“I thought they told me fourteen, but of course it’s she,” the doctor rejoined. “Poor child, I would have given much to have saved her.”
Jessie did not speak but once, when she asked Guy “If it was very far to heaven, and if he supposed Maddy had got there by this time?”
“Hush, Jessie; don’t ask such questions,” Guy said; then turning to his companion, he continued: “We’ll go just the same. I will do what I can for the old man;” and so the carriage drove on, down the hill, across the meadow land, and passed a low-roofed house, whose walls inclosed the stiffened form of the boy for whom the bell had tolled, and who had been the patient of another than Dr. Holbrook.
Maddy was not dead, but the paroxysm of restlessness had passed, and she lay now in a heavy sleep so nearly resembling death that those who watched by her waited expectantly to see the going out of her last breath. Never before had a carriage like that from Aikenside stopped at that humble cottage, but the neighbors thought it came merely to bring the doctor, whom they welcomed with a glad smile, making way for him to pass to Maddy’s bedside. Guy preferred waiting outside until such time as Grandpa Markham could speak with him, but Jessie went with the doctor into the sick-room, startling even the grandmother, and causing her to wonder who the richly-dressed child could be.
“She is dying, doctor,” said one of the women; but the doctor shook his head, and holding in one hand his watch, he counted the faint pulse-beats, as with his eye he measured off the minutes.
“There are too many here,” he said. “She needs the air you are breathing,” and in his authoritative way he cleared the crowded room of the mistaken friends who were unwittingly breathing up Maddy’s very life.
The grandparents and Jessie he suffered to remain, and sitting down by Maddy he watched till the long sleep was ended. Silently and earnestly the aged couple prayed for their darling, asking that if possible she might be spared, and God heard their prayers, lifting, at last, the heavy lethargy from Maddy’s brain, and waking her to partial consciousness. It was Jessie who first caught the expression of the opening eyes, and darting forward, she exclaimed, “She’s waked up, Dr. Holbrook. She will live.”
Wonderingly Maddy looked at her, and then, as a confused recollection of where they had met before crossed her mind, she smiled faintly, and said:
“Where am I now? Have I never come home, and is this Dr. Holbrook’s office?”
“No, no; it’s home, your home, and you are getting well,” Jessie cried, bending over the bewildered girl. “Dr. Holbrook has cursed you, and Guy is here, and I, and——”