The Way of the Strong Part 13

Yes, her sister should have every care. Everything she could do to make her happy and comfortable should be done. And then, when the baby came, wouldn't it be delightful? She would be its fairy G.o.d-mother. She hoped he would be a boy. Fancy Elsie with a son. Wasn't it wonderful? And she--she would give him every moment of her spare time from the office.

Ah, that wonderful thought--the office.

So her thoughts ran on, keeping pace with her feet. The wonders of the new world opening out before her eyes were inexhaustible, and long before she was aware of the distance she had covered she found herself at the door of the cheap little apartment house where she lived on the top floor.

There was no elevator, and she ran at the stairs, taking them two at a time. Her good news would not wait. She must tell her poor sister. She was dying to pour all the happy story into her ears, and watch the wistful smile grow upon Elsie's troubled, handsome face.

On the sixth landing she stood breathlessly fumbling in her satchel for her key, when the door opened and the nurse appeared holding up a warning finger.

"Come quietly," she whispered. "The doctor is with her now. It came on quite suddenly. I hope things will be all right, but--she's in a bad way."

In a moment all the joy and hope died out of Monica's tender heart. All the castles, all her dreams, fell into a tumbled ruin. Her sister, her beautiful, brave sister was in danger. She knew it. She knew that the nurse's words covered far more than they expressed. Oh, it was cruel, cruel.

CHAPTER X

A PROMISE

Three hopeless days since the coming of that brief moment of overwhelming joy. The reaction had been all too terribly sudden for a young girl on the threshold of life. Monica sat at her dying sister's bedside crushed under a great grief.

Those terrible three days. The demands made upon her by the reporters of the _Daily Citizen_. The interviews she had had to endure with the editor. The letters she received. Some from strangers; some from acquaintances. Letters of congratulation; letters full of burning spite from some of the unsuccessful compet.i.tors; vampire letters demanding sympathy and practical help, pouring out stories of misery, sorrow and suffering. All these, in her simplicity, she felt it her duty to answer; and she must answer them with smiling words of hope and comfort. She must at all times keep a smiling face.

To the reporter she had to talk and laugh while her heart was breaking.

To the editor she must offer her most engaging smile that his personal goodwill be a.s.sured at the outset of her career. Nor, for one moment, did she permit a sign of the aching heart underneath it all.

At the end of those three days she was an older woman by far than twice her seventeen years. She was learning from the book of life in a manner that left her almost despairing. How much she learned. That smiling world she had gazed upon as she ran home with her wonderful news was no longer smiling, its face had resumed its wonted expression which was careworn, lined with suffering, and sorrow, and regret; and was terribly, terribly old. She had learned something of what her success meant. She knew now that her success meant failure to hundreds of others. She knew that so it must always be. The successful path must be lined with a tangle of weeds of suffering and hope abandoned. For every success there must be, not one but hundreds of failures; for such was the law of Life.

Thus she was robbed of her joy and thrown back upon the grief which lay across her own threshold.

The verdict had been given that morning by the doctor; and corroboration of it was in the steady eyes of the nurse. Her sister, her well-loved, admired elder sister was dying. She was dying not as the happy mother of a beautiful son, but as the deserted wife left to starve for all her husband cared. She was dying a broken-hearted creature whose wonderful, generous nature had been made the plaything of a cold, unscrupulous villain. All this Monica told herself over and over again as she sat beside the silent, uncomplaining woman during those long hours of waiting for the end.

Her beautiful eyes were red with weeping, her pale cheeks looked so wan with the long hours of silent watching. The nurse was still there to do her work, but most of her work was now the care of the little life in the bed that had been put up at the other side of the room, rather than with the woman who had given up her life that her love might yield her absent man this one last pledge.

Poor little Monica was alone, utterly alone with her grief. There were no warm words of kindly comfort to soften her troubles. There was no loving mother's gentle hand to soothe her aching head. The world was there before her, hard, unsympathetic. She must face it alone, face it with what courage she might, doing the best she knew amid a grief which seemed everywhere about her.

An infantile cry from the other bed startled her. She rose and pa.s.sed across the room. The child seemed to be asleep, for its breathing was regular, and the cry was not repeated. She gazed down upon its tiny, crumpled face, and her young heart melted with a curious yearning and love for the little life that was robbing her of a sister. It was so small. It was so tender--and--and it had cost so much. She longed to take it in her arms and press it to her girlish bosom. She loved it.

Loved it because it was her sister's and soon would be all she had in the world to remind her of the generous heart from which life was so swiftly ebbing.

"Monica!"

The girl started and looked round. The dying woman's eyes were wide open.

"Come here." The voice was low, but the words were quite distinct. It was the first time she had spoken for more than twelve hours.

Monica pa.s.sed swiftly back to her place at the bedside.

"Oh, Elsie, Elsie," she cried, "I'm so glad you have spoken. So, so glad."

A faint smile flickered gently over the sick woman's emaciated features.

"Are you?"

"Yes, yes. Oh, Elsie, you feel better, stronger, don't you? Say you feel better. I--I know you do."

Monica's last words came hesitatingly, for even while she was speaking a negative movement from the sick woman told her how vain were her hopes.

"It is no use, Mon. But I'm perfectly easy--now. That's why I called you. I want to talk about--him. You--you--love my little son, don't you?" There was pleading in the voice as the woman asked the question.

"I saw you bending over him just now, and--and I thought--hoped you did."

"Oh, Elsie, he is yours. How could I help but love him?"

The words came impulsively, and Monica dropped a warm hand upon the transparent flesh of her sister's. Her action was promptly rewarded by a feeble pressure of acknowledgment.

"I--I knew you would."

After that neither spoke for some moments. Tears were softly falling down Monica's pretty cheeks. But her sister's eyes were closed again.

It was almost as if she were gathering her strength and thoughts for a final effort.

Presently Monica grew alarmed. She dashed the tears from her eyes, and bent over the bed.

"Shall I fetch nurse? Is there anything I can do?" she asked eagerly.

The big eyes opened at once, and the light in them was a calm smile.

The dying woman looked almost happy. To Monica's growing understanding of such things her happiness might have been the inspiration of one who sees beyond the narrow focus of human life; whose swiftly approaching end had revealed to her tired eyes a glimpse of the wonderful world she was approaching, that golden life awaiting all, be they saint or sinner.

"I don't want any one but you, dear--now." The voice was tired, but a sense of peace was conveyed in the gentle pressure of her thin fingers upon the soft warm flesh of her sister's hand. "I--I want to tell you of--things. And--and I want you to promise me something. Oh, Mon, as you love me, as you love my boy, I want you to give me your promise."

Monica seated herself on the edge of the bed and tearfully gave her promise with all the impulsiveness which her love inspired.

"You only have to tell me what it is. I could promise you anything, Elsie. I have only one desire in the world now; it is to--to help you."

Her sister's eyes closed for a moment. Then they opened again.

"Raise me up a little, dear. Put a pillow behind my shoulders. I want to--to--see the bed over there. I want to see my little son, his--his boy. That's better." She sighed contentedly as Monica raised her up, and her big eyes at once fixed themselves upon the other bed. There was nothing to be seen but the carefully arranged bed clothes, but, for the time at least, it was sufficient.

"I want to tell you the things I never told you before. I want to tell you about Leo; and I want to talk about my--my boy. Leo and I were not married."

A little gasp of horrified dismay escaped the young girl. She was so young that as yet her ideals of life were still intact. The thought of such a thing as her sister now spoke of had never entered her innocent head.

"Ah, that--that hurts you," the other went on. "I knew it would.

I--I--that's why I lied to you before. I lied when I said Leo was my husband. Oh, Mon, don't let it make any difference to us now. The time is getting so short."

"Nothing could ever make any difference between us," Monica said, in a low voice. "I was startled. You see----"

"I know. Ah, my dear, my dear, you don't know what it is to love as I love. I met Leo a long time ago, when I was an actress. He knew me as Audrey Thorne, an actress, and I--I wanted to marry him. But--you see he had nothing on which to keep a wife--an extravagant woman as I was then. So, he went away, and--and I followed him. You must think me utterly, terribly bad--but I loved him. I followed him right up into the wilds of the Yukon, and--and I lived with him."

"Poor, poor Elsie." Monica's dismay had pa.s.sed, and she gently squeezed the hand she was still holding. The pressure seemed to give the other courage to proceed.