There was no probability of this, as Guy lived in another town, and could not have officiated had he wished. But the doctor was too much excited to reason clearly about anything, save Madeline Clyde’s case; and during the next few weeks his other patients waited many times in vain for his coming, while he sat by Maddy’s side, watching every change, whether for the worse or better. Even Agnes Remington was totally neglected; and so one day she sent Guy to Devonshire to say that as Jessie seemed more than usually delicate, she wished the doctor to take her under his charge and visit her at least once a week. The doctor was not at home, but Tom said he expected him every moment. So, seating himself in the arm-chair, Guy waited until he came.
“Well, Hal,” he began, jocosely, but the joking words he would have uttered next died on his lips as he noticed the strange look of excitement and anxiety on the doctor’s face. “What is it?” he asked. “Are all your patients dead?”
“Guy,” and the doctor came closely to him, whispering huskily, “you and I are murderers in the first degree, and both deserve to be hung. Do you remember that Madeline Clyde whom you insulted with your logic, and the Catechism, and Latin verbs? She’d set her heart on that certificate. She wanted the money, not for new gowns and fooleries, mind, but to help her old grandfather pay his debts. His place is mortgaged. I don’t understand it; but he asked some old hunks to lend him the money, and the miserly rascal, whoever he was, refused. I wish I had it. I’d give it to him out and out. But there’s nothing to do with the girl—Maddy, they call her. The disappointment killed her, and she’s dying—is raving crazy—and keeps talking of that confounded examination. I tell you, Guy, I get terribly mixed up when I hear her talk, and my heart thumps like a triphammer. That’s the reason I have not been up to Aikenside. I wouldn’t leave Maddy so long as there was hope, but there is none now. I did not tell them this morning. I couldn’t make that poor couple feel worse than they were feeling; but when I looked at her, tossing from side to side, and picking at the bedclothes, I knew it would soon be over—that when I saw her again the poor little arms would be still enough, and the bright eyes shut forever. Guy, I couldn’t see her die—I don’t like to see anybody die, but her, Maddy, of all others—and so I came away. If you stay long enough, you’ll hear the bell toll, I reckon. There is none at Honedale Church, which they attend. They are Episcopalians, you see, and so they’ll come up here, maybe. I hope I shall be deafer than an adder.”
Here the doctor stopped, wholly out of breath, while Guy for a moment sat without speaking a word. Jessie, in his hearing, had told her mother what the sick girl in the doctor’s office had said about being poor and wanting the money for grandpa; while Mrs. Noah had given him a rather exaggerated account of Mr. Markham’s visit; but he had not associated the two together until now, when he saw the matter as it was, and almost as much as the doctor himself regretted the part he had had in Maddy’s illness and her grandfather’s distress.
“Doc,” he said, laying his hand on the doctor’s arm, “I am the old hunks, the miserly rascal who refused the money. I met the old man going home that day, and he asked me for help. You say the place must be sold. It never shall, never. I’ll see to that, and you must save the girl.”
“I can’t, Guy. I’ve done all I can, and now, if she lives, it will be wholly owing to the prayers that old saint of a grandfather says for her. I never thought much of these things until I heard him pray; not that she should live any way, but that if it were right Maddy might not die. Guy, there’s something in such a prayer as that. It’s more powerful than all my medicine swallowed at one grand gulp.”
Guy didn’t know very much experimentally about praying, and so he did not respond, but he thought of Lucy Atherstone, whose life was one act of prayer and praise, and he wished she could know of Maddy, and join her petitions with those of the grandfather. Starting suddenly from his chair, he exclaimed, “I’m going down there. I cannot endure to sit here doing nothing to make amends. It will look queer, too, to go alone. Ah, I have it! I’ll drive back to Aikenside for Jessie, who has talked so much of the girl that her mother, forgetting that she was once a teacher, is disgusted. Yes, I’ll take Jessie with me, but you must order it; you must say it is good for her to ride, and, Hal, give me some medicine for her, just to quiet Agnes, no matter what, provided it is not strychnine.”
Contrary to Guy’s expectations, Agnes did not refuse to let Jessie go for a ride, and the little girl was soon seated by her brother’s side, chatting merrily of the different things they passed upon the road. But when Guy told her where they were going, and why they were going there, the tears came at once into her eyes, and hiding her face in Guy’s lap she sobbed bitterly.
“I did like her so much that day,” she said, “and one looked so sorry, too. It’s terrible to die!”
Then she plied Guy with questions, concerning Maddy’s probable future. “Would she go to heaven, sure?” and when Guy answered at random, “Yes,” she asked, “How did he know? Had he heard that Maddy was that kind of good which lets people in heaven? Because, brother Guy,” and the little preacher nestled closely to the young man, fingering his coat buttons as she talked, “because, brother Guy, folks can be good—that is, not do naughty things—and still God won’t love them unless they—I don’t exactly know what, I wish I did.”