“I am not afraid,” she said. “I shall not take the fever. I never catch things as some people do. I sat three hours once with a servant who had the small-pox, and who died two hours after, and I did not take it. Somebody must go, and I have nobody to care much if I should die. Nobody but Margery, and she would say I was doing right. So pack my trunk, like a good, brave girl, for I must be off to-morrow. Something which I cannot resist is calling me to Memphis. What it is I cannot tell, but I must go.”
And so the next night the northern train for Savannah took in it Pierre and Queenie, bound for the fever-smitten city where the people were dying so fast and help was sorely needed. By some strange coincidence while Queenie was making up her mind to go to Memphis, Christine La Rue was already there. She, too, had heard the cry for help, and it roused her from the state bordering on insanity into which she was falling.
“I am going,” she said, to Margery, “for I feel that I can do some good. I am not a bad nurse, and if I can save one life or ease one dying pillow, maybe it will atone to God for some of my misdeeds. I am not afraid of the fever, and if I should take it and die, better so than end my own life, as I am often tempted to do.”
Her mind was made up, and Margery did not oppose her, but promised her plenty of money in case it should be needed. And so the mother and the daughter were bound for the same work—the one to have something to do, the other to atone. It was a fancy of Mrs. La Rue to assume the gray dress of a lay sister, as she felt freer and safer in this garb, and could go where she pleased. It was not her wish to be hampered by any restrictions; and when the physicians saw how efficient and fearless she was, they let her take her own course and do as she liked.
Sister Christine was the name by which she was known, and many a poor dying wretch blessed her with his last breath, and commended to her care some loved one struggling in the next room, perhaps, with the dread destroyer. Money Christine had in plenty, for Margery kept her supplied, and it was spent like water where it was of any avail, so that Sister Christine became a power in the desolated city, and was known in every street and alley of the town. Queenie had written to Margery of her intentions, and with a cry of horror on her lips Margery read the letter and then telegraphed to Christine:
“Queenie is or will be there. Find her at once and send her away. Queenie must not die.”
There was a faint smile about Christine’s lips as she read the dispatch, and then whispered to herself, “No, Queenie must not die,” while her pulse quickened a little as she thought what happiness it would be to nurse the fever-tossed girl, should she be stricken down, and bring her back to life and health.
“I’ll find her, if she is here, and keep a watch over her,” she said; and two days after they met together high up in a tenement house, where, in a dark, close room, two negro children lay dead, and the mother was dying.
Queenie was doing her work bravely and well, seeking out the worst cases, and by her sweetness and tenderness almost bringing back the life after it had gone out. Always attended by Pierre, who carried with him every disinfectant of which he had ever heard, she went fearlessly from place to place where she was needed most, but found frequently that Sister Christine had been there before her. Naturally she felt some curiosity with regard to this mysterious person, whose praises were on every lip, and also a great desire to see her.
“If she could impart to me some of her skill, I might do more good and save more lives,” she said to Pierre, and there was a thought of the woman in her heart as she bent over the dying negress, wiping the black vomit from her lips and the sweat-drops from her brow. “She might have saved her, perhaps,” she said, just as the door opened and the gray sister came in.