“I must find him. Is there no one to show me the way?” she asked, impatient at this last trivial delay.
“They’re each in different rooms up there,” was the reply. “Walk right up the stairs. There’s nurses up there. They’ll tell you.”
Salome turned up the narrow, dingy staircase. At the top there was no one in sight. Groans came from behind a closed door. Inside, she could hear voices, subdued to an undertone. In the absolute silence, she heard the word “amputation.” Could this be Villard’s room?
She leaned against the wall, unable to try that latch. While she stood there, helpless and dazed, she lifted her eyes to the opposite doorway. It was open.
Inside, there seemed to be no one. Certainly there was no attendant. She stepped forward and looked in. There, on the white, clean bed, lay the form of John Villard, his face whiter than the pillow it rested against, his dark hair contrasting strangely with his paleness.
With the sight, all the repressed love of the last two years swept over Salome like a resistless impulse. A hand seemed clutching at her heart. Her limbs seemed paralyzed; but in an instant she was beside the bed, looking down at the closed eyes. A terrible fear that he was dead swept over her. With an inarticulate groan, she knelt beside him and laid her hand against his face.
He opened his eyes and smiled faintly. He thought he had died and reached Heaven.
XX.
Villard’s convalescence was slow and tedious. When Salome had found him, his dislocated shoulder had been restored to place, and his broken ankle set. Then, as there were not nurses enough for the great need, he had been left alone.
What passed in that first ten minutes after Salome had found him is still a sacred memory between them. At last, she said, looking at him through wet eyes, “You must have a nurse.”