Robert Kimberly

When he spoke to her, her answers were vague, her words almost incoherent. "Take me away,Robert," she whispered, "I am faint."

He led her quietly from the floor and assistedher up a flight of stairs to his mother'sapartment. There he helped her to lie down on acouch. Annie was hurriedly summoned. Asecond maid was sent in haste for Doctor Hamiltonand Dolly.

Alice could no longer answer Kimberly'squestions as he knelt. She lay still with her eyesclosed. Her respiration was hardly perceptibleand her hands had grown cold. It was onlywhen Kimberly anxiously kissed her that a faintsmile overspread her tired face. In anothermoment she was unconscious.

CHAPTER XL

When Hamilton hastily entered the room,Annie, frightened and helpless, kneltbeside her mistress, chafing her hands. On theopposite side of the couch Kimberly, greatlydisturbed, looked up with relief.

Taking a chair at her side, the doctor liftedAlice's arm, took her pulse and sat for some time insilence watching her faint and irregular respiration.

He turned after a moment to Kimberly to learnthe slight details of the attack, and listening, retracted the lids of Alice's eyes and examined thepupils. Reflecting again in silence, he turned herhead gently from side to side and afterward liftedher arms one after the other to let them fall backbeside her on the couch.

Even these slight efforts to obtain someknowledge of Alice's condition seemed to Kimberlydisquieting and filled him with apprehension.The doctor turned to Annie. "Has yourmistress ever had an experience like this before,Annie?"

"No, doctor, never. She has never been inthis way before."

Imogene came hurrying upstairs with Dolly tolearn of Alice's condition. They looked upon herunconsciousness with fear and asked whisperedquestions that intensified Kimberly's uneasiness.

"Do you think we could take her home, doctor?"asked Annie, timidly.

The doctor paused. "I don't think we willtry it to-night, Annie. It is quite possible for herto remain here, isn't it?" he asked, looking atDolly and Kimberly.

"Certainly," returned Dolly. "I will stay.Alice can have these rooms and I will take theblue rooms connecting."

"Then put your mistress to bed at once," saidHamilton to Annie.

"And telephone home, Annie," suggested Dolly,"for whatever you need. I will see thehousekeeper right away about the linen."

Kimberly listened to the concise directions ofthe doctor for immediate measures of relief andfollowed him mechanically into the hall. Onlyone thought came out of the strange confusion-Alicewas at least under his roof and in his mother's room.

When he returned with the doctor the lightswere low and Alice lay with her head pillowedon her loosened hair. The maid and Dolly hadhastened away to complete their arrangementsfor the emergency and for a few moments thetwo men were alone with their charge.

"Doctor, what do you make of this?" demandedKimberly.

Hamilton, without taking his eyes from the sickwoman, answered thoughtfully: "I can hardly telluntil I get at something of the underlying cause.Bryson will be here in a moment. We will hearwhat he has to say."

Doctor Bryson appeared almost on the word.Hamilton made way for him at Alice's side andthe two conferred in an undertone.

Bryson asked many questions of Hamilton andcalling for a candle retracted Alice's eyelids toexamine the pupils for reaction to the light. Thetwo doctors lost not an unnecessary moment indeliberation. Consulting rapidly together, powerful restoratives were at once prepared andadministered through the circulation.

Reduced to external efforts to strengthen thevital functions the two medical men worked asnurses and left nothing undone to overcomethe alarming situation. Then for an hour theywatched together, closely, the character andfrequency of Alice's pulse and breathing.

To Kimberly the conferences of the two menseemed unending. Sometimes they left the roomand were gone a long time. He walked to awindow to relieve his suspense. Through the opensash came the suppressed hum of motors as thecars, parked below the stables, moved up the hillto receive departing guests and made their waydown the long, dark avenue to the highway.

On the eastern horizon a dull gray streak crosseda mirror that lay in the darkness below. Kimberlyhad to look twice to convince himself thatthe summer night was already waning.

Annie came into the room and, he was vaguelyconscious, was aiding the doctors in a painstakingexamination of their patient. Through delicacyKimberly withdrew, as they persistentlyquestioned the maid in the hope of obtaining themuch-needed information concerning her mistress'sprevious condition; for what Annie could not supplyof this they knew they must work without.

Plunged in the gloom of his apprehensions, hesaw the doctors coming down the hall toward himand stopped them. "Speak before me," he saidwith an appeal that was a command. "You bothknow what I have at stake."

The three retired to the library and Kimberlylistened attentively to every phase of thediscussion between the two master clinicians as theylaid their observations before him. The coma wasundisguisedly a serious matter. It seemed to themalready ingravescent and, taken in connection withthe other symptoms, was even ominous. The twomen, without a satisfactory history, and without ahope of obtaining one from the only availablesource-the suffering woman herself-discussedthe case from every side, only to return unwillinglyto the conclusion to which everything pointed-thata cerebral lesion underlay the attack.

Their words sent a chill to Kimberly's heart.But the lines of defence were mapped out withspeed and precision; a third eminent man, anauthority on the brain, was to be sent for at once.Nurses, equal almost in themselves to goodpractitioners, were to be called in, and finallyHamilton and Bryson arranged that either one or theother should be at the sick-bed every instant tocatch a possible moment of consciousness.

Hamilton himself returned to his patient.Bryson at the telephone took up the matter ofsummoning aid from town, and when he had donethrew himself down for a few hours' sleep.Kimberly followed Hamilton and returned to Alice'sside. He saw as he bent over her how theexpression of her face had changed. It was drawnwith a profound suffering. Kimberly sittingnoiselessly down took her hand, waiting to be thefirst to greet her when she should open her eyes.

All Second Lake knew within a day or twoof Alice's critical illness. The third doctor hadcome in the morning and he remained for several days.

Hamilton questioned Annie repeatedly duringthe period of consultations. "Try to think,Annie," he said once, "has your mistress neverat any time complained of her head?"

"Indeed, sir, I cannot remember. She nevercomplained about herself at all. Stop, sir, shedid last summer, too-what am I thinking of? Iam so confused. She had a fall one night, sir. Ifound her in her dressing-room unconscious. Oh, she was very sick that night. She told me thatshe had fallen and her head had struck thetable-the back of her head. For days she sufferedterribly. Could it have been that, do you think?"

"Put your hand to the place on your headwhere she complained the pain was."

"How did she happen," Hamilton continued, when Annie had indicated the region, "to fallbackward in her own room, Annie?"

"She never told me, doctor. I asked her butI can't remember what she said. It was the nightbefore Mr. MacBirney left Cedar Lodge."

The doctors spent fruitless days in their effortsto overcome the unconsciousness. There was nolonger any uncertainty as to the seat of the trouble.It lay in the brain itself and defied every attemptto relieve it. Even a momentary interval ofreason was denied to the dumb sufferer.

Kimberly, on the evening of the third day, hadsummoned his medical advisers to his own roomand asked the result of their consultation. Thefrail and eminent man whom Hamilton andBryson had brought from town told Kimberly thestory. He could grasp only the salient points ofwhat the specialist said: That in a coma such asthey faced it was the diagnosis of the underlyingconditions that was always important. That thiswas often difficult; sometimes, as now, impossible.That at times they encountered, as now, a case soobscure as to defy the resources of clinical medicine.Kimberly asked them their judgment as to theissue; the prognosis, they could only tell him, was doubtful, depending wholly upon the gravityof the apoplectic injury.

The Kimberly family rose to the emergency.Aware of the crisis that had come, through Alice, into Robert's life, Imogene and Dolly, on handday and night, were mother and sister to himand to her. Nowhere in the situation was thereany failure or weakening of support.

Hamilton, undismayed in the face of the physicalcatastrophe he had been called upon so unexpectedlyto retrieve, and painfully aware of whatthe issue meant to his near and dear friend, never for an instant relaxed his efforts.

Seconded by his nurses, reinforced by hiscounsel and strengthened by Bryson's closeco-operation, Hamilton faced the discouragementsteadily, knowing only too well that theresponsibility must rest, in the end, on him alone.

Absorbed, vigilant, tireless-pouring thereserve energy of years into the sustained struggleof the sleepless days and nights-he strove withevery resource of his skill and watchedunremittingly for an instant's abatement of the deadlylethargy that was crushing the vitality of thedelicate woman before him.

Kimberly, following the slightest details of thesick-room hours, spent the day and the night at thebedside or in pacing the long hall. If he sleptit was for an hour and after leaving orders tosummon him instantly if Alice woke. They who caredfor her knew what he meant by "waking." Theyknew how long and mutely, sometimes in the day, sometimes in the silence of the night, he watchedher face for one returning instant of reason.

They knew how when hope burned low in everyother eye it shone always steadily in his. Therising of the sun and its setting meant to him onlyanother day of hope, another night of hope for her; every concern had passed from him except thatwhich was centered in the fight for her life.

Considerate as he was to those about him theyfeared him, and his instinctive authority madeitself felt more keenly in his silence than in hiswords. The heavy features, the stubborn brow, the slow, steady look became intensified in thelong, taciturn vigil. Every day Dolly walkedwith him and talked with him. She made abond between him and the world; but she sawhow little the world meant when danger camebetween him and the woman he loved.

One evening the nurses told him that Alice wasbetter. They hoped for a return of consciousnessand he sat all night waiting for the preciousinstant. The next day while he slept, wearied andheartsick, Alice sank. For ten minutes those abouther endured a breathless, ageing suspense thatsapped their energy and strength, until it wasknown that the doctor had won the fight and theweary heart had returned to its faint and laboredbeat. They told Kimberly nothing of it. Whenhe awoke he still thought she was better.

When he came into the room he was so hopefulthat he bent over her and fondly called her name.To his consternation and delight her eyes openedat the sound of his voice; it seemed as if she wereabout to speak. Then her eyes closed again andshe lay still. The incident electrified him and hespoke hopefully of it for hours. At midnight hesent Hamilton away, saying he himself was freshand would be on duty with the nurse until daylight.

The air was sultry. Toward morning athunder-storm broke violently. Kimberly walked outinto the hall to throw the belvedere doors open tothe fresh air. As he turned to go back, his heartstopped beating. In the gloom of the darkenedgallery a slender, white figure came from the opendoor of the sick-room and Kimberly saw Alice, with outstretched hands, walking uncertainlytoward him. He stood quite still and taking her handsgently as they touched his own he murmured her name.

"Alice! What is it, darling?" She opened hereyes. Their vacancy pierced his heart.

"Baby is crying," she faltered; "I hear mybaby. Walter." Her hands groped pitifullywithin his own. "Walter! Let me go to her!"

She tried to go on but Kimberly restrainedand held her for a moment trembling in his arms."Come with me," he said, leading her slowly backto her pillow. "Let us go to her together."

CHAPTER XLI

When the sun burst upon The Towers inthe freshness of the morning, Kimberly'seyes wore another expression. The pleading ofher words still rang in his ears. The tears in hervoice had cost him his courage. Before anothernight fell they told him but a slender hoperemained. He seemed already to have realized it.

After the doctors had spoken and all knew,Annie crept into Kimberly's room. His head wasbowed on the table between his arms. With herlittle wet handkerchief and her worn beads crushedin her hands, she ventured to his side. Her sobsaroused him. "What is it, Annie?"

"Oh, Mr. Kimberly; she is so sick!"

"Yes, Annie."

"Don't you think you should call a priest for her?"

"A priest?" He opened his eyes as if to collecthis thoughts.

"Oh, yes, a priest, Mr. Kimberly."

"Go yourself for him, Annie."

Tears were streaming down the maid's cheeks.She held out an ivory crucifix. "If her eyes shouldopen, dear Mr. Kimberly, won't you give this toher? It is her own." Kimberly took the crucifixin silence and as Annie hurried away he buriedhis head again in his arms.

The timid young clergyman from the villageresponded within half an hour. Hamilton spokekindly to him and explained to him Alice'scondition; for unless consciousness should returnHamilton knew that nothing could be done.

After trying in vain to speak to her the priestasked leave to wait in an adjoining room. Hisyouthfulness and timidity proved no detriment tohis constancy, for he sat hour after hour relievedonly by Annie's messages and declining to give up.In the early morning finding there had been nochange he left, asking that he be sent for ifconsciousness should return.

With a strength that the doctors marvelled at,Alice rallied after the bad night. She so held herimprovement during the day that Hamilton atnightfall felt she still might live.

While the doctors and the family were at dinnerKimberly was kneeling upstairs beside Alice.She lay with her eyes closed, as she had lainthe night she was stricken, but breathing morequietly. The racking pain no longer drew herface. Kimberly softly spoke her name and bentover her. He kissed her parched lips tenderly andher tired eyes opened. A convulsion shook him.It seemed as if she must know him, but hispleading brought no response.

Then as he looked, the light in her eyes began tofade. With a sudden fear he took her in his armsand called to Annie on the other side of the bed.The nurse ran for Hamilton. Annie with a sobthat seemed to pierce Alice's stupor held up theivory crucifix and the eyes of her dying mistressfixed upon it.

Reason for an instant seemed to assert itself.Alice, her eyes bent upon the crucifix, and tryingto rise, stretched out her hands. Kimberly, transfixed, supported her in his arms. Annie held thepleading symbol nearer and Alice with a heart-rendinglittle cry clutched it convulsively andsank slowly back.

CHAPTER XLII

She died in his arms. In the stillness theyheard her name again and again softly spoken,as if he still would summon her from the apathyof death. They saw him, in their sobbing, waitundiscouraged for his answer from the lips thatnever would answer again.

If he had claimed her in her life he claimedher doubly in her death; now, at least, she wasaltogether his. He laid her tenderly upon thepillow and covering her hands, still clasping thecrucifix, in his own hands he knelt with his faceburied in the counterpane.

Day was breaking when he kissed her and roseto his feet. When Dolly went to him in themorning to learn his wishes she found him in his room.Alice was to lie, he said, with the Kimberlys on thehill, in the plot reserved for him. His sisterassented tearfully. As to the funeral, he askedDolly to confer with the village priest. He directedthat only Annie and her own women should makeAlice ready for the burial and forbade that anystranger's hand should touch his dead.

She lay in the sunshine, on her pillow, afterAnnie had dressed her hair, as if breathing.Kimberly went in when Annie came for him. Hesaw how the touch of the maid's loving hands hadmade for her dead mistress a counterfeit of sleep; how the calm of the great sleep had already comeupon her, and how death, remembering the sufferingof her womanhood, had restored to her face itsgirlish beauty. Hamilton, who was with him, followed him into the room. Kimberly broke thesilence.

"What is First Communion, Hamilton?" he asked.

Hamilton shook his head.

"I think," Kimberly said, pausing, "it must bethe expression upon her face now."

During the day he hardly spoke. Much of thetime he walked in the hall or upon the belvedereand his silence was respected. Those of hishousehold asked one another in turn to talk withhim. But even his kindness repelled communication.

In the early morning when the white couch hadbeen placed to receive her for the grave hereturned to the room with Dolly and they stoodbeside Alice together.

"This is my wedding day, Dolly. Did youremember it?"

"Robert!"

"I tried for once to do better; to treat Alice asa woman should be treated. This is my reward-mywedding day."

He lifted her in his arms like a child and as helaid her in her coffin looked at her stonily. "Mybride! My Alice!"

Dolly burst into tears. The harshness of hisdespair gave way as he bent over her for the lasttime and when he spoke again the tenderness ofhis voice came back. "My darling! With you Ibury every earthly hope; for I take God to witness,in you I have had all my earthly joy!" Hewalked away and never saw her face again.

The unintelligible service in the church did notrouse him from his torpor and he was only aftera long time aware of a strange presence on thealtar. Just at the last he looked up into thesanctuary. Little clouds of incense rising from aswinging thurible framed for an instant the faceof a priest and Kimberly saw it was the archbishop.

The prelate stood before the tabernacle facingthe little church filled with people. But his eyeswere fixed on the catafalque and his lips weremoving in prayer. Kimberly watched with astrange interest the slender, white hand rise ina benediction over the dead. He knew it wasthe last blessing of her whom he had loved.

Dolly had dreaded the scene at the grave butthere was no scene. Nor could Kimberly everrecollect more than the mournful trees, the greenturf, and the slow sinking of a flowered pall intothe earth. And at the end he heard only thewords of the archbishop, begging that they whoremained might, with her, be one day receivedfrom the emptiness of this life into one that is bothbetter and lasting.

CHAPTER XLIII

In the evening of the day on which they hadburied Alice, and the family were all at TheTowers, Dolly, after dinner, asked DoctorHamilton to walk with her. Robert Kimberly had dinedupstairs and Hamilton upon leaving Dolly wentup to Kimberly's rooms.

The library door was closed. Hamilton, picking up a book in an adjoining room, made a placeunder the lamp and sat down to read. It was latewhen Kimberly opened the closed door. "Do youwant to see me, doctor?" he asked abruptly.

"Not particularly. I am not sleepy."

Kimberly sat down in the corner of adavenport. "Nor am I, doctor. Nor am Italkative-you understand, I know."

"I have been reading this pretty little Frenchstory." Hamilton had the book in his hand."Mrs. MacBirney gave it to you. I have beenthinking how like her it seems-the storyitself-elevated, delicate, refined-"

"It happens to be the only book she ever gave me."

Hamilton looked again at the inscription on thefly-leaf, and read in Alice's rapid, nervous hand:

"From Alice, To Robert."

"What slight chances," the doctor went on,"contribute sometimes to our treasures. You willalways prize this. And to have known and lovedsuch a woman-to have been loved by her-somuch does not come into every man's life."

Kimberly was silent. But Hamilton had cometo talk, and disregarding the steady eyes bentsuspectingly upon him he pursued his thought. "Tomy mind, to have known the love of one womanis the highest possible privilege that can cometo a man. And this is the thought I find in thisbook. It is that which pleases me. Whatsurprises me in it is the light, cynical view that theman takes of the responsibility of life itself."

"All sensualists are cynical."

"But how can a man that has loved, or treasures,as this man professes to treasure, the memory ofa gifted woman remain a sensualist?"

Kimberly shrugged his shoulders. "Men areborn sensualists. No one need apologize for beinga sensualist; a man should apologize for beinganything else."

"But no matter what you and I are born, wedie something other."

"You mean, we progress. Perhaps so. Butthat we progress to any more of respect for man orfor life, I have yet to learn. We progress from amoment of innocence to an hour of vanity, andfrom an hour of vanity to an eternity of ashes."

"You are quoting from the book."

"It is true."

"She did not believe it true. She died clingingto a crucifix."

Kimberly shrank under the surgeon's blade.

"A memory is not vanity," persisted Hamilton."And the day some time comes when it embodiesall the claim that life has upon us; but it is nonethe less a valid claim. In this case," the surgeonheld up the book, "Italy and work proved such a claim."

"My work would be merely more money-getting.I am sickened of all money-getting. And my Italylies to-night-up there." His eyes rolled towardthe distant hill. "I wish I were there with her."

"But between the wishing and the reality,Robert-you surely would not hasten the momentyourself."

Kimberly made no answer.

"You must think of Alice-what would shewish you to do? Promise me," Hamilton, rising, laid his hand on Kimberly's shoulder, "thatto-night you will not think of yourself alone. Suicideis the supreme selfishness-remember your ownwords. There was nothing of selfishness in her.Tell me, that for to-night, you will think of her."

"That will not be hard to do. You are verykind. Good-night."

In the morning Kimberly sent for Nelson andlater for Charles. It was to discuss detailsconcerning their business, which Robert, conferringwith his brother, told him frankly he must nowprepare to take up more actively. Charles, uneasy, waited until they had conferred some time andthen bluntly asked the reason for it.

Kimberly gave no explanation beyond what hehad already given to Nelson, that he meant totake a little rest. The two worked until Charles, though Robert was quite fresh, was used up. Herose and going to an open window looked out onthe lake, saying that he did not want to workany longer.

The brothers were so nearly of an age that thereseemed no difference in years between them.Robert had always done the work; he liked to doit and always had done it. To feel that he wasnow putting it off, appalled Charles, and he hidhis own depression only because he saw themental strain reflected in Robert's drawn features.

Charles, although resolutely leaving the tableand every paper on it, looked loyally back aftera moment to his brother. "It's mighty good ofyou, Bob," he said slowly, "to explain these thingsall over again to me. I ought to know them-I'mashamed that I don't. But, somehow, you alwaystook the load and I like a brute always let youtake it. Then you are a lot brainier than I am."

Robert cut him off. "That simply is not true,Charlie. In matter of fact, that man has the mostbrains who achieves happiness. And you havebeen supremely happy."

"While you have done the work!"

"Why not? What else have I been good for?If I could let you live-if even one of us couldlive-why shouldn't I?"

The elder brother turned impulsively. "Why?Because you have the right to live, too. Becausesunshine and bright skies are as much for you asthey are for me."

They were standing at the window together.Robert heard the feeling in the words.