At his words—the same that he had spoken a few hours before in the garden—the nurse's face grew crimson. She made no answer, but in the eyes that looked straight into his, Dan read a question and his own face grew red as he said, "I called to see your patient. Dr. Oldham asked me to come."
"Certainly; come in." She stepped aside and the minister entered the sick-room. Mechanically, without a word she placed a chair for him near the bed, then crossed the room to stand by the window. But he did not sit down.
Presently Dan turned to the nurse. "She is asleep?" he asked in a low tone.
Miss Farwell's answer was calmly—unmistakably professional. Looking at her watch she answered, "She has been sleeping nearly two hours."
"Is there—will she recover?"
"Dr. Abbott says there is no reason why she should not if we can turn her from her determination to die."
Always Dan had been intensely in love with life. He had a strong, full-blooded young man's horror of death. He could think of it only as a fitting close to a long, useful life, or as a possible release from months of sickness and pain. That anyone young, and in good health, with the world of beauty and years of usefulness before them, with the opportunities and duties of life calling, should willfully seek to die, was a monstrous thought. After all the boy knew so little. He was only beginning to sense vaguely the great forces that make and mar humankind.
At the calm words of the nurse he turned quickly toward the bed with a shudder. "Her determination to die!" he repeated in an awed whisper.
Miss Farwell was watching him curiously.
He whispered half to himself, wonderingly, "Why should she wish to die?"