Amy's sad presentiment was almost verified. She was very ill, and for hours of painful uncertainty Haldane watched over her and administered the remedies which Dr. Orton left; and indeed the doctor himself was never absent very long, for his heart was bound up in the girl. At last, after a wavering poise, the scale turned in favor of life, and she began to slowly revive.
Poor Mrs. Poland was so weak that she could not raise her head or hand, but, with her wistful, pathetic eyes, followed every motion, for she insisted on having Amy in the same room with herself. Aunt Saba, the old negress, to whom Mr. Poland had given her freedom, continued a faithful assistant. Bound to her mistress by the stronger chain of gratitude and affection, she served with fidelity in every way possible to her; and she and her husband were so old and humble that death seemingly had forgotten them.
Before Amy was stricken down with the fever the look of unutterable dread and anxiety that was so painful to witness passed away, and gave place to an expression of quiet serenity.
"I need no further argument," she had said to Haldane; "Christ has come across the waves of my trouble. I am as sure of it as I am sure that you came to my aid. I do not know whether mother or Bertha or I will survive, but I believe that God's love is as great as his power, and that in some way and at some time all will come out for the best. I have written to my friend abroad and to Auntie Arnot all about it, and now I am simply waiting. O, Mr. Haldane, I am so happy to tell you," she had added, "that I think mother is accepting the same faith, slowly and in accordance with her nature, but surely nevertheless. I am like father, quick and intense in my feelings. I feel that which is false or that which is true, rather than reason it out as mother does."
Aunt Saba and her husband managed to take care of Bertha and keep her mind occupied; but before Amy's convalescence had proceeded very far the little girl was suddenly prostrated by a most violent attack of the disease, and she withered before the hot fever like a fragile flower in a simoom. Haldane went hastily for Dr. Orton, but he gave scarcely a hope from the first.
During the night following the day on which she had been stricken down a strange event occurred. [Footnote: It is stated on high medical authority that "all patients suffer more during thunder-showers," and an instance is given of a physician who was suffering from this fever, and who was killed as instantly, by vivid flash and loud report, as if he had been struck by the lightning.] The sultry heat had been followed by a tropical thunder-storm, which had gathered in the darkness, and often gave to the midnight a momentary and brighter glare than that of the previous noon. The child would start as the flashes grew more intense, for they seemed to distress her very much.
As Haldane was lifting her to give her a drink he said:
"Perhaps Bertie will see papa very soon."
Hearing the word "papa," the child forgot her pain for a moment and smiled. At that instant there was a blinding flash of lightning, and the appalling thunder-peal followed without any interval.
Both Mrs. Poland and Amy gave a faint and involuntary cry of alarm, but Haldane's eyes were fixed on the little smiling face that he held so near to his own. The smile did not fade. The old, perplexed expression of pain did not come back, and after a moment he said quietly and very gently:
"Bertie is with her father;" and he lifted her up and carried her to her mother, and then to Amy, that they might see the beautiful and smiling expression of the child's face.
But their eyes were so blinded by tears that they could scarcely see the face from which all trace of suffering had been banished almost as truly as from the innocent spirit.
Having laid her back in the crib, and arranged the little form as if sleeping, he carried the crib, with Aunt Saba's help, to the room where Mr. Poland had died. Then he told the old negress to return and remain with her mistress, and that he would watch over the body till morning.
That quiet watch by the pure little child, with a trace of heaven's own beauty on her face, was to Haldane like the watch of the shepherds on the hillside near Bethlehem. At times, in the deep hush that followed the storm, he was almost sure that he heard, faint and far away, angelic minstrelsy and song.
Haldane's unusually healthful and vigorous constitution had thus far resisted the infection, but after returning from the sad duty of laying little Bertha's remains by those of her father, he felt the peculiar languor which is so often the precursor of the chill and subsequent fever. Although he had scarcely hoped to escape an attack, he had never before realized how disastrous it would be to the very ones he had come to serve. Who was there to take care of him? Mrs. Poland was almost helpless from nervous prostration. Amy required absolute quiet to prevent the more fatal relapse, which is almost certain to follow exertion made too early in convalescence. He knew that if he were in the house she would make the attempt to do something for him, and he also knew it would be at the risk of her life. Old Aunt Saba was worn out in her attendance on Bertha, Amy, and Mrs. Poland. Her husband, and a stranger who had been at last secured to assist him, were required in the household duties.
He took his decision promptly, for he felt that he had but brief time in which to act. Going to Mrs. Poland's room, he said to her and Amy:
"I am glad to find you both so brave and doing as well as you are on this sad, sad day. I do not think you will take the disease, Mrs. Poland; and you, Miss Amy, only need perfect quiet in order to get well. Please remember, as a great favor to me, how vitally important is the tranquillity of mind and body that I am ever preaching to you, and don't do that which fatigues you in the slightest degree, till conscious of your old strength. And now I am going away for a little while. This is a time when every man should be at his post of duty. I am needed elsewhere, for I know of a case that requires immediate attention. Please do not remonstrate," he said, as they began to urge that he should take some rest; "my mission here has ended for the present and my duty is elsewhere. We won't say good-by, for I shall not be far away;" and although he was almost faint from weakness, his bearing was so decided and strong, and he appeared so bent on departure, that they felt that it would hardly be in good taste to say anything more.
"We are almost beginning to feel that Mr. Haldane belongs to us," said Amy to her mother afterward, "and forget that he may be prompted by as strong a sense of duty to others."
As Haldane was leaving the house Dr. Orton drove to the door. Before he could alight the young man climbed into his buggy with almost desperate haste.
"Drive toward the city," he said so decisively that the doctor obeyed.
"What's the matter, Haldane? Speak, man; you look sick."
"Take me to the city hospital. I am sick."
"I shall take you right back to Mrs. Poland's," said the doctor, pulling up.
Haldane laid his hands on the reins, and then explained his fears and the motive for his action.
"God bless you, old fellow; but you are right. Any effort now would cost Amy her life, and she would make it if you were there. But you are not going to the hospital."
Dr. Orton's intimate acquaintance with the city enabled him to place Haldane in a comfortable room near his own house, where he could give constant supervision to his case. He also procured a good nurse, whose sole duty was to take care of the young man. To the anxious questioning of Mrs. Poland and Amy from time to time, the doctor maintained the fiction, saying that Haldane was watching a very important case under his care; "and you know his way," added the old gentleman, rubbing his hands, as if he were enjoying something internally, "he won't leave a case till I say it's safe, even to visit you, of whom he speaks every chance he gets;" and thus the two ladies in their feeble state were saved all anxiety.
They at length learned of the merciful ruse that had been played upon them by the appearance of their friend at their door in Dr. Orton's buggy. As the old physician helped his patient, who was still rather weak, up the steps, he said with his hearty laugh:
"Haldane has watched over that case, that he and I told you of, long enough. We now turn the case over to you, Miss Amy. But all he requires is good living, and I'll trust to you for that. He's a trump, if he is a Yankee. But drat him, I thought he'd spoil the joke by dying, at one time."
The sentiments that people like Mrs. Poland and her daughter, Mrs. Arnot, and Laura, would naturally entertain toward one who had served them as Haldane had done, and at such risk to himself, can be better imagined than portrayed. They looked and felt infinitely more than they were ever permitted to say, for any expression of obligation was evidently painful to him.
He speedily gained his old vigor, and before the autumn frosts put an end to the epidemic, was able to render Dr. Orton much valuable assistance.
Amy became more truly his sister than ever his own had been to him. Her quick intuition soon discovered his secret--even the changing expression of his eyes at the mention of Laura's name would have revealed it to her--but he would not let her speak on the subject. "She belongs to another," he said, "and although to me she is the most beautiful and attractive woman in the world, it must be my lifelong effort not to think of her."
His parting from Mrs. Poland and Amy tested his self-control severely. In accordance with her impulsive nature, Amy put her arms about his neck as she said brokenly:
"You were indeed God's messenger to us, and you brought us life. As father said, we shall all meet again."
On his return, Mrs. Arnot's greeting was that of a mother; but there were traces of constraint in Laura's manner. When she first met him she took his hand in a strong, warm pressure, and said, with tears in her eyes:
"Mr. Haldane, I thank you for your kindness to Amy and auntie as sincerely as if it had all been rendered to me alone."
But after this first expression of natural feeling, Haldane was almost tempted to believe that she shunned meeting his eyes, avoided speaking to him, and even tried to escape from his society, by taking Mr. Beaumont's arm and strolling off to some other apartment, when he was calling on Mrs. Arnot. And yet if this were true, he was also made to feel that it resulted from no lack of friendliness or esteem on her part.
"She fears that my old-time passion may revive, and she would teach me to put a watch at the entrance of its sepulchre," he at length concluded; "she little thinks that my love, so far from being dead, is a chained giant that costs me hourly vigilance to hold in lifelong imprisonment."
But Laura understood him much better than he did her. Her manner was the result of a straightforward effort to be honest. Of her own free will, and without even the slightest effort on the part of her uncle and aunt to incline her toward the wealthy and distinguished Mr. Beaumont, she had accepted all his attentions, and had accepted the man himself. In the world's estimation she would not have the slightest ground to find fault with him, for, from the first, both in conduct and manner, he had been irreproachable.
When the telegram which announced Mr. Poland's death was received, he tried to comfort her by words that were so peculiarly elegant and sombre, that, in spite of Laura's wishes to think otherwise, they struck her like an elegiac address that had been carefully prearranged and studied; and when the tidings of poor little Bertha's death came, it would occur to Laura that Mr. Beaumont had thought his first little address so perfect that he could do no better than to repeat it, as one might use an appropriate burial service on all occasions. He meant to be kind and considerate. He was "ready to do anything in his power," as he often said. But what was in his power? As telegrams and letters came, telling of death, of desperate illness, and uncertain life, of death again, of manly help, of woman-like self-sacrifice in the same man, her heart began to beat in quick, short, passionate throbs. Bat it would seem that nothing could ever disturb the even rhythm of Beaumont's pulse. He tried to show his sympathy by turning his mind to all that was mournful and sombre in art and literature. One day he brought to her from New York what he declared to be the finest arrangement of dirge music for the piano extant, and she quite surprised him by declaring with sudden passion that she could not and would not play a note of it.
In her deep sorrow and deeper anxiety, in her strange and miserable unrest, which had its hidden root in a cause not yet understood, she turned to him again and again for sympathy, and he gave her abundant opportunity to seek it, for Laura was the most beautiful object he had ever seen; and therefore, to feast his eye and gratify his ear, he spent much of his time with her; so much, indeed, that she often grew drearily weary of him. But no matter when or how often she would look into his face for quick, heartfelt appreciation, she saw with instinctive certainty that, more than lover, more than friend, and eventually, more than husband, he was, and ever would be, a connoisseur. When she smiled he was admiring her, when she wept he was also admiring her. Whatever she did or said was constantly being looked at and studied from an aesthetic standpoint by this man, whose fastidious taste she had thus far satisfied. More than once she had found herself asking: "Suppose I should lose my beauty, what would he do?" and the instinctive answer of her heart was: "He would honorably try to keep all his pledges, but would look the other way."
Before she was aware of it, she had begun to compare her affianced with Haldane, and she found that the one was like a goblet of sweet, rich wine, that was already nearly exhausted and cloying to her taste; the other was like a mountain spring, whose waters are pure, ever new, unfailing, prodigally abundant, inspiring yet slaking thirst.
But she soon saw whither such comparisons were leading her, and recognized her danger and her duty. She had plighted her faith to another, and he had given her no good reason to break that faith. Laura had a conscience, and she as resolutely set to work to shut out Haldane from her heart, as he, poor man, had tried to exclude her image, and from very much the same cause. But the heart is a wayward organ and is often at sword's-point with both will and conscience, and frequently, in spite of all that she could do, it would array Haldane on the one side and Beaumont on the other, and so it would eventually come to be, the man who loved her,
versus the connoisseur who admired her, but whose absorbing passion for himself left no place for any other strong feeling.