“But,” she added, after a moment’s pause, “you must not watch this error so closely that it can’t get away. Don’t watch it at all! For if you do, you make a reality of it––and then, well––”
“The case is in your hands, Carmen,” said Father Waite gently. “We know that Jesus would cure this boy instantly, if he were here––”
“Well––the Christ is here!” cried the girl, turning upon him. “Put away your ‘ifs’ and ‘buts.’ Stand, and know!”
The man bowed before the rebuke. “And these,” he said, holding out the needle and vial, “shall we have further use for them?”
“It will be given us what we are to do and say,” she returned. “The case rests now with God.”
CHAPTER 9
Four weeks from that crisp morning when Carmen led the bewildered, stupified lad to her home, she and Sidney sat out upon the little porch of the cottage, drinking in the glories of the winter sun. January was but half spent, and the lad and girl were making the most of the sudden thaw before the colder weather which had been predicted might be upon them.
What these intervening weeks had been to Carmen, none might have guessed as she sat there with the sunlight filtering in streamlets of gold through her brown hair. But their meaning to the boy might have been read with ease in the thin, white face, turned so constantly toward his fair companion. They were deeply, legibly written there, those black nights, when he would dash out into the hall, determined to break through the windows of the nearest dram shop and drink, 120 drink, drink, until the red liquor burst from his eyes, his mouth, his nostrils! Those ghastly nights, when Carmen would stand before him, her arms outspread across the door, and beat back the roaring devils within him! Those long days of agonized desire for the vicious drug which had sapped his manhood! Those fell hours, when low curses poured from his burning lips upon her and upon all mankind! Those cold, freezing sweats, and the dry, cracking fever! Those hours when, with Carmen always by his side, he tramped mile after mile through drifts and ice, until he dropped at length from sheer exhaustion, only to awake, hours later, to find that the girl had brought him home, safe, unharmed!––