A man's woman

by Frank Norris

Try as she would, Lloyd could not but think first of herself at this moment. Bennett was ignored, forgotten. Once she had loved him, but that was all over now. The thought of Ferriss's death, for which in a manner she had been forced to be responsible, came rushing to her mind from time to time, and filled her with a horror and, at times, even a perverse sense of remorse, almost beyond words. But Lloyd's pride, her self-confidence, her strength of character and independence had been dearer to her than almost anything in life. So she told herself, and, at that moment, honestly believed. And though she knew that her pride had been humbled, it was not gone, and enough of it remained to make her desire and strive to keep the fact a secret from the world. It seemed very easy. She would only have to remain passive. Circumstances acted for her.

Miss Douglass returned, followed by Rownie carrying a tray. When the mulatto had gone, after arranging Lloyd's supper on a little table near the couch, the fever nurse drew up a chair.

"Now we can talk," she said, "unless you are too tired. I've been so interested in this case at Medford. Tell me what was the immediate cause of death; was it perforation or just gradual collapse?"

"It was neither," said Lloyd quickly. "It was a hemorrhage."

She had uttered the words with as little consciousness as a phonograph, and the lie had escaped her before she was aware. How did she know what had been the immediate cause of death? What right had she to speak? Why was it that all at once a falsehood had come so easy to her, to her whose whole life until then had been so sincere, so genuine?

"A hemorrhage?" repeated the other. "Had there been many before then? Was there coma vigil when the end came? I—"

"Oh," cried Lloyd with a quick gesture of impatience, "don't, don't ask me any more. I am tired—nervous; I am worn out."

"Yes, of course you must be," answered the fever nurse. "We won't talk any more about it."

That night and the following day were terrible. Lloyd neither ate nor slept. Not once did she set foot out of her room, giving out that she was ill, which was not far from the truth, and keeping to herself and to the companionship of the thoughts and terrors that crowded her mind. Until that day at Medford her life had run easily and happily and in well-ordered channels. She was successful in her chosen profession and work. She imagined herself to be stronger and of finer fibre than most other women, and her love for Bennett had lent a happiness and a sweetness to her life dear to her beyond all words. Suddenly, and within an hour's time, she had lost everything. Her will had been broken, her spirit crushed; she had been forced to become fearfully instrumental in causing the death of her patient—a man who loved and trusted her—while her love for Bennett, which for years had been her deep and abiding joy, the one great influence of her life, was cold and dead, and could never be revived.

This in the end came to be Lloyd's greatest grief. She could forget that she herself had been humbled and broken. Horrible, unspeakably horrible, as Ferriss's death seemed to her, it was upon Bennett, and not upon her, that its responsibility must be laid. She had done what she could. Of that she was assured. But, first and above all things, Lloyd was a woman, and her love for Bennett was a very different matter.