第67章

"I think Lieutenant Alspaugh will be content to go back to the field in a few days, if we continue this vigorous treatment," Dr.

Denslow said, a little later, as he came into the reading-room of the hospital where he found Rachel sitting alone.

"O, Doctor, how could you be so cruel?" she asked in tones which were meant to be reproachful, but only poorly disguised her mirthful appreciation of the whole matter.

"I wasn't cruel; I only did my duty.The fellow's a palpable malingerer, and his being here makes it ever so much worse.He's trying to shirk duty and have a good time here in the hospital.

It's my place to make the hospital so unpleasant for him that he will think the field preferable, and I'm going to do it, especially if I find him squeezing your hand again."There was that in the tone of the last sentence which sobered her instantly.Womanly prescience told her that the Surgeon had discovered what seemed to him a fitting opportunity to say that which he had long desired.Ever since she had been in the hospital he had exerted himself to smooth her path for her, and make her stay there endurable.There was not a day in which she was not indebted to him for some unobtrusive kindness, delicately and thoughtfully rendered.

While she knew quite well that these courtesies would have been as conscientiously extended to any other woman--young or old--in her position, yet her instincts did not allow her any doubt that there was about them a flavor personal to herself and redolent of something much warmer than mere kindliness.A knowledge of this had at times tainted the pleasure she felt in accepting welcome little attentions from him.She dreaded what she knew was coming.

He took her hand and started to speak with tremulous lips.But almost at the same instant the door was flung open, and a nurse entered in breathless haste.

"O, Doctor," he gasped, "I've been looking for you everywhere.That Lieutenant in the First Ward thinks he's a-dyin'.He's groanin'

an' cryin', and a-takin' on at a terrible rate, an' nobody can't do nothin' with him.The Steward wants you to come there right off.""It's only the castor oil," muttered the Doctor savagely, as he rose to follow the nurse.

This was the letter that the Orderly handed Rachel some days later:

Dear Ratie: Your letter came at last, for which I was SO thankful, because I had waited SO long for it that I was SO tired and SOanxious that I was almost at my wits' end.I am SO glad that you are well, that you have got your room at last fixed up real nice and comfortable, as a young lady should have, and that you find your duties more agreeable.It is SO nice in that Dr.Denslow to help you along as he does.But then that is what every real gentleman should do for a young lady--or old one for that matter.Still, Iwould like to thank him SO much.

I am not at all well: my heart gives me SO much trouble--more than ever before--and as you say nothing about coming home I have about concluded to try what a change of climate and scene will do for me, and so have concluded to accept your Aunt Tabitha's invitation to spend a few months with her.Unless you hear from me to the contrary--which you will probably not, as the mails are so uncertain in Kentucky, you had better address your next letter to me at Eau Claire.

But I am so sorry to see by your letter that you show no signs of weariness with your quixotic idea of serving the country in the hospital.I had hoped so much that you would by this time have decided that you had done enough, and come home and content yourself with doing what you could for the Sanitary Fair, and the lint-scraping bees.

YOUR AFFECTIONATE MOTHER.

P.S.--Your father is well.He will go with me to Wisconsin, and then go down to Nebraska to look after his land there.

P.S.--I am SO sorry to tell you that Harry Glen has acted badly again.The last letters from the regiment say that he did not go into the fight at Wildcat, and afterward was missing.They believe he was captured, and some say he was taken prisoner on purpose.

Everybody's saying, "I told you so," and Mrs.Glen has not been on the street or to church since the news came.I am so sorry for her, but then you know that she used to put on quite as many airs as her position justified.

P.S.--Hoop-skirts are getting smaller every month, and some are confident that they will go entirely out of fashion by next year.

I do so hope not.I so dread having to cme back to the old way of wearing a whole clothes-basketful of white skirts.The new bonnets are just the awfulest things you ever did see.Write soon.

Rachel crumpled the letter in her hand, with a quick, angry gesture, as if crushing some hateful, despicable thing, and her clear hazel eyes blazed.

"He is evidently a hopeless coward," she said to herself, "when all that has passed can not spur him into an exhibition of proper spirit.If he had the love for me he professed it could not help stimulating him to some show of manliness.I will fling him out of my heart and my world as I would fling a rotten apple out of a basket."Then a sadder and gentler light shone in her face.

"Perhaps I am myself to blame a little.I may not be a good source of inspiration to acts of heroism.Other girls may have ways of stimulating their loves to high deeds that I know not of.Possibly I applied the lash too severely, and instead of rousing him up Ikilled all the hope in his heart, and made him indifferent to his future.Possibly, too, this story may not be true.The feeling in Sardis against him is strong, and they are hardly willing to do him justice.No doubt they misrepresent him in this, as they are apt to do in everything."Her face hardened again.