Red Pepper's Patients Part 20

"You know that, Doctor Burns."

"Of course I know it. But I want a little better than your best. This is one of the cases where every second is going to count. We have to make all the speed that's in us without a slip. I can trust you. I didn't tell you before because I didn't want you thinking about it. But I tell you now because I've got to have the speed. All right; that's all."

He gave her one quick smile, then his face was set and stern again, as always at this moment, for it was the moment when he caught sight of his patient, quietly asleep, being brought to him. And it was the moment when one swift echo of the prayer he had already made upon his knees leaped through his mind--to be gone again as lightning flashes through a midnight sky. After that there was to be no more prayer, only action.

The watching surgeons unconsciously held their breath as the operation began. For the patient on the table was James Van Horn, and the man who had taken Van Horn's life into his hands was not a great surgeon from New York or Boston, as was to have been antic.i.p.ated, but their everyday colleague Burns. And at that moment not one of them envied him his chance.

Ellen had seldom waited more anxiously for the word her husband always sent her at such times. He fully recognized that the silent partner in crises like these suffered a very real and trying suspense, the greater that there was nothing she could do for him except to send him to his work heartened by the thought of her and of her belief in him.

It was longer than usual, on this more than ordinarily fateful morning, before Ellen received the first word from the hospital. When it came it was from an attendant and it was not rea.s.suring:

"Doctor Burns wishes me to tell you that the patient has come through the operation, but is in a critical condition. He will not leave him at present."

This meant more hours of waiting, during which Ellen could set her mind and hand to nothing which was not purely mechanical. She was realizing to the full that it was the unknown factor of which Burns had often spoken, the unforeseen contingency, which might upset all the calculations and efforts of science and skill. Well she knew that, though her husband's reputation was an a.s.sured one, it might suffer somewhat from the loss of this prominent case. Ellen felt certain that this last consideration was one to weigh little with Burns himself compared with his personal and bitter regret over an unsuccessful effort to save a life. But it seemed to her that she cared from every point of view, and to her the time of waiting was especially hard to bear.

There was one relief in the situation--never had she had her vigils shared as Jordan King was sharing this one. As the hours went by, both by messages over the telephone and by more than one hurried drive out to see Ellen in person, did he let her know that his concern for Burns's victory was only second to her own.

"He's got to save him!" was his declaration, standing in her doorway, late in the evening, hat in hand, bright dark eyes on Ellen's. "And the way he's sticking by, I'm confident he will. That bull-dog grip of his we know so well would pull a ton of lead out of a quicksand. He won't give up while there's a breath stirring, and even if it stops he'll start it again--with his will!"

"You are a loyal friend." Ellen's smile rewarded him for this blindly a.s.sured speech, well as she knew how shaky was the foundation on which he might be standing. "But the last message he sent was only that no ground had been lost."

"Well, that's a good deal after ten hours." He looked at his watch.

"Keep a brave heart, Mrs. Burns. I'm going to the hospital now to see if I can get just a glimpse of our man before we settle down for the night.

And I want to arrange with Miss Dwight--she was my nurse--to let me know any news at any hour in the night."

It was at three in the morning that King called her to say with a ring of joy in his voice: "There's a bit of a gain, Mrs. Burns. It looks brighter."

It was at eight, five hours later, that Burns himself spoke to her. His voice betrayed tension in spite of its steadiness. "We're holding hard, Len; that's about all I can say."

"Dear--are you getting any rest?"

"Don't want any; I'm all right. I'll not be home till we're out of this, you know. Good-bye, my girl." And he was gone, back to the bedside. She knew, without being told, that he had hardly left it.

Thirty-six hours had gone by, and Ellen and Jordan King had had many messages from the hospital before the one came which eased their anxious minds: "Out of immediate danger." It was almost another thirty-six before Burns came home.

She had never seen him look more radiantly happy, though the shadows under his eyes were heavy, and there were lines of fatigue about his mouth. Although she had been watching for him he took her by surprise at last, coming upon her in the early morning just as she was descending the stairs. With both arms around her, as she stood on the bottom stair, he looked into her eyes.

"The game's worth the candle, Len," he said.

"Even though you've been burning the candle at both ends, dear? Yes, I know it is. I'm so glad--so glad!"

"We're sworn friends, Van and I. Can you believe it? Len, he's simply the finest ever."

She smiled at him. "I'm sure you think so; it's just what you would think, my generous boy."

"I'll prove it to you by and by, when I've had a wink of sleep. A bath, breakfast, and two hours of rest--then I'll be in service again. Van's resting comfortably, practically out of danger, and--Len, his eyes remind me of a sick child's who has waked out of a delirium to find his mother by his side."

"Is that the way his eyes look when they meet yours?"

He nodded. "Of course. That's how I know."

"O Red," she said softly--"to think of the eyes that look at you like that!"

"They don't all," he answered as the two went up the stairs side by side. "But Van--well, he's been through the deep waters, and he's found--a footing on rock where he expected shifting sands. Ah, there's my boy! Give him to me quick!"

The Little-Un, surging plumply out of the nursery, tumbled into his father's arms, and submitted, shouting with glee, to the sort of huggings, kissings, and general inspection to which he was happily accustomed when Burns came home after a longer absence than usual.

Just before he went back to the hospital, refreshed by an hour's longer sleep than he had meant to take, because Ellen would not wake him sooner, Burns opened the pile of mail which had acc.u.mulated during his absence. He sat on the arm of the blue couch, tossing the letters one by one upon the table behind it, in two piles, one for his personal consideration, the other for Miss Mathewson's answering. Ellen, happily relaxing in a corner of the couch, her eyes watching the letter opening, saw her husband's eyes widen as he stooped to pick up a small blue paper which had fallen from the missive he had just slitted. As he unfolded the blue slip and glanced at it, an astonished whistle leaped to his lips.

"Well, by the powers--what's this?" he murmured. "A New York draft for a thousand dollars, inclosed in a letter which says nothing except a typewritten '_From One of the most grateful of all grateful patients_.'

Len, what do you think of that? Who on earth sent it? I haven't had a rich patient who hasn't paid his bill, or who won't pay it in due form when he gets around to it. And the poor ones don't send checks of this size."

"I can't imagine," she said, studying the few words on the otherwise blank sheet, and the postmark on the typewritten envelope, which showed the letter also to have come from New York. "You haven't had a patient lately who was travelling--a hotel case, or anything of that sort?"

He shook his head. "None that didn't pay before he left--and none that seemed particularly grateful anyhow. Well, I must be off. The thousand's all right, wherever it came from, eh? And I want to get back to Van. I'd put that draft in the fire rather than go back to find the slightest slip in his case. I think, if I should, I'd lose my nerve at last."

CHAPTER XII

THE TRUTH ABOUT SUSQUEHANNA

Jordan King, directing his car with necessary caution through the traffic of a small but crowded city, two hundred miles from home, suddenly threw out his clutch and jammed his brakes into urgent use.

Beside him Aleck, flinging out a hasty arm to warn drivers pressing closely behind, gazed at his employer in wonder. There was absolutely nothing to stop them, and an autocratic crossing policeman just ahead was impatiently waving them forward.

But King, his eyes apparently following something or some one in the throng, which had just negotiated the crossing of the street at right angles to his own direction, spoke hurriedly: "Turn to the right here, Aleck, and wait for me at the first spot down that street where they'll let you stop."

He was out of the car and off at a dangerous slant through the procession of moving vehicles, dodging past great trucks and slipping by the noses of touring cars and coupes with apparent recklessness of consequences.

Aleck, sliding into the driver's seat and forced to lose sight of King's tall figure because of the urgency of the crowding ma.s.s behind, was moved to curious speculation. As he turned the designated corner, he was saying to himself with a chuckle: "He always was quick on the trigger, but I'll be darned if that wasn't about the hastiest move I ever saw him make. What's he after, anyhow, in this town where he just told me he didn't know a soul? Well, it's some wait for me, I'll bet."

If he could have seen his master as that young man plunged along through the crowd Aleck would have found plenty to interest him. King was doing his best to pursue and catch up with a figure which he now and again lost sight of in the throng, so that he slowed his pace lest he go by it unawares. The fear that he might thus miss and lose it sharpened his gaze and gave to his face an intent look, so that many people stared at him as he pa.s.sed them, wondering what the comely, dark-eyed young man was after that he was rushing at such a pace.

There came a moment when King paused, uncertain, his heart standing still with the certainty that he was off the track and that his quarry had unconsciously doubled and eluded him. An instant later he drew a quick breath of relief, his gaze following a slender black figure as it mounted the steps of an old church which stood, dingy but still dignified, close by the highway, its open doors indicating that it had remained in this downtown district for a purpose. King sprang up the steps, then paused in the great doorway, beyond which the darkness and quiet of an empty interior silently invited pa.s.sers-by to rest and reflect. At that moment a deep organ note sounded far away upon the stillness, and King took a step inside, looking cautiously about him.

The figure he pursued had vanished, and after a moment more he crossed the vestibule and stood, hat in hand, gazing into the dim depths beyond.

For a little, coming as he had from the strong light of the September afternoon, he could see absolutely nothing; but as his vision cleared he was able to make out a small group of people far toward the front of the s.p.a.cious interior, and the form of the organist himself before his manuals low at the right of the choir. But he had to look for some time before he could descry at the farthermost side of the church a solitary head bent upon the rail before it. Toward this point the young man slowly made his way, his heart hammering a most unwonted tattoo within his broad breast.

Several pews behind and to one side of the kneeling figure he took his place, his gaze fastened upon it. He looked his fill, secure in his own position, which was in the shadow of a great stone pillar, where the dim light from the sombre-toned windows did not touch him. And, as he looked, the conviction he had had since his first meeting with this girl deepened and strengthened into resolution. He would not lose her again, no matter what it might cost to hold her. He would not believe a man could be mistaken in that face, in that exquisite and arresting personality. There was not such another in the whole wide world.

Suddenly she turned, and evidently she saw that some one was near her, though he knew it was not possible that she had recognized him. She sat quite still for another five minutes, then rose very quietly, gathering up the remembered black handbag, and moved like a young nun into the aisle, head downbent. King slipped out of his pew, made a quick circuit around the pillar, and met her squarely as she came toward him.

He stood still in her path, and she, looking partially up to pa.s.s him with that complete ignoring of his presence which young women of breeding employ when strangers threaten to take notice, heard his low voice: "Please don't run away--from your friend!"

"Oh--Mr. King!" Her eyes, startled, met his indeed, and into her face, as she spoke his name, poured a flood of beautiful colour, at sight of which King all but lost his head.