Tears were dripping down her cheeks.
"'Only!'" she said; "do you think that's nothing to me? An hour longer, and his father will be here—to find him living, or dead. Do you suppose I can't imagine—do you suppose I can't feel—what he feels, there on the stage, counting the seconds to release? In an hour the curtain 'll be down and he'll have rushed here praying to be in time. If it were revealed that I should do nothing but prolong the life by sacrificing my own, I'd sacrifice it! Gladly, proudly—yes, proudly, as God hears! You could never have prevented me—nothing should prevent me. I'd risk my life ten times rather than he should arrive too late."
"This," drearily murmured the man who loved her, "is the return you would make for his sin?"
"No," she said; "it is the atonement I would offer for mine."
He stood dumbly at the head of the cot; the woman trembled at the foot. But they saw the change next minute simultaneously. Once more the passage had become hopelessly clogged. With a broken cry, she rushed to the cot's vacant side. This time he could not pull her back. He spoke.
"Stop! Nurse Brettan, I order you to leave the ward!"
The voice was imperative, and an instant she wavered; but it was the merest instant. The woman had vanquished the nurse, and the woman was the stronger now. A glance she threw of mingled supplication and defiance, and, casting herself on the bed, she set her lips to the tube.
CHAPTER XIV
It was the work of a moment. Almost as he started forward to restrain her, she had raised herself, and, burying her face in a handkerchief, leant, shaking, against the wall.