"Don't blame me. Don't add to my self-reproach. I have killed her. I was a cruel fool to let her go. Don't speak to me."
"It may not be so bad," said Mr Benson, himself needing comfort in that shock. "She may recover. She surely will recover. I believe she will."
"No, no! she won't. But by —— she shall, if I can save her." Mr Davis looked defiantly at Mr Benson, as if he were Fate. "I tell you she shall recover, or else I am a murderer. What business had I to take her to nurse him—"
He was cut short by Sally's entrance and announcement that Ruth was now prepared to see him.
From that time forward Mr Davis devoted all his leisure, his skill, his energy, to save her. He called on the rival surgeon to beg him to undertake the management of Mr Donne's recovery, saying, with his usual self-mockery, "I could not answer it to Mr Cranworth if I had brought his opponent round, you know, when I had had such a fine opportunity in my power. Now, with your patients, and general Radical interest, it will be rather a feather in your cap; for he may want a good deal of care yet, though he is getting on famously—so rapidly, in fact, that it's a strong temptation to me to throw him back—a relapse, you know."
The other surgeon bowed gravely, apparently taking Mr Davis in earnest, but certainly very glad of the job thus opportunely thrown in his way. In spite of Mr Davis's real and deep anxiety about Ruth, he could not help chuckling over his rival's literal interpretation of all he had said.
"To be sure, what fools men are! I don't know why one should watch and strive to keep them in the world. I have given this fellow something to talk about confidentially to all his patients; I wonder how much stronger a dose the man would have swallowed! I must begin to take care of my practice for that lad yonder. Well-a-day! well-a-day! What was this sick fine gentleman sent here for, that she should run a chance of her life for him? or why was he sent into the world at all, for that matter?"
Indeed, however much Mr Davis might labour with all his professional skill—however much they might all watch—and pray—and weep—it was but too evident that Ruth "home must go, and take her wages." Poor, poor Ruth!
It might be that, utterly exhausted by watching and nursing, first in the hospital, and then by the bedside of her former lover, the power of her constitution was worn out; or, it might be, her gentle, pliant sweetness, but she displayed no outrage or discord even in her delirium. There she lay in the attic-room in which her baby had been born, her watch over him kept, her confession to him made; and now she was stretched on the bed in utter helplessness, softly gazing at vacancy with her open, unconscious eyes, from which all the depth of their meaning had fled, and all they told was of a sweet, child-like insanity within. The watchers could not touch her with their sympathy, or come near her in her dim world;—so, mutely, but looking at each other from time to time with tearful eyes, they took a poor comfort from the one evident fact that, though lost and gone astray, she was happy and at peace. They had never heard her sing; indeed, the simple art which her mother had taught her, had died, with her early joyousness, at that dear mother's death. But now she sang continually, very soft and low. She went from one childish ditty to another without let or pause, keeping a strange sort of time with her pretty fingers, as they closed and unclosed themselves upon the counterpane. She never looked at any one with the slightest glimpse of memory or intelligence in her face; no, not even at Leonard.
Her strength faded day by day; but she knew it not. Her sweet lips were parted to sing, even after the breath and the power to do so had left her, and her fingers fell idly on the bed. Two days she lingered thus—all but gone from them, and yet still there.