"The only objection to that," answered the doctor, looking fixedly at him, "is that it is not necessary. Mr. Ferriss has just died."
VII.
Throughout her ride from Medford to the City it was impossible for Lloyd, so great was the confusion in her mind, to think connectedly. She had been so fiercely shocked, so violently shattered and weakened, that for a time she lacked the power and even the desire to collect and to concentrate her scattering thoughts. For the time being she felt, but only dimly, that a great blow had fallen, that a great calamity had overwhelmed her, but so extraordinary was the condition of her mind that more than once she found herself calmly awaiting the inevitable moment when the full extent of the catastrophe would burst upon her. For the moment she was merely tired. She was willing even to put off this reaction for a while, willing to remain passive and dizzied and stupefied, resigning herself helplessly and supinely to the swift current of events.
Yet while that part of her mind which registered the greater, deeper, and more lasting impressions remained inactive, the smaller faculty, that took cognisance of the little, minute-to-minute matters, was as busy and bright as ever. It appeared that the blow had been struck over this latter faculty, and not, as one so often supposes, through it. She seemed in that hour to understand the reasonableness of this phenomenon, that before had always appeared so inexplicable, and saw how great sorrow as well as great joy strikes only at the greater machinery of the brain, overpassing and ignoring the little wheels and cogs, that work on as briskly as ever in storm or calm, being moved only by temporary and trivial emotions and impressions.
So it was that for upward of an hour while the train carried her swiftly back to the City, Lloyd sat quietly in her place, watching the landscape rushing past her and cut into regular divisions by the telegraph poles like the whirling pictures of a kinetoscope. She noted, and even with some particularity, the other passengers—a young girl in a smart tailor-made gown reading a book, cutting the leaves raggedly with a hairpin; a well-groomed gentleman with a large stomach, who breathed loudly through his nose; the book agent with his oval boxes of dried figs and endless thread of talk; a woman with a little boy who wore spectacles and who was continually making unsteady raids upon the water-cooler, and the brakeman and train conductor laughing and chatting in the forward seat.
She took an interest in every unusual feature of the country through which the train was speeding, and noted each stop or increase of speed. She found a certain diversion, as she had often done before, in watching for the mile-posts and in keeping count of the miles. She even asked the conductor at what time the train would reach the City, and uttered a little murmur of vexation when she was told that it was a half-hour late. The next instant she was asking herself why this delay should seem annoying to her. Then, toward the close of the afternoon, came the City itself. First a dull-gray smudge on the horizon, then a world of grimy streets, rows of miserable tenements festooned with rags, then a tunnel or two, and at length the echoing glass-arched terminal of the station. Lloyd alighted, and, remembering that the distance was short, walked steadily toward her destination till the streets and neighbourhood became familiar. Suddenly she came into the square. Directly opposite was the massive granite front of the agency. She paused abruptly. She was returning to the house after abandoning her post. What was she to say to them, the other women of her profession?
Then all at once came the reaction. Instantly the larger machinery of the mind resumed its functions, the hurt of the blow came back. With a fierce wrench of pain, the wound reopened, full consciousness returned. Lloyd remembered then that she had proved false to her trust at a moment of danger, that Ferriss would probably die because of what she had done, that her strength of will and of mind wherein she had gloried was broken beyond redemption; that Bennett had failed her, that her love for him, the one great happiness of her life, was dead and cold and could never be revived, and that in the eyes of the world she stood dishonoured and disgraced.
Now she must enter that house, now she must face its inmates, her companions. What to say to them? How explain her defection? How tell them that she had not left her post of her own will? Lloyd fancied herself saying in substance that the man who loved her and whom she loved had made her abandon her patient. She set her teeth. No, not that confession of miserable weakness; not that of all things. And yet the other alternative, what was that? It could be only that she had been afraid—she, Lloyd Searight! Must she, who had been the bravest of them all, stand before that little band of devoted women in the light of a self-confessed coward?
She remembered the case of the young English woman, Harriet Freeze, who, when called upon to nurse a smallpox patient, had been found wanting in courage at the crucial moment, and had discovered an excuse for leaving her post. Miss Freeze had been expelled dishonourably from the midst of her companions. And now she, Lloyd, standing apparently convicted of the same dishonour, must face the same tribunal. There was no escape. She must enter that house, she must endure that ordeal, and this at precisely the time when her resolution had been shattered, her will broken, her courage daunted. For a moment the idea of flight suggested itself to her—she would avoid the issue. She would hide from reproach and contumely, and without further explanation go back to her place in the country at Bannister. But the little exigencies of her position made this impossible. Besides her nurse's bag, her satchel was the only baggage she had at that moment, and she knew that there was but little money in her purse.