The shadow of the East

by E. M. Hull

“Light a fire in the stove, bring all the blankets you can find, and make some strong coffee. I have been waiting for this, the marvel is it hasn't happened before,” he said brusquely. And as the woman hurried away with surprising meekness to do his bidding he turned again to Craven. “Friend of Mrs. Craven's?” he asked with blunt directness. “Pity her friends haven't looked her up sooner. Guess you can wait in the other room until I'm through here—that is if you are sufficiently interested. It will probably be a long job and the fewer people she sees about her when she comes to, the better.”

The blood flamed into Craven's face and an angry protest rose to his lips, but his better judgment checked it. It was not the time for explanations or to press the claim he had to remain in the room. And had he a claim at all, he wondered with a dull feeling of pain. “I'll wait,” he said quietly, fighting an intolerable jealousy as he watched the doctor's skilful hands busy about her. Strangers might tend her, but the husband she had evidently never spoken of, was banished to an outer room to wait “if sufficiently interested.” He winced and passed slowly into the studio. And yet he had brought it on himself. She could have had little wish to mention him situated as she was, the bare garret he was pacing monotonously was evidence in itself that she had determined to cut adrift from everything that was connected with the life and the man she had obviously loathed. His surroundings left no doubt on that score. She had plainly preferred to struggle independently for existence rather than be beholden to him who was her natural protector. He recalled with an aching heart the swift look of fear that had leapt into her eyes during that long moment before she had lost consciousness, and the memory of it went with him, searing cruelly, as he tramped up and down in restless anxiety that would not allow him to keep still. To see that look in her eyes again would be more than he could endure.

From time to time the concierge passed through the room bearing the various necessaries the doctor had demanded, but her mouth was grimly shut and he did not ask for information that she did not seem inclined to vouchsafe. She did unbend so far at last as to light a fire in the stove, but she let it be clearly understood that it was not for his benefit. “It will help to warm the other room, and it has been empty long enough,” she said, with a glance and a shrug that were full of meaning. But as she saw the misery of his face her manner softened and she spoke confidently of the skill of the American doctor, who from motives of pure philanthropy had practised for some years in a quarter that offered much experience but little pecuniary profit.

Then she left him to wait again alone.

He could not bring himself to look at the canvases propped against the bare walls, they were witnesses of her toil, witnesses perhaps of a failure that hurt him even more than it must have hurt her. And to him who knew the spirit-crushing efforts of the unknown artist to win recognition, her failure was both natural and intelligible. He guessed at a pride that scorning patronage had not sought assistance but had striven to succeed by merit alone, only to learn the bitter lesson that falls to the lot of those who fight against established convention. She had pitted her strength against a system and the system had broken her. Her studies might be—they were—marked with genius, but genius without advertisement had gone unrecognised and unrewarded.

But before the portrait of the strange model he had found with her he paused for a long time. Still unfinished it was brilliantly clever. The lower part of the face had evidently not satisfied her, for it was wiped out, but the upper part was completed, and Craven looked at the deep-set eyes of the apache staring back at him with almost the fire of life—melancholy sinister eyes that haunted—and wondered again what circumstance had brought such a man across her path. He remembered the fragmentary conversation he had heard, remembered too that mention had been made of the man who was even now with her in the adjoining room, and he sighed as he realised how utterly ignorant he was of the life she had led during his absence.

Had she meditated a complete severance from him, formed ties that would bind her irrevocably to the life she had chosen? He turned from the picture wearily. It was all a tangle. He could only wait, and waiting, suffer.

He went to the window and leant his arms unseeingly on the high narrow sill that looked out over the neighbouring housetops, straining to hear the faintest sound from the inner room. It seemed to him that he must have waited hours when at last the door opened and shut quietly and the American came leisurely toward him. He faced him with swift unspoken inquiry. The doctor nodded, moving toward the stove. “She's all right now,” he said dryly, “but I don't mind telling you she gave me the fright of my life. I have been wondering when this was going to happen, I've seen it coming for a long time.” He paused, and looked at Craven frowningly while he warmed his hands.

“May I ask if you are an intimate friend of Mrs. Craven's—if you know her people? Can you put me in communication with them? She is not in a fit state to be alone. She should have somebody with her—somebody belonging to her, I mean. I gather there is a husband somewhere abroad—though frankly I have always doubted his existence—but that is no good. I want somebody here, on the spot, now. Mrs. Craven doesn't see the necessity. I do. I'm not trying to shunt responsibility. I've shouldered a good deal in my time and I'm not shirking now—but this is a case that calls for more than a doctor. I should appreciate any assistance you could give me.”

The fear he had felt when he held her in his arms was clutching anew at Craven and his face grew grey under the deep tan. “What is the matter with her?” Something in his voice made the doctor look at him more closely.