--?"

  "He's better. Sit down, dear. That's what we have to talk over. His bodyis mending fast, but his mind--well, his mind has been taken prisoner."

  Clarisse tossed an adorable crown of golden curls. "I don't understand."

  "Didn't expect you to, at first. It's this way. He's been through somevery big, very terrible experiences, and he can't forget them. He isn'tthe boy you used to play with, the boy who was happy just having a goodtime. He's grown very serious. That's what experience is likely to do forus all in time, but with him it's come all in a heap. When that happensyou can't go back and be happy in the old way. Do you see?"

  "Go on."

  "He's bound fast and walled about with the memories of what he has beenthrough--killing human beings, watching his comrades die, seeing what theGermans have done. For the moment it has made him forget that the sunshines and birds sing and the world is a place to be glad in. The brightcolors have faded out of life for him; everything looks gray and somber."

  "Gee! and how he used to like a good cabaret with a jazz band!" The girlwhispered it, and there was awe in her voice. "And colors! I had to wearthe gayest things I had, to please him."

  "Yes, I know. And he'll like them best again, some day. Just be patient,dear. And the waiting won't be hard, you'll have so m
uch to do for him.You'll have to be bringing the sunshine back, making him listen to thebird-songs, teaching him how to be glad, to love doing all the happy,foolish boy-things he used to like."

  "I see--I can." The girl's voice was breathless.

  "I'm sure you can." Sheila tried to put conviction into her words. "Atfirst you may find it a little hard. It means--"

  "Yes?"

  "It means creeping into his prison with him, so gently, so lovingly, andstaying close beside him while you cut the memory-cords one by one. Couldyou do that?"

  The girl sprang past Sheila toward the door. "Come! What are we waitingfor?"

  "But he doesn't know you are here yet," parried the nurse.

  "Let's go and tell him, then. He always adored surprises." The dimples inher cheeks danced in anticipation while she took Sheila's hand and triedto drag her nearer the door. But at the threshold something in the woman'sface stopped her. She hesitated. "Maybe--maybe he doesn't like surprisesany more." Again the impulsive hands were thrust into the nurse's. "Tellme, tell me honestly--You said you sent for me. Was it--Didn't he wantme--to come?"

  And Sheila, remembering what the boy had loved about her, gave her backthe truth: "No, he has grown afraid of you. That's another thing you willhave to bring back to him with the songs and the sunlight--his love foryou."

  Her hand was flung aside and the girl flew past her, back to the wickerchair under Old King Cole. Burying her head in her arms, she burst intouncontrollable sobs, while Sheila stood motionless in the doorway andwaited. She must have waited an hour before the girl raised her eyes, wetas her own. For Sheila knew that a woman's soul was being born into theworld, and none understood better than she what the agony of travail meantto the child who was giving it birth.

  "Come," said Sheila, gently.

  The girl rose uncertainly; all the divine assurance of youth was gone. "Ithink I see," she began unsteadily. "I think I can."

  "I know you can." And this time there was no doubt in Sheila's heart.

  She saw to it that the little mother had been called away before theyreached the Surgical, so that the room was empty except for the occupantof the cot. "Hello, boy!" she called, triumphantly, from the doorway. "Ihave brought you the best present a soldier ever had," and she pushedClarisse into the room and closed the door.

  For a moment those two young creatures looked at each other, overcome withconfusion and the self-consciousness of their own great change.

  The boy spoke first. "Clare!"

  "Phil!" It came in a breathless little cry, like a bird's answer to itsmate. Then the girl followed. Across the room she flew, to the bed, anddown on her knees, hiding her face deep in the folds of coverlet andhospital shirt. Words came forth chokingly at last, like bubbles of airrising slowly to the surface.

  "Those letters--those awful letters! Just foolish things that didn'tmatter. One of the boys at the canteen--I used to wait on the table andmake believe every soldier I served was mine, and I always wore myprettiest clothes--he said--the boy--that over there they didn't wantanything but light stuff--those were his words--said a chap couldn't standhearing that his girl was lonely.... He said to cut out all the blue funksand the worries; the light stuff helped to steady a chap's nerve. So I--"

  And then the boy lied like a soldier. "Don't, Clare darling. I knew allalong you were playing off like a good sport. And it helped a lot. Gee!how it helped!"

  When Sheila looked in, hours later, the girl was still by the bed, hercheek on the pillow beside the boy's.

  It was a strangely illusive Leerie that met Peter that night in therest-house after the ailing part of the San had been put safely to bed.Her eyes seemed to transcend the stars, and her face might have served fora young neophyte. As Peter saw, for the first time he glimpsed the signalFate had been playing with so many days.

  "What's happened? Anything wrong with those cubs?"

  "Nothing. They're as right as right can be." Then with the old directnessSheila plunged headlong into the thing she knew must be done. "Man ofmine, I'm going to hurt you. Can you forgive and still understand?"

  "I can try." Peter did his best to keep his voice from sounding too heavy,for a fear was gripping at his heart, and his eyes sought Sheila's face,pleading as he would never have let his lips plead.

  Sheila covered her eyes. She didn't want to see. It was too reminiscent ofthe little boy lying awake in a dark attic, afraid of sleep. "We have bothdone without happiness so long, don't you think we can do without it alittle longer?"

  "I suppose so--if we must." Peter's voice was very dull. "But why? I'vealways had an idea that happiness was something like opportunity; it hadto be snatched and held fast when it came your way, or you might neverhave another chance at it." Had Sheila brought him to the gates ofParadise only to bar them against his entering? he wondered.

  The woman who loved him understood and laid her hand on his breast as ifshe would stay the hurt there if she could. "It may make it easier if youknow that the giving up is going to be hard for me, too. I've thoughtabout that home of ours so long that I've begun to see it and all thatgoes with it. I even stumble upon it in my dreams. It's always at the endof a long, tired road, going uphill. If I thought I should have to give itup, I wouldn't have the courage to do what I'm going to now."

  She sat down on the bench, laid her arms over the sill of the rusticwindow, and looked toward the pond. The night was very still; the blurredoutlines of the swans, huddled against the bank, were the only signs oflife. When she spoke it was almost to herself.

  "When they sent me away from the San three years ago I thought I couldnever bear it--to go away alone, that way, disgraced, to begin work overagain in a strange place, among strange people. But I had to do it, justas I have to do this." She straightened and faced Peter. Her voicechanged; it belonged to the curt, determined Sheila.

  "I'm going across, to nurse the boys over there. The boy over in theSurgical pointed the way for me. There's a big thing going on in theworld--something almost as big as the war--it's the business of gettingthe boys ready for life after their share in the war is over, and I don'tmean just nursing their bodies back to health. Everything is changed forthem; they've got new standards, new interests, new hearts, new souls, andwe women have got to keep pace with them. And we mustn't fail them--don'tyou see that? Oh, I know I have no place of my own in the war: you aresafe, and I have no brothers. But I'm a woman--a nurse, thank God! And I'mfree to go for the mothers and sweethearts who can't. Don't youunderstand?"

  And Peter answered from an overwhelmingly full and troubled heart, "Ohyes, I understand."

  "I knew you would." Sheila raised starry eyes to the man who had neverfailed her. "Those boys will need all the sympathy, all the wholesometenderness we can send across to them, and they'll need our hands at theirbacks until they get their foothold again. I've served my apprenticeshipat that so long I can do it."

  Peter gathered her close in his arms. "God and I know how well."

  It was not until they were leaving the gardens that Peter asked thequestion that had been in his mind all through the evening. "What aboutthe wedding? I suppose you're not going to marry me, now."

  "Can't. Haven't the courage. Man of mine, don't you know that after I oncebelonged to you I couldn't leave you? I've only had sips of happiness sofar. If I once drained the cup, only God's hand could take it from me."

  "And the wedding? The old San's just set its heart on that wedding."

  The radiant smile crept back to Sheila's lips. Even in the dark Petercould tell that the old luminous Leerie was beside him once more. "Why,that's one of the nicest parts of it all. We're going to pass our weddingon to those children--make them a sort of wedding-present of it. Won'tthat be splendid?"

  "Oh yes," said Peter, without enthusiasm. "Does it suit them?"

  "They don't know yet. Guess I'd better go and tell them."

  It is doubtful if anybody but Sheila O'Leary could have managed such anaffair and left every one reasonably happy over it--two o
f themunreasonably so. She accepted the wedding collation bestowed by thewealthy old ladies of the sanitarium and passed it over to the boy and hisbetrothed as if it had been as trivial a gift as an ice-cream cone. In alike manner she passed on the trousseau, kissed all the nurses rapturouslyfor their work, and piled it all into Clarisse's arms with the remark thatit was lucky they were so nearly of a size. When she brought thewedding-dress she kissed her, too, and said that she was going to make theprettiest picture in it that the San or the soldier had seen in years. Sheplacated the management; she wheedled Miss Maxwell into a good humor; sheeven coaxed Doctor Fuller into giving away the bride. Only Hennessyrefused to be propitiated.

  "Are ye thinkin' of givin' Mr. Brooks away with everythin' else?" heasked, scornfully; and then, his indignation rising to a white wrath, heshouted, "I'll not put bows on the swans, an' I'll not come to anysecond-hand weddin'."

  But he did come, and held with Flanders the satin ribbons they hadpromised to hold for Sheila. And the wedding became one of the greenestof all the memories that had gone down on the San books.

  As the sun clipped the far-away hills the boy was wheeled down the pathsto where the gold and white of early roses were massed in summer splendor.Then came the girl with Sheila at her side; the girl had begged too hardto be refused. But Sheila's face was as white as it had been the day theyoperated on Doctor Dempsy, and only Peter guessed what it cost her tostand with the bride. To Peter's care had been intrusted the littlemother, and he let her weep continually on his shoulder in between thelaughs he kept bringing to her lips.

  And it all ended merrily. Sheila saw to that. But perhaps the thing thatgave her the keenest pleasure was wheedling out of Mr. Crotchets hisbungalow that stood on the slopes beyond the golf-links for a honeymoon.

  "They'll have all the quiet they want and the care he still needs," shetold Peter when they were alone. "And nobody but the nurse in charge knowsabout it--yet." Then seeing the great longing in Peter's eyes, she drewhim away from the crowd. "Listen, man of mine! I have the feeling thatwhen we are married there will be no wedding, just you and I and thepreacher. And in my heart I like it better that way."

  "So do I," agreed Peter.

  "I'm leaving--train to-night," Sheila hurried on. "No use putting it off;better sail as soon as the passport's ready. There's just one thing more Iwant to say before I leave you."

  Then Peter chuckled for the first time that day. "You can say it, ofcourse, but if you think you're going to leave me behind, you're mistaken.I wired the chief the day you told me. They need another correspondentover there. When it comes to passports there is some advantage in notbeing a husband, after all. Well--are you glad?"

  When Hennessy came upon them, a few minutes later, they looked sosupremely happy and oblivious of the rest of the world that he was forcedto stop. "Sure, ye might be the bride an' groom, afther all, by the looksof ye. What's come over ye all of a sudden?" And when Peter told him, andthey both put their hands in Hennessy's in final parting, he shirred hislips and whistled forth evidence of a satisfied emotion to which he addeda word of warning to Peter:

  "I'm not envyin' ye, just the same, Mr. Brooks. Afore ye get her homeagain ye'll find the Irish say right, 'A woman's more throuble to lookafther than a thorn in the foot or a goat fetched back from the fair!'"