In Jeopardy

by Van Tassel Sutphen

"It seems so unnatural and horrible," she said one afternoon as we were sitting in the sick room. "There he lies within hand reach, and yet immeasurably removed. Silence and darkness—oh, I can't bear it!"

"I think he understands what is said to him," I ventured.

"All the worse if he can't break through from his side of the wall. But there must be a way, and I am going to find it."

She left the room, returning a few minutes later with a large square of cardboard on which she had printed the letters of the alphabet. Now I should have made it plain that the sole physical function remaining to Fielding Thaneford was a limited control of the right hand; we had learned to distinguish in its movements the two elementary expressions of assent and dissent.

Betty went to the bedside, and gently slipped the sheet of cardboard under the sick man's right hand. "You see what I mean, Mr. Thaneford," she said, with an infinite note of sympathy in her voice. "If you would point out the letters one by one, no matter how slowly. We will both be very patient—please now."

Fielding Thaneford's hand—the hand of a very old man, with its thickened knuckles and swollen blue veins—quivered slightly, but remained motionless. Yet I fancied that his glance consciously sought the girl's face and rested there; ordinarily you felt that his gaze merely passed over you, and then travelled inimitably onward and outward. It was certain that he understood the proposal, even while unwilling to act upon it. Twice she repeated the suggestion; and then, too tactful to force the point, she smiled and withdrew the square of cardboard. "Perhaps to-morrow," she said with exceeding gentleness, while I marvelled that any human being could have withstood her. But then what quality of our common humanity could inhere in that huge, inert mass of flesh, animated, as it was, by a mere spark of conscious intelligence.

Betty was not one to be easily discouraged. On the morrow she tried again, and again without definite result. The third day the miracle seemed on the point of fulfillment. Fielding Thaneford's forefinger actually moved to the letter B, and rested there. No amount of feminine cajolery could bring about any further compliance, but surely the first step had been taken. "I really believe," said Betty to me, between a smile and a tear, "that he had my name in mind." "How could he help it," I retorted; whereat she blushed so divinely that I could barely resist taking her bodily in my arms—then and there, for once and for all. "You will see to-morrow," she predicted with gay confidence.

But to-morrow brought an unexpected turn. Some subtle change had come upon the sick man in the night, and Doctor Marcy, after the usual examination, looked grave. "I can't be positive," he said, "but I think he has had another slight stroke. Probably a question now of a few hours."

Nevertheless at noon he appeared to revive, and was able to take some gruel and the white of an egg whipped up in sherry. Miss Davenport went for her usual constitutional, and we decided that it would not be necessary to notify John Thaneford. The latter had not been near the house for two days, and had not even troubled himself to telephone. But, considered from any point of view, his absence was preferable to his presence.

It was very quiet in the sick room. The day was warm, but not uncomfortably so, and a cooling breeze, heavy with the fragrance of summer flowers, drifted in at the casement windows.