“It’s the nurse woman they went for,” gasped Captain Jeb, as the new arrival proceeded to step from boat to wharf with a light grace that scarcely needed Father Tom’s assisting hand. “Well, I’ll be tee-totally jiggered! Who ever saw a nurse woman pretty as that?”
But Dan did not hear. He had dropped nails, hammer, and all present interest in the recuperation of the “Sary Ann,” and was off down the beach to meet the fair visitor, whose coming he could not understand.
“Danny,” she said, holding out her empty hand to him,—“Miss Winnie’s Danny!—I told you I had friends here, Father Rayburn; and this is one that I expect to find my right-hand man. What a queer, quaint, wonderful place this Killykinick is! I am so glad you brought me here to help you!”
Help them! Help them! Dan caught the world in breathless amazement. Then Miss Stella, Polly’s Marraine, was the nurse! It seemed altogether astounding; for sick nurses, in Dan’s experience, had always been fat old ladies who had out-lived all other duties, and appeared only on important occasions, to gossip in solemn whispers, and to drink unlimited tea. And now Polly’s Marraine was a nurse! It was impossible to doubt the fact; for Father Tom was leading her straight to Mr. Neville’s side, Dan following in dumb bewilderment.
The sick man lay in the old Captain’s room, whither, at his own request, the life-savers had borne him the previous evening. His eyes, deep-sunken in their sockets, were closed, his features rigid. Poor little Freddy, tearful and trembling, knelt by Brother Bart, who paused in his murmured prayers to shake his head hopelessly at the newcomer’s approach.
“I’m glad ye’re here before he goes entirely, Father. It’s time, I think, for the last blessing. I am afraid he can neither hear nor see.”
But Miss Stella had stepped forward, put her soft hand on the patient’s pulse; and then, with a quick whisper to Father Tom, she had dropped her flowers, opened the little wrist-bag they had concealed, and proceeded to “do things,”—just what sort of things Dan did not know. He could only see the soft hands moving swiftly, deftly; baring the patient’s arm to the shoulder and flashing something sharp and shining into the pale flesh; holding the fluttering pulse until, with a long, deep sigh, the sick man opened his eyes and stared dully at the white-robed figure bending over him.
“Who—what are you?” he said faintly.
Miss Stella smiled. It was the question that many a patient, struggling out of the Dark Valley, had asked before, when his waking eyes had fallen upon her fair, sweet face, her white-robed form.
“Only your nurse,” she answered softly,—“your nurse who has come to help you, to take care of you. You feel better already?”