Stumbling and blind, scarcely knowing what she did, she made her way into the road, through drifts that almost brought her to her knees. Only the strenuous effort necessary to keep moving made her unaware of the fearful cold, the sting of the sleet in her face, the numbing ache in her feet. The hood had slipped back from her head and the snow was covering her hair, lashing into her eyes unmercifully.
And then at the crossroads there was a familiar sign pointing the way to the cemetery. Without an instant’s hesitation she turned into the road through which she had ridden only a little while before. Ah! Here was sanctuary! There was no place for her in this world, but she could rest beside her sister. Here was peace!
She stumbled on. The snow had drifted deeply here, and in some places was much beyond her depth. But she floundered on, again and again plunging down into what seemed bottomless depths and then struggling up again, on toward the place where they had laid her sister that afternoon.
The drifts were deeper here, for the wind had been at work, sweeping down the long bare road from the hilltop, hurling the eddying snow higher. At the side there were places where it was even now above her head, with only a narrow path that was wadable around it, and ever as she struggled on, each step seemed more and more impossible.
The tears had frozen on her white cheeks, and her lips were numb with cold. The frozen cry of her heart stifled in her throat, and there was none to hear. “Oh Louise, my sister, let me come with you!”
Then suddenly she stumbled forward and lost her footing in a deep drift that seemed to envelope her. And there above her loomed the big stone arch that marked the entrance of the cemetery.
She sank back wearily, and the great white drift received her and folded cold arms about her. The lights from the stone arches touched her gold hair till it looked like a coronet, and the long sable-edged robe wrapped around her like a sumptuous winding sheet.
Once she opened her eyes, looked up to the gateway, and tried to struggle up again but found herself too weary and sank back once more, dreaming that her wish for death was coming true. For Herbert would never think to seek for her there. She was alone and safe at last.
Was God anywhere about? And did He care?
Then she closed her eyes, and the snow softly fell on her face and on her eyelids, and the light glinted down and touched her with unearthly beauty.
Chapter 2
Howard Sterling, the young house doctor from the sanitarium at Enderby, had been detailed to accompany a patient home who was still in critical condition, but whom for certain reasons it seemed best to put back among familiar surroundings for a time.
They went in the ambulance. Two nurses had attended on the way and were to remain with the patient indefinitely. The young doctor was to stay overnight if it seemed necessary. But if all went well he had promised to return that evening so that another intern who was taking his place in his absence might get away to attend his sister’s wedding. The patient had borne it well and did not seem much exhausted. The experiment of bringing him home had proved so far a successful one, and he seemed to be resting comfortably. There was no reason at all why the young doctor should stay any longer. The ambulance had returned immediately, but there was still time to make the six o’clock train back to Enderby and take over for Brownleigh so that he could start early for the wedding.
On the other hand, there was a girl, Rose Bradford, in whom he was somewhat interested. She lived only five miles from the house of the patient, and there was time, if he hurried, to make a call upon Rose and then return to see how the patient fared before catching the seven o’clock train from the Crossroads Junction. It was an express that would get him to Enderby a little after eight. He could telephone Brownleigh to arrange for one of the other doctors to take over during the brief interval, only a half hour or so. That would still get Brownleigh to the wedding in time. It was better, perhaps, that he should arrange to do this and so have time to take another look at the patient before he left anyway. So his decision was made.
There was no difficulty in securing a conveyance to take him over to the Bradford estate. The grateful family of the patient could not do enough for him. Dr. Sterling was speeding in a luxurious car toward Rose Bradford.
It happened that Rose was even more interested in the young doctor than he was in her, and she was quite anxious for her father to meet him. She knew her father was a man of influence and could, if he chose, put her young doctor on his way to a name and fame, and place him far beyond the mere drudgery of a common house doctor in a private hospital. So as soon as she received his telephone call she set about at once planning how she might keep him at her home until her father’s return that evening, to dinner, and for the night. Then they would have opportunity to get acquainted.
There was quite a house party of young people staying at Bradford Gables, and they put their heads together to make arrangements for a brilliant evening affair that would without doubt beguile the staunchest and sternest adherent to duty that the medical profession could show. So when young Sterling arrived at the Gables he found the stage set for a prolonged stay, with a delightful program prepared.
He looked about the luxurious house and down on the attractive Rose-girl who awaited his answer with eyes that pleaded eloquently, and felt greatly tempted.
Rose Bradford was small and slender, with wild-rose cheeks and lips like a small red bud. Her hair was dark and curling and fitted close about her face.
He looked down admiringly into her lovely, dark, melting eyes, and his expressive face took on that indulgent gentleness used to speaking to sweet, pretty children.
“How I wish I could,” he said wistfully. “It would be most charming. You certainly are an enchantress, and perhaps I should turn and flee at once, for you are making it more and more difficult for me.”
The eyes melted their sweetest into his glance, and the pleading began in a soft, gentle voice. She was thinking how engagingly the doctor’s crisp hair waved away from his forehead. He was handsome as a Greek god. Why did he have to be poor, and a doctor? Why hadn’t he been born the son of a millionaire instead of that tiresome Channy Foswick that her mother wanted her to marry?
There was a fresh, bright color on the young doctor’s cheeks that spoke of abounding health and clean living, but Rose didn’t think much about such things. She was admiring the interesting whimsical twinkle in his gray eyes, and she was determined to keep him at the house as long as possible, so she kept up her insistence.
“But I can’t possibly stay,” he told her. “The man who is taking my place at the sanitarium is due at his sister’s wedding tonight. I promised to be back and take over.”
Rose shrugged her dainty shoulders. “After all, what is a sister’s wedding? He wouldn’t be missed,” she said. “It isn’t as if it were something necessary, like illness or death. Can’t you make it up to him afterward? Get him a whole day off or something? Besides, wouldn’t he think the patient had required you to stay? Isn’t it really safer for you to stay a few days and see how the patient gets along at home? Surely you ought to stay, at least overnight.”
But young Dr. Sterling, in spite of his Greek-god features, had a strong firm chin under the curve of his pleasant mouth.
“No,” he said, “I couldn’t do anything like that, not for anyone. I have made a promise and I will not go back on it. Brownleigh is depending on me. It wouldn’t be right.”
The melting brown eyes flashed, the lips took on a look of scorn.
“No,” he said firmly.
She argued and coaxed, but all to no purpose. The time was going that he had hoped to have filled with pleasant talk, and so at last he left her, quite disappointed that she had been so unreasonable, so determined to have her own way. Of course, she had been brought up to have everything she desired. And he was a fool even to play around for an hour or two with such a girl. She was not for him. He still had his way to make. He could never hope to give her all she would want.
But altho
ugh he had started away in plenty of time for the plan he had made, the costly car in which he had been sent to Bradford Gables was not equipped for the snow that had fallen so rapidly even in this short time, and a slight breakdown delayed them further, so that when they arrived back at the Martin mansion it was quite dark, and he was not a little worried lest he was even now going to have trouble making his train. Also by this time his mind had suffered a turnaround, and it began to seem little short of cruel to have come away leaving the beautiful girl so unhappy. He began to question his own actions. Brownleigh had perfectly understood that it might not be possible for him to return in time. Perhaps it would have been all right to have stayed. Well, he would see how his patient was. Let that settle it. And yet, did he have the meekness to return to Rose after he had been so decided in refusing to stay?
He went up to his patient and found him sleeping quietly, his pulse steady, his whole condition very good. Well, there was nothing for it but to go back to the sanitarium and send Brownleigh off to the wedding.
The chauffeur, meanwhile, had put chains on the car, but the family of the patient were solicitous about him. They begged him to telephone the sanitarium and stay at least overnight. The storm was a real blizzard, they said. He might be snowed in on the train for hours. But when he firmly resisted their appeals, they served him hot delicacies and insisted on loaning him a great fur overcoat that they said would keep him warm on the train in case they were snowed in. And at last he was started.
It was not far to the Junction, only a matter of four or five miles, and the doctor had orders to stay overnight at the Junction if the roads were too bad to return home, so there was no need to worry about him.
Sterling had telephoned Brownleigh just before leaving the house, and the relief in the other’s voice when he found Sterling was returning left no doubt in his mind concerning his duty. Also, Brownleigh’s report of one particular patient made him still more anxious to get back to his work.
But as he sat in the dark in the car, Rose Bradford’s pretty alluring face kept coming across his vision. The disappointed pout, the tearful eyes. Yet what had he to do with her, child of luxury, who had stooped to coax one of the world’s workers to while away a stormy evening?
He set his lips in the darkness and began planning how he might conquer fate, make himself a force in the world, one who would have a right to court a girl like Rose.
The car wallowed through the uneven road, plunged from side to side, and was aggravatingly slow. Sterling studied his watch by the light of his pocket flashlight and saw it was getting perilously close to the time the train would pass the Junction.
The world stretched white and wide as he looked through the window. White darkness, terribly white. And even the lighted windows of the houses they passed made but small blurs afar. The progress of the car grew slower and slower. Then they came to an enormous drift that spread wide and high before them and the driver got down to examine it. A great wall of snow seemed to have reared itself impassably across the way. Sterling opened the car door and leaned out, calling questions, making futile suggestions. And then the driver uttered a sharp cry, a call it really was, and Sterling sprang out and went to his side.
It was then that he saw her. There in the full glare of the headlights of the car she lay, pillowed on the snow, her gold hair matted with ice where the velvet hood had fallen back. The velvet drapery of her cloak was fast disappearing under the hurricane of the sleet, and there above her arched the great stone gateway of the cemetery! It was a startling sight on a night like this, the beautiful girl with the white, white face in its setting of blue and gold and snow.
He glanced about him to see if there was anything to explain the phenomenon of a lovely young woman thus attired, asleep in a snowdrift in front of the cemetery in this awful storm, but only the driving sleet and luminous distance of impenetrable whiteness answered his question.
It was as if the heavens had come down in a majesty of snow and lifted the earth up in a deep embrace.
Then his physician’s instinct and training instantly began to work. He plunged over to where the girl was lying and tried to lift her, giving directions to the frightened chauffeur, who was reluctant to touch what seemed to him like an apparition, but they finally succeeded in carrying her to the car and laying her on the cushions. Then the driver, wishing he were anywhere but on the road on a night like this, tried to find the road. He had taken the precaution to bring a snow shovel along, and working with all his might, managed to clear a way back into the main road. So he climbed to his seat and started his car, his mind still heavy over the burden of beautiful death behind him.
And meanwhile, Sterling knelt beside the silent girl, touching her cold, cold face that seemed so deathlike. He lifted the stiff little hand, but no response came. He threw back the frozen velvet cloak and stooped his skilled ear to listen if there was still life in her body. He could not be sure, but he worked swiftly with what remedies he had at hand. There was no time to lose.
He jerked off the warm fur coat in which his hostess had enveloped him and wrapped it around the girl’s still form. He chafed her cold hands; he took off the sodden slippers stiff with ice and held the little icy feet in his warm hands, drying them and finally wrapping them in the fur robe of the car. With his pocket flashlight he looked keenly into her face again for any signs of life. Then from his case he forced a few drops of stimulant between those white lips, but it was hard to tell whether they got farther than the lips, for he worked almost in the dark.
The face still looked marble-white and peaceful in its earthly beauty, and there was something so exquisitely pure and almost holy about her that he touched her with awe.
In desperation he laid his own face against the girl’s face and felt the chill of her flesh. He laid his lips upon hers, and tried to think he felt a warmth stealing into them.
Then suddenly he was confronted with the problem of what to do with her. They had reached the foot of the long hill below the cemetery. The village could not be far away. He could see dim lights blurring through the storm. He knew it was almost train time, for he had looked at his watch just before they had stopped their car. Would it be possible for him to stop somewhere and leave his burden and still make his train?
He called to the chauffeur. “Is there a doctor near here you can call before the train comes?”
The chauffeur shook his head. “Village is half a mile away. I don’t know any doctor around here.”
“Well, can you take her into the station and get someone to take charge of her at once? I must make the train.”
“Station’s closed,” said the man tersely.
“Well, what can you do with her?” asked the doctor sharply. “She ought to have help at once to save her life, if it isn’t too late already.”
“Me? I can’t do nothin’,” gasped the man in horror, stepping away from the sight of the closely wrapped figure.
“Perhaps you know her and can take her to her friends,” he suggested, looking anxiously toward the now coming train. “They will be searching everywhere for her.”
“I don’t know nobody down this way,” said the man stubbornly, with a frightened ring to his voice. “I just been to the house up yonder about two weeks. You’d better take her onto the train with you. I can’t do nothin’ with her.”
Then the train was upon them and there was no more time to think.
Sterling lifted his burden with the help of the chauffeur, who was all too anxious to get it away, and curious, startled officials received it and carried it, awestruck, to a compartment in the Pullman that happened to be vacant.
Sterling lingered on the step of the car a moment, shouting directions to the chauffeur, who readily promised anything to have him gone with the strange girl, who he was certain was dead. Oh! Certainly he would inform his people at once of the stranger who had been found, and ask Mrs. Martin to give the information to the surrounding countryside. Of course he would go to the police head
quarters in the village so that the girl’s friends could find her. He assured Sterling that he would do all in his power to locate her folks, and his relieved countenance smiled benignly at the young doctor through the storm as the train took up its laborious way through the snow.
The man watched the train until it was out of sight and then hurried to his car, resolved not to say a single word to anybody about the affair. In his opinion that girl was dead, and maybe he would get mixed up with a murder case somehow if he let on he knew anything about it. Moreover, he had decided on the way over to Bradford Gables that evening that people who would ask a chauffeur to go out in a storm like this for any guy just to see a girl, or catch a train, weren’t good folks to work for, and now was as good a time as any to leave. He would take that car home, and then he would vanish in the morning. What that doctor ought to have done was to leave that girl lying there in the snow and let her folks find her. She must have been dead long before they got there anyway, and it was none of their concern. What was the use of turning everything upside down and being uncomfortable for someone who was already dead? He believed in looking out for number one always and everywhere. So he went to the village and took a little much needed stimulant and then managed to get the car back to its owner’s garage so late that he did not come in contact with any of the family. He said not a word about the strange experience he and the visiting doctor had encountered. He spent the rest of the night packing his effects for a hasty departure, and quite early in the morning he announced to his master that he had heard through a cousin he had met in town the night before, that his mother was very sick, and he felt he should go to her at once. So he received his wages and departed before anyone had time to question him. And long before the doctor had ventured to disturb the family to ask whether they had found out anything about the girl, he had disappeared from the region. So the family knew nothing about the happening in the storm.