The Fruit of the Tree Part 41

"I am sorry to seem persistent--but I heard you had news of Mr.

Langhope, and I was anxious to know the particulars," he explained.

Justine replied that her message had overtaken Mr. Langhope at Wady Haifa, and that he hoped to reach Alexandria in time to catch a steamer to Brindisi at the end of the week.

"Not till then? So it will be almost three weeks--?"

"As nearly as I can calculate, a month."

The rector hesitated. "And Mr. Amherst?"

"He is coming back too."

"Ah, you have heard? I'm glad of that. He will be here soon?"

"No. He is in South America--at Buenos Ayres. There will be no steamer for some days, and he may not get here till after Mr. Langhope."

Mr. Lynde looked at her kindly, with grave eyes that proffered help.

"This is terrible for you, Miss Brent."

"Yes," Justine answered simply.

"And Mrs. Amherst's condition----?"

"It is about the same."

"The doctors are hopeful?"

"They have not lost hope."

"She seems to keep her strength wonderfully."

"Yes, wonderfully."

Mr. Lynde paused, looking downward, and awkwardly turning his soft clerical hat in his large kind-looking hands. "One might almost see in it a dispensation--_we_ should see one, Miss Brent."

"_We?_" She glanced up apologetically, not quite sure that her tired mind had followed his meaning.

"We, I mean, who believe...that not one sparrow falls to the ground...."

He flushed, and went on in a more mundane tone: "I am glad you have the hope of Mr. Langhope's arrival to keep you up. Modern science--thank heaven!--can do such wonders in sustaining and prolonging life that, even if there is little chance of recovery, the faint spark may be nursed until...."

He paused again, conscious that the dusky-browed young woman, slenderly erect in her dark blue linen and nurse's cap, was examining him with an intentness which contrasted curiously with the absent-minded glance she had dropped on him in entering.

"In such cases," she said in a low tone, "there is practically no chance of recovery."

"So I understand."

"Even if there were, it would probably be death-in-life: complete paralysis of the lower body."

He shuddered. "A dreadful fate! She was so gay and active----"

"Yes--and the struggle with death, for the next few weeks, must involve incessant suffering...frightful suffering...perhaps vainly...."

"I feared so," he murmured, his kind face paling.

"Then why do you thank heaven that modern science has found such wonderful ways of prolonging life?"

He raised his head with a start and their eyes met. He saw that the nurse's face was pale and calm--almost judicial in its composure--and his self-possession returned to him.

"As a Christian," he answered, with his slow smile, "I can hardly do otherwise."

Justine continued to consider him thoughtfully. "The men of the older generation--clergymen, I mean," she went on in a low controlled voice, "would of course take that view--must take it. But the conditions are so changed--so many undreamed-of means of prolonging life--prolonging suffering--have been discovered and applied in the last few years, that I wondered...in my profession one often wonders...."

"I understand," he rejoined sympathetically, forgetting his youth and his inexperience in the simple desire to bring solace to a troubled mind. "I understand your feeling--but you need have no doubt. Human life is sacred, and the fact that, even in this materialistic age, science is continually struggling to preserve and prolong it, shows--very beautifully, I think--how all things work together to fulfill the divine will."

"Then you believe that the divine will delights in mere pain--mere meaningless animal suffering--for its own sake?"

"Surely not; but for the sake of the spiritual life that may be mysteriously wrung out of it."

Justine bent her puzzled brows on him. "I could understand that view of moral suffering--or even of physical pain moderate enough to leave the mind clear, and to call forth qualities of endurance and renunciation.

But where the body has been crushed to a pulp, and the mind is no more than a machine for the registering of sense-impressions of physical anguish, of what use can such suffering be to its owner--or to the divine will?"

The young rector looked at her sadly, almost severely. "There, Miss Brent, we touch on inscrutable things, and human reason must leave the answer to faith."

Justine pondered. "So that--one may say--Christianity recognizes no exceptions--?"

"None--none," its authorized exponent p.r.o.nounced emphatically.

"Then Christianity and science are agreed." She rose, and the young rector, with visible reluctance, stood up also.

"That, again, is one of the most striking evidences--" he began; and then, as the necessity of taking leave was forced upon him, he added appealingly: "I understand your uncertainties, your questionings, and I wish I could have made my point clearer----"

"Thank you; it is quite clear. The reasons, of course, are different; but the result is exactly the same."

She held out her hand, smiling sadly on him, and with a sudden return of youth and self-consciousness, he murmured shyly: "I feel for you"--the man in him yearning over her loneliness, though the pastor dared not press his help....

XXVIII

THAT evening, when Justine took her place at the bedside, and the other two nurses had gone down to supper, Bessy turned her head slightly, resting her eyes on her friend.

The rose-shaded lamp cast a tint of life on her face, and the dark circles of pain made her eyes look deeper and brighter. Justine was almost deceived by the delusive semblance of vitality, and a hope that was half anguish stirred in her. She sat down by the bed, clasping the hand on the sheet.

"You feel better tonight?"

"I breathe...better...." The words came brokenly, between long pauses, but without the hard agonized gasps of the previous night.