Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation Part 22

"No." Yet she was conscious that her greatest objection had been removed, and she colored faintly.

"Listen to me," he said dryly. "You deserve a better position than this,--a better home and surroundings than you have here. You are older, too,--a woman almost,--and you must look ahead."

A look of mingled fright, reproach, and appeal came into her eloquent face. "Yer wantin' to send me away?" she stammered.

"No," he said frankly. "It is you who are GROWING away. This is no longer the place for you."

"But I want to stay. I don't wanter go. I am--I WAS happy here."

"But I'm thinking of giving up this place. It takes up too much of my time. You must be provided"--

"YOU are going away?" she said pa.s.sionately.

"Yes."

"Take me with you. I'll go anywhere!--to San Jose---wherever you go.

Don't turn me off as dad did, for I'll foller you as I never followed dad. I'll go with you--or I'll die!"

There was neither fear nor shame in her words; it was the outspoken instinct of the animal he had been rearing; he was convinced and appalled by it.

"I am returning to San Jose at once," he said gravely. "You shall go with me--FOR THE PRESENT! Get yourself ready!"

He took her to San Jose, and temporarily to the house of a patient,--a widow lady,--while he tried, alone, to grapple with the problem that now confronted him. But that problem became more complicated at the end of the third day, by Liberty Jones falling suddenly and alarmingly ill.

The symptoms were so grave that the doctor, in his anxiety, called in a brother physician in consultation. When the examination was over, the two men withdrew and stared at each other.

"Of course there is no doubt that the symptoms all point to slow a.r.s.enical poisoning," said the consulting doctor.

"Yes," said Ruysdael quickly, "yet it is utterly inexplicable, both as to motive and opportunity."

"Humph!" said the other grimly, "young ladies take a.r.s.enic in minute doses to improve the complexion and promote tissue, forgetting that the effects are c.u.mulative when they stop suddenly. Your young friend has 'sworn off' too quickly."

"But it is impossible," said Doctor Ruysdael impatiently. "She is a mere child--a country girl--ignorant of such habits."

"Humph! the peasants in the Tyrol try it on themselves after noticing the effect on the coats of cattle."

Doctor Ruysdael started. A recollection of the sleek draught horse flashed upon him. He rose and hastily re-entered the patient's room. In a few moments he returned. "Do you think I could remove her at once to the mountains?" he said gravely.

"Yes, with care and a return to graduated doses of the same poison; you know it's the only remedy just now," answered the other.

By noon the next day the doctor and his patient had returned to the cabin, but Ruysdael himself carried the helpless Liberty Jones to the spring and deposited her gently beside it. "You may drink now," he said gravely.

The girl did so eagerly, apparently imbibing new strength from the sparkling water. The doctor meanwhile coolly filled a phial from the same source, and made a hasty test of the contents by the aid of some other phials from his case. The result seemed to satisfy him. Then he said gravely:

"And THIS is the spring you had discovered?"

The girl nodded.

"And you and the cattle have daily used it?"

She nodded again wonderingly. Then she caught his hand appealingly.

"You won't send me away?"

He smiled oddly as he glanced from the waters of the hill to the br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes. "No."

"No-r," tremulously, "go away--yourself?"

The doctor looked this time only into her eyes. There was a tremendous idea in his own, which seemed in some way to have solved that dreadful problem.

"No! We will stay here TOGETHER."

Six months later there was a paragraph in the San Francisco press: "The wonderful a.r.s.enical Spring in the Santa Cruz Mountain, known as 'Liberty Spring,' discovered by Doctor Ruysdael, has proved such a remarkable success that we understand the temporary huts for patients are to be shortly replaced by a magnificent Spa Hotel worthy of the spot, and the eligible villa sites it has brought into the market. It will be a source of pleasure to all to know that the beautiful nymph--a worthy successor to the far-famed 'Elise' of the German 'Brunnen'--who has administered the waters to so many grateful patients will still be in attendance, although it is rumored that she is shortly to become the wife of the distinguished discoverer."