The Triumph of Virginia Dale Part 8

She heard the nurse move. In a moment a hand touched her shoulder and a kind voice whispered, "Dearie, you are all broken up, aren't you?

It's a shock from the accident. I should have remembered. Let me get you something?"

"No,--no," protested Virginia, dissolved in tears. "It's not medicine I need. Oh, if I could only be sure that poor fellow isn't going to die.

I will never have a happy moment the rest of my life if he does." She raised her tear drenched face. "I wanted to make people happy, not to bring sorrow or trouble to any one. And now," she sobbed, "I've killed a man."

"Don't be silly, girlie. You couldn't kill a flea, let alone a man.

Accidents will happen. We get hundreds of such cases every month."

"You don't get motorcyclists though. They are injured while riding at fearful speed."

"Oh yes, we do. I don't mean to criticise your friend but most motorcyclists are dreadfully reckless."

"He isn't my friend. I told you that I don't know him," grieved Virginia.

"Why worry so, then? I heard the doctor say that it was not a serious case myself."

"He was concealing something. Anyway, it is wrong of us to say unkind things about the poor fellow when he has no friends to help him,"

Virginia concluded with a note of defiance.

"_Have_ we?" the nurse responded, "I think that I said,--you may remember--that motorcyclists are reckless."

"But," sobbed the unhappy girl, "I thought it, too."

"He wouldn't care about it, anyway," argued the nurse soothingly.

"Cheer up, he'll soon be well. I never remember a motorcyclist dying in this hospital. They are either killed outright," she explained in a matter of fact tone, "or they soon recover. They have so many accidents learning to ride, I suppose, that they get toughened. I don't mean that they are tough fellows," she explained hastily, fearful that Virginia might deem the remark unkind. "I mean that one must be young, and strong, and hard, to run one of the things."

Virginia's tears had ceased to flow. "I should think that a motorcyclist would have to be--quick--and graceful," she interrupted, and then ended, "--and very brave," being, evidently much uplifted by the nurse's remarks.

"And," continued the very observant attendant of the sick, "I should think that they would have to be very strong and healthy, perfectly nerveless, and," she smiled, "not a bit fastidious to ride a motorcycle."

Virginia's face bore a look of mild reproof which melted away as she joined in the hearty laugh of the nurse.

"I am going up stairs," resumed that energetic person cheerfully, "and see your motorcyclist. In a minute, I will be back able to a.s.sure you that he is not seriously injured."

As the girl waited, the quiet of the great building depressed her. To her came the thought that it was a place of weariness, pain, suffering.

The hall before her was the highway along which men and women pa.s.sed on their way to those white bed battle-grounds beyond. Through hours, and days of weariness and suffering the combat dragged its weary length or moved in strenuous actions, short and sharp, towards victory, with the joyous return of the pale and weakened warrior to loved ones, home, friends, and all that makes life worth living, or else--

A door opened above stairs. Something very like a smothered laugh echoed and the soft pad of rubber soles came on the steps.

"He's all right," the nurse rea.s.sured Virginia, as she reentered the room. "He's perfectly conscious and the doctor says that he sees no reason why he should not get along nicely." Her manner became very professional as she went on, "Your motorcyclist has a fractured leg, three fractured ribs, and many bruises." She shrugged her shoulders deprecatingly, "That's nothing."

"Nothing! I think that it is dreadful." Virginia displayed indications of renewed agitation.

The nurse made haste to comfort her, "Remember, I have seen him. That young man may be brittle but he'll mend fast."

"He will suffer so," worried Virginia.

"No, not after his leg is set. Of course he will be in some pain for a few days but that will soon pa.s.s." The nurse giggled. "Right now he has a bad headache from striking either your car or the street with his head. It must be made of extraordinarily strong material."

Virginia gave no heed to the concluding sentence. A look of alarm spread over her face. "He struck the car an awful blow. It fairly lifted it.

Was that his head?" she gasped.

"Possibly," admitted the dancing eyed nurse. "His headache is severe.

But he'll be over that in the morning."

Another matter of anxiety recurred to the girl. "How's his fever?" she troubled, her eyes big with pity.

"Fever!" Surprise claimed the nurse as its own. "Now what ever put that into your head?"

"I held his hand when we brought him here. It was very hot."

"Oh, I see," admitted the nurse with a solemnity of tone which belied her tell-tale orbs. "What a little helper you _were_. You held the patient's hand, and, discovering it to be warm, you believed him dead."

"Wasn't it strange?" Virginia gravely pursued her own line of thought.

"It seemed to me that he wanted me to hold his hand, so I did."

"Kind girl," the nurse complimented her, and then, as from a wealth of experience, explained, "I never knew a man who disliked to hold hands.

Certainly a motorcyclist would have no compunctions about it. Don't worry about fever in this case."

"You are laughing at me again. You love to tease me," protested Virginia.

"I can't help it after seeing that motorcyclist."

"Why should you laugh about him? Poor fellow, he suffers so."

"Yes, I suppose he does, but his appearance does not draw sympathy.

They've dressed him up in pink pajamas. He's a great big fellow and his eyes--"

"Are black," announced Virginia with great a.s.surance.

"Yes, but how on earth did you know it?"

"He looked up at me," Virginia confessed soberly.

"Looked up at you? Please tell me when? While you were holding his hand?"

"No." The girl spoke with great gentleness, as if in a dream she reenacted the scene she described. "His head was lying in my lap and suddenly he opened his eyes and looked up at me for a moment--and closed them."

The nurse choked with suppressed laughter. "I thought," she rippled, "that it was a collision of vehicles, not of hearts."

"How very silly," thought Virginia, and regarding the nurse coldly, she said aloud, "I'll go now. I am sorry to have been so much trouble to you."

Unmoved by the change in the mood of the visitor, the nurse accompanied her to the door. "You'll be coming back to see your patient?" she suggested.

"I suppose I should," Virginia mused. Her coolness towards the nurse melted. "It would be dreadfully embarra.s.sing to visit a strange man."

"I can help you. I go back to ward duty tomorrow and will have charge of the surgical cases. I'll know him by the time you call."