“Is safe!” he responded. “Can you bear a sudden shock now, Miss Lawton? After all that has gone before, can you withstand one more blow?”
“Oh, tell me! Tell me quickly! I can endure everything, if only Ramon is safe!”
“I found him to-night, and brought him back to the city. I have come to take you to him.”
“But why––why did he not come with you? Does he not realize what I have suffered––that every moment of suspense, of waiting for him, is an added torture?”
“He realizes nothing.” Blaine hesitated, and then went on: “It is best for you to know the truth at once. Mr. Hamilton has suffered a severe injury. He is lying almost at the point of death, but the physicians say he has a chance, a good chance, for recovery, now that he is where he can receive expert care and attention. How he came by his shattered skull––he has a fracture at the base of the brain––we shall not know until he recovers sufficient consciousness to tell us. At present, he is in a state of coma, recognizing no one, nothing that goes on about him. He will not rouse to hear your voice; he will not know of your presence; but I thought that it would comfort you to see him, to feel that everything is being done for him that can be done.”
“Ah, yes!” she sobbed. “Take me to him, Mr. Blaine! Thank God, thank God that you have found him! Just to look upon his dear face again, to touch him, to know that at least he still lives! He must not die, now; he cannot die! The God who has permitted you to restore him to me, would not allow that! Take me to him!”
So it was that a few short minutes later, Henry Blaine tasted the first real fruit of his victory, as he stood aside in the quiet hospital room, and with dimmed eyes beheld the scene before him. The wide, white bed, the silent, motionless, bandage-swathed figure upon it, the slender, dark-robed, kneeling girl––only that, and the echo of her low-breathed sob of love and gratitude. His own great, fatherly heart swelled with the joy of work well done, of the happiness he had brought to a spirit all but broken, and a sure, triumphant premonition that the struggle still before him would be crowned with victory.