“And to-morrow ... to-morrow you must get a nurse!”
“No!” cried Pixie with sudden energy, “I will not. I’ll have no stranger. I’ll have Bridgie.” Her heart swelled at the sound of the beloved name; she felt a helpless longing to cast herself on that faithful breast. “Bridgie must come. There’s no room for a nurse in this tiny place. Bridgie could share my room.”
“We’ll telegraph for her,” Glynn said. “I will come round after breakfast, and if Pat is not quite himself, I’ll telegraph at once. She could be with you by tea-time.”
He was kind and considerate. He was thoughtful for her comfort, ready to help by deed as well as word. Pixie could not explain to herself wherein lay the want, but the reality of it gnawed at her heart, and darkened still further the hours of that long, anxious night.
Despite poultices, despite medicine, there was no doubt even to Pixie’s inexperienced eyes that Pat was worse the next morning. His breathing was heavier, he was hotter, more restless. Without waiting for Stephen she sent the little maid to telephone to the doctor, and through the same medium dispatched a summoning wire to Bridgie in her northern home.
The succeeding hours were filled with a nightmare-like struggle against odds which palpably increased with every hour. Stephen came in and out, turned himself into a messenger to obtain everything that was needed, sent round a hamper of cooked dainties which would provide the small household for days to come, drove to the station to meet Bridgie and bring her to the flat, and oh! the joy, the relief, the blessed consciousness of help, which came to nurse and patient alike at the sight of that sweet, fair face! In one minute Bridgie had shed her hat and coat, in the second moment she was scorching herself by the fire, to remove all trace of chill before she approached the bedside, in the third she was sitting beside it—calm, sweet, capable, with the air of having been there since the beginning of time, and intending to stay until the end.
For the next few days Pat had a sharp struggle for his life. Pneumonia clutched him in its grip, and the sound of his painful breathing was heard all over the little flat. There was a dreadful night when hope was well-nigh extinguished, when Stephen Glynn and the two sisters seemed to wrestle with the very angel of death, and Pat himself to face the end. “Shall I—die?” he gasped, and Bridgie’s answering smile seemed to hold an angelic sweetness.
“I hope not, dear lad. There’s so much work for you to do down here, but if you do—it’s going home! Mother’s there, and the Major! They’ll welcome you!”
But Pat was young, and the love of life was strong within him. He had loved his parents, but still more at that moment he loved the thought of his work. He fought for his life, and the fight was hard.
Into most lives there comes at times such a night as this; a night of dark, illimitable hours, a night when the world and all its concerns withdraws itself to unmeasurable distance, and the division between life and the eternal grows thin and faint. Would Pat live to see the morning? That was the question which to his sisters overwhelmed every other thought. Afterwards, looking back, Pixie could recall certain incidents registered by the sub-conscious self. Being gently forced into a chair; being fed with cups of something hot and nourishing, placed suddenly in her hands by Stephen Glynn, always by Stephen, who seemed by his actions to regard her as a secondary invalid, to be tended with tenderest care. Once, becoming suddenly conscious of his presence, as she stood in the kitchen preparing some necessary for the sick man, a growing fear burst into words, and she asked him pitifully—how pitifully she herself could never know—