.
notary public! What must she do? Here she was in her father’s room, disobeying the stern commands of the physician who could see with half his professional eye that she had harmed his patient. She had time to get out before the doctor could get upstairs – but no! not sneak!
“I may be a murderess and am a selfish, headstrong, bad, foolish, vain, extravagant wretch, but I am not a sneak and I will stay right here and take the ragging that I deserve – and no doubt will get,” remembering the lash that Dr. Wright had not spared.
The doctor entered the room very quietly, “Pussy-footing still,” said Helen to herself. He gave her only a casual glance, seeming to feel no surprise at her presence, but went immediately to his patient, who smiled through his tears at this young man in whom he was putting his faith.
“I’ve been asleep, doctor, and thought I was out on the water. When Helen came in I awoke, but I was very glad for her to come in so she could promise me to look into a little matter of French chops that was worrying me. She and I have been having a little crying party about silk stockings. They seem to make her cry, too. Funny for me to cry. I have never cried in my life that I can remember, even when I got a licking as a boy.”
“Crying is not so bad for some one who never has cried or had anything to cry for.” Helen had a feeling maybe he meant it for her but he never looked at her. “And now, Mr. Carter, I have a notary public downstairs and I am going to ask you to sign a paper giving to your daughter, Douglas, power of attorney in your absence. You get off to New York this evening and sail to-morrow.”
“But, Dr. Whatsyourname, I can’t leave until I attend to tickets and things,” feebly protested the nervous man.
“Tickets bought; passage on steamer to Bermuda and Panama engaged; slow going steamer where you can lie on deck and loaf and loaf!”
“Tickets bought? I have never been anywhere in my life where I have not had to attend to everything myself. It sounds like my own funeral. I reckon kind friends will step in then and attend to the arrangements.”
“Well, let’s call this a wedding trip instead of a funeral. I will be your best man and you and your bride can spend your honeymoon on this vessel. The best man sometimes does attend to the tickets and in this case even decided where the honeymoon should be spent. I chose a Southern trip because I want you to be warm. Very few persons go to Bermuda in May, but I feel sure you will be able to rest more if you don’t have to move around to keep warm.”
“Yes, that’s fine, and Annette is from the extreme South and delights in warmth and sunlight. I feel sure you have done right and am just lying down like a baby and leaving everything to you,” and Robert Carter closed his eyes, smiling feebly.
At a summons from the doctor, Douglas and the notary public entered the room. Helen, who had stayed to get the blowing up that she had expected from Dr. Wright, not having got it, still stayed just because she did not know how to leave. No one noticed her or paid the least attention to her except the notary, who bowed perfunctorily.
“This is the paper. You had better read it to see if it is right. It gives your daughter full power to act in your absence.” Dr. Wright spoke slowly and gently and his voice never seemed to startle the sick man.
“Is Miss Carter of age?” asked the notary. “Otherwise she would have some trouble in any legal matter that might arise.”
“Of age! No! I am only eighteen.”
“I never thought of that,” said Mr. Carter.
“Nor I, fool that I am,” muttered the young physician.
“Oh, well, let me make you her guardian, or better still, give you power of attorney,” suggested Mr. Carter.
“Me, oh, I never bargained for that!” The patient feebly began to weep at this obstacle. You never can tell what is going to upset a nervous prostrate. “Well, all right. I can do it if it is up to me,” the doctor muttered. “Put my name in where we have Miss Carter’s,” he said to the notary. “George Wright is my name.”
“I’m so glad to know your name; that is one of the things that has been worrying me,” said the patient, as he signed his name and the notary affixed his seal after the oaths were duly taken.
CHAPTER IV
GONE!
“I am waiting, Dr. Wright,” said Helen, after the notary public had taken his departure and Douglas had gone to put finishing touches to the very rapid packing of steamer trunks, Mrs. Carter helping in her pathetically inefficient way. Helen stood at the top of the stairs to intercept the doctor as he left the patient’s room.
“Waiting for what?”
“For you to tell me you were astonished to find me in my father’s room when you had given express orders that none of us were to see him.”
“But I was not astonished.”
“Oh, you expected to find me?”
“I did not know whether I should find you, but I knew very well you would go there.”
“So you thought I would sneak in and sneak out?”
“I did not call it sneaking but I was pretty sure you had no confidence in me and would do your own sweet will. I hope you are satisfied now that it was best not to excite your father.”
“But I did not excite him. He just talked in that terrible way himself. You are cruel to say I made him worse!”
“But I did not say so. Certainly, however, you made him no better. He said himself he waked when you came in and you did not deny it. Of course, sleep is always ‘kind Nature’s sweet restorer.’ If you will let me pass, I will now go to see Miss Douglas about ordering your car for the train this evening. We have only about an hour’s time and there is still a great deal to do. There is the expressman now for the trunks.”
“Can’t even trust me to order the chauffeur to have the car at the door,” cried Helen bitterly to herself as the doctor went past her. “I am of no use to any one in the whole world and I wish I were dead.”
The look of agony in the girl’s face made an impression on the young man in spite of the strong resentment he felt toward her. He was somewhat like Helen in that he was not accustomed to disapproval, and being flouted by this schoolgirl was not a pleasant morsel to swallow. He felt sure of his diagnosis of Mr. Carter’s case, for, having served for several years as head assistant in a large sanitarium in New York, he was well acquainted with the symptoms of nervous prostration. Of course, his sending the patient on a sea voyage instead of placing him in a sanitarium was somewhat of a risk, but he felt it was the best thing to do, reading the man’s character as he had.
Helen’s scorn and doubt of him and her seeming selfishness had certainly done little to recommend her in his eyes, but gentleness and sympathy were the strongest points in George Wright’s make-up, and as he went by the girl he could read in her face agony, extreme agony and desperation. He went up the steps again, two at a time, and said gently:
“Miss Helen, would you be so kind as to see about the car for me? Order it for 7.45. I am going to put them on at the downtown station and get them all installed in the drawing-room with the door shut so they need not see all the Richmond people who are sure to be taking this night train to New York and getting on at Elba, the uptown stop.”
“Yes – and thank you.”
“By Jove,” thought the young man, “that girl is some looker! If she had the sense of her sister Douglas, I believe she would be pretty nice, too.”
Helen’s whole countenance had changed. From the proud, scornful girl, she had turned again into her own self, the Helen her sisters knew and loved.
“You might see that Bobby is kept kind of quiet, too. Tell him I will take him out with me again soon and let him blow my horn and poke out his arm when we turn the corners, if he will be quiet for an hour.”
“All right,” said Helen meekly, wondering at her own docility in so calmly being bossed by this person whom she still meant to despise. She interviewed the chauffeur,