At last, it was good-bye. The very end, the dreadful wrench—the absolute adieu!
CHAPTER VIII
A TIRESOME PATIENT
Vivian Ormsby’s illness dragged on from days into weeks. There was little or nothing to be done but nursing, and Dora took her share willingly. He was a very courteous, considerate person when the girl he loved was at his bedside, but very trying to the professional nurses. He insisted upon attending to business matters as soon as he recovered from his long period of unconsciousness, but the physicians strictly forbade visitors of any kind.
The patient was not allowed to read newspapers or hear news of the war. All excitement was barred, for it was one of the worst cases of concussion of the brain the specialists had ever known. Ormsby could not help watching Dora’s face in the mornings, when the papers arrived; he saw her hand tremble and her eyes grow dim as she read. When the first lists of killed and wounded came to hand, she read with ashen face and quivering lip, but, when the name she sought, and dreaded to find, was not there, the color came back, and she glowed again with the joy and pride of youth.
He allowed himself idly to imagine that this was 90 his home, and Dora his wife. It would always be like this—Dora at hand with her gentle, soothing touch upon his brow, her light, quick step, that he knew so well, and could distinguish in a moment from that of any other woman about the house, and her rich, penetrating voice, that never faltered, and carried even in a whisper, no matter how far away from his bedside. She laughed sometimes in talking to the nurses, finding it hard to restrain the natural vivacity of her temperament, and it hurt him when they hushed her down, and playfully ordered her from the room.
He loved to lie and watch her, and his great dark eyes at times exerted a kind of fascination. She avoided them, but could feel his gaze when she turned away, and was glad to escape. He loved her—there was no hiding the fact; and, when he was convalescent, and the time came for him to go away, he would declare it—if not before. The nurses discussed it between themselves, and speculated upon the chances. They knew that there was a rival, but he was far away, at the war—and he might never come back. The man on the spot had all the advantages on his side, the other all the love; it was interesting to the feminine mind to watch developments.
When there was talk of the patient getting up, he was increasingly irritable if Dora were away. One 91 day, he seized her hand, and carried it to his lips—dry, fevered lips that scorched her.