She paused a moment—long enough for the man before her to gather the meaning of her words—long enough to allow memory to whelm her own heart and break it at last, and then she sank upon the floor, weeping and crying aloud for her dead child.
When Henry Willis carried her to the office, the first paroxysmal symptoms of cholera had set in.
* * * * * *
All hope was over. Nurse Myron was dying. Every remedy despairing skill could suggest had been resorted to, but in vain. Transfusion of blood had brought not even an evanescent strength. The disease had culminated, and death was simply a question of minutes—an hour at most.
Her face had become olive in tint, and shone up with Murillo-like beauty of tint and form from the pillow. Beside her, in all the abandon of shattered hope, knelt Henry Willis. But to all his pleading Myron Holder was deaf, until, by the inspiration of despair, he cried aloud:
"For his sake, to give him a name!"
Then she consented. In the presence of the remnant of nurses left, blessed by the devoted minister who also lived among these dangers, Myron Holder and Henry Willis took each other for man and wife.
They were alone. He held her hand, awed by the supernal brightness of her eyes.
"You will write his name above his grave?" she said. "His real name—Henry Willis? Do you know what I called him? My—little My."
"Live," he murmured. "Live to let me atone—to be happy—to be adored. Live—you can if you will."