Mr. Allen lay insensible on his bed, and one could hardly realize that he was a dying man. His face was as flushed and full as it often appeared on his return from his club. To the girls' unpracticed ears, his loud, stentorous breathing only indicated heavy sleep. But neither they nor the doctor could arouse him, and at last the physician met Edith's questioning eyes, and gravely and significantly shook his head. Though she had borne up so steadily and quietly, he felt more for her than for any of the others.
"Oh, doctor! can't you save him?" she pleaded.
"You must save him," cried Zell, her eyes flashing through her tears, "I would be ashamed, if I were a physician, to stand over a strong man, and say helplessly, 'I can do nothing.' Is this all your boasted skill amounts to? Either do something at once or let us get some one who will."
"Your feelings to-night, Miss Zell," said the doctor quietly, "will excuse anything you say, however wild and irrational. I am doing all—"
"I am not wild or unreasonable," cried Zell. "I only demand that my father's life be saved." Then starting up she threw off a shawl and stood before Dr. Mark in the dress she had worn in the evening, that seemed a sad mockery in that room of death. Her neck and arms were bare, and even the cool, experienced physician was startled by her wonderful beauty and strange manner. Her white throat was convulsed, her bosom heaved tumultuously, and on her face was the expression that might have rested on the face of a maiden like herself centuries before, when shown the rack and dungeon, and told to choose between her faith and her life.
But after a moment she extended her white rounded arm toward him and said steadily:
"I have read that if the blood of a young, vigorous person is infused into another who is feeble and old, it will give renewed strength and health. Open a vein in my arm. Save his life if you take mine."
"You are a brave, noble girl," said Dr. Mark, with much emotion, taking the extended hand and pressing it tenderly, "but you are asking what is impossible in this case. Do you not remember that I am an old friend of your father's? It grieves me to the heart that his attack is so severe that I fear all within the reach of human skill is vain."
Zell, who was a creature of impulse, and often of noblest impulse, as we have seen, now reacted into a passion of weeping, and sank helplessly on the floor. She was capable of heroic action, but she had no strength for woman's lot, which is so often that of patient endurance.
Edith came and put her arms around her, and with gentle, soothing words, as if speaking to a child, half carried her to her room, where she at last sobbed herself asleep.