It was this letter that deepened the shadow upon Cameron's face and sharpened the edge on his voice as he looked in upon his hospital friends one bright winter morning.
"You are quite unbearable!" said the little nurse after she had listened to his grumbling for a few minutes. "And you are spoiling us all."
"Spoiling you all?"
"Yes, especially me, and--Nurse Haley."
"Nurse Haley?"
"Yes. You are disturbing her peace of mind."
"Disturbing her? Me?"
A certain satisfaction crept into Cameron's voice. Nothing is so calculated to restore the poise of the male mind as a consciousness of power to disturb the equilibrium of one of the imperious sex.
"And you must not do it!" continued the little nurse. "She has far too much to bear now."
"And haven't I been just telling you that?" said Cameron savagely.
"She never gets off. Night and day she is on the job. I tell you, I won't--it should not be allowed." Cameron was conscious of a fine glow of fraternal interest in this young girl. "For instance, a day like this! Look at these white mountains, and that glorious sky, and this wonderful air, and not a breath of wind! What a day for a walk! It would do her--it would do you all a world of good."
"Wait!" cried the little nurse, who had been on duty all night.
"I'll tell her what you say."
Apparently it took some telling, for it was a full precious quarter of an hour before they appeared again.
"There, now, you see the effect of your authority. She would not budge for me, but--well--there she is! Look at her!"
There was no need for this injunction. Cameron's eyes were already fastened upon her. And she was worth any man's while to look at in her tramping costume of toque and blanket coat. Tall, she looked, beside the little nurse, lithe and strong, her close-fitting Hudson Bay blanket coat revealing the swelling lines of her budding womanhood. The dainty white toque perched upon the masses of gold-brown hair accentuated the girlish freshness of her face. At the nurse's words she turned her eyes upon Cameron and upon her face, pale with long night watches, a faint red appeared. But her eyes were quiet and steady and kind; too quiet and too kind for Cameron, who was looking for other signals. There was no sign of disturbance in that face.
"Come on!" he said impatiently. "We have only one hour."
"Oh, what a glorious day!" cried Nurse Haley, drawing a deep breath and striding out like a man to keep pace with Cameron. "And how good of you to spare me the time!"
"I have been trying to get you alone for the last two weeks," said Cameron.
"Two weeks?"
"Yes, for a month! I wanted to talk to you."
"To talk with me? About what?"
"About--well--about everything--about yourself."
"Me?"
"Yes. I don't understand you. You have changed so tremendously."
"Oh," exclaimed the girl, "I am so glad you have noticed that!
Have I changed much?"
"Much? I should say so! I find myself wondering if you are the Mandy I used to know at all."
"Oh," she exclaimed, "I am so glad! You see, I needed to change so much."
"But how has it happened?" exclaimed Cameron. "It is a miracle to me."
"How a miracle?"
For a few moments they walked on in silence, the tote road leading them into the forest. After a time the nurse said softly, "It was you who began it."
"I?"
"Yes, you--and then the nurse. Oh, I can never repay her! The day that you left--that was a dreadful day. The world was all black.
I could not have lived, I think, many days like that. I had to go into town and I couldn't help going to her. Oh, how good she was to me that day! how good! She understood, she understood at once.
She made me come for a week to her, and then for altogether. That was the beginning; then I began to see how foolish I had been."
"Foolish?"
"Yes, wildly foolish! I was like a mad thing, but I did not know then, and I could not help it."
"Help what?"
"Oh, everything! But the nurse showed me--she showed me--"
"Showed you?"
"Showed me how to take care of myself--to take care of my body--of my dress--of my hair. Oh, I remember well," she said with a bright little laugh, "I remember that hair-dresser. Then the doctor came and gave me books and made me read and study--and then I began to see. Oh, it was like a fire--a burning fire within me. And the doctor was good to me, so very patient, till I began to love my profession; to love it at first for myself, and then for others.
How good they all were to me those days!--the nurses in the hospital, the doctors, the students--everyone seemed to be kind; but above them all my own nurse here and my own doctor."
In hurried eager speech she poured forth her heart as if anxious to finish her tale--her voice, her eyes, her face all eloquent of the intense emotion that filled her soul.
"It is wonderful!" said Cameron.
"Yes," she replied, "wonderful indeed! And I wanted to see you and have you see me," she continued, still hurrying her speech, "for I could not bear that you should remember me as I was those dreadful days; and I am so glad that you--you--are pleased!" The appeal in her voice and in her eyes roused in Cameron an overwhelming tide of passion.
"Pleased!" he cried. "Pleased! Great Heavens, Mandy! You are wonderful! Don't you know that?"
"No," she said thoughtfully; "but," she drew a long breath, "I like to hear you say it. That is all I want. You see I owe it all to you." The face she turned to him so innocently happy might have been a child's.
"Mandy," cried Cameron, stopping short in his walk, "you--I--!"
That frank childlike look in her eyes checked his hot words. But there was no need for words; his eyes spoke for his faltering lips.
A look of fear leaped to her eyes, a flow of red blood to her cheeks; then she stood, white, trembling and silent.
"I am tired, I think," she said after a moment's silence, "we will go back."
"Yes, you are tired," said Cameron angrily. "You are tired to death. Mandy, you need some one to take care of you. I wish you would let me." They were now walking back toward the town.
