“Isn’t there any hope for him?” the nurse asked, a shade of sadness in her eyes.
“I’m afraid not!” said the doctor shortly. “He won’t take any interest in living, that’s the trouble. He isn’t dying of his wounds. Something is troubling him. But it’s no use trying to find out what. He shuts up like a clam.”
The new nurse flushed outside the door as she heard herself discussed and shut her firm little lips in a determined way as she followed the head nurse down the long rows of cots to an alcove at the end where a screen shut the patient from view.
Miss Jennings, a plain girl with tired eyes, gave a few directions and she was left with her patient. She turned toward the cot and stopped with a soft gasp of recognition, her face growing white and set as she took in the dear familiar outline of the fine young face before her. Every word she had heard outside the doctor’s office rang distinctly in her ears. He was dying. He did not want to live. With another gasp that was like a sob she slipped to her knees beside the cot, forgetful of her duties, of the ward outside, or the possible return of the nurses, forgetful of everything but that he was there, her hero of the years!
She reached for one of his hands, the one that was not bandaged, and she laid her soft cheek against it, and held her breath to listen. Perhaps even now behind that quiet face the spirit had departed beyond her grasp.
There was no flutter of the eyelids even. She could not see that he still breathed, although his hand was not cold, and his face when she touched it still seemed human. She drew closer in an agony of fear, and laid her lips against his cheek, and then her face softly, with one hand about his other cheek. Her lips were close to his ear now.
“John!” she whispered softly, “John! My dear knight!”
There was a quiver of the eyelids now, a faint hesitating sigh. She touched her lips to his and spoke his name again. A faint smile flickered over his features as if he were seeing other worlds of beauty that had no connection here. But still she continued to press her face against his cheek and whisper his name.
At last he opened his eyes, with a bewildered, wondering gaze and saw her. The old dear smile broke forth:
“Ruth! You here? Is this—heaven?”