East of the Shadows. Mrs. Hubert Barclay
one side the nurse and an elderly man, presumably the doctor, who were trying in vain to soothe him. The next moment his strength failed—he fell backward on the pillows, and his face assumed a livid death-like hue.
"Too late! too late!" murmured Mrs. Goodman in a tone of anguish.
The doctor, who had been occupied in his attentions on the invalid, glanced up and met Philippa's eyes. He recoiled as if in surprise or horror, but in an instant his professional calm reasserted itself.
No sound broke the stillness of the room except the laboured breathing of the poor old woman. Philippa gazed at the still white face, perfectly still, perfectly white, and apparently lifeless. The nurse raised herself with a sigh which seemed to intimate that all further effort was useless.
The slow minutes passed, and with each moment a greyer shadow crept like a veil over the face of the dying man.
Suddenly Mrs. Goodman spoke, sharply, and in a voice that sounded strident in the silence.
"Speak to him! call him!" she said.
A clutch of emotion strangled Philippa; her one conscious feeling was pity—pity overwhelming and profound. Pity for the soul going out into the Great Unknown, lonely, unsatisfied, craving something which it seemed that only she could supply. She fell on her knees beside the bed, and laid her warm hands on the frail white ones which were growing cold, so cold.
She felt some one remove her hat, and then again came the prompting insistent voice at her elbow.
"Call him! Call him!——Francis!"
And then she called—all her sorrow for the sick and suffering, all her potential motherhood ringing in her young voice.
"Francis!" Then louder, "Francis! Can you hear me? Francis! It is Philippa!" Again the breathless silence. Then, intent only on the task of gaining a response, she slipped her arm under the pillow, and leaning her face closer and closer, she called again and again. Did an eyelid flicker? Was it imagination, or was the deathly pallor changing slightly? Were the shadows round the drawn mouth less dark?
The doctor with his fingers on the pulse bent forward. "Again!" he said gruffly. "Once more!"
And again the girl's voice rang through the silent room in urgent appeal: "Francis! Francis!"
One long breath—another—and the eyes opened—vague, unseeing, turning this way and that until they found what they sought, and in them slowly dawned the light of recognition. A little later—low, very low—a whisper, in which content and joy triumphed over weakness—clear enough to the anxious listeners: "Phil! Darling!"
Two hours later Philippa went to her room. The doctor had gone, to return at evening; the invalid was sleeping, for the moment all was as well as could be expected, and it was considered probable that he would sleep for some hours. Her limbs were stiff and cramped from the position in which she had remained, fearing that the slightest movement on her part would snap the frail thread which we call life. When it became evident that the sleep was sound and strengthening she had crept away.
Presently Mrs. Goodman entered, bearing a tray of food and a telegram.
"You must need food," she said. "I have brought it, and I have said you are not to be disturbed." Her voice was strained and trembling, but quite kindly.
Philippa opened the telegram. "Operation to-morrow—hopeful—will wire again." For a moment she could not think what it meant, then she remembered; but somehow it seemed trivial, of no importance. Nothing mattered just now but the explanation which must surely come. All else was far away, outside the radius of her mind.
The woman pressed food and wine upon her, and stood beside her as she ate. Then she removed the tray and placed in on a table, and returned to Philippa's side. Her face was working grievously, her limbs were shaking. Then, quite suddenly, she sat down and burst into tears—the slow, laboured weeping of the aged.
Philippa drew her chair closer, and laying a hand on her shoulder she waited, knowing instinctively that the tears would bring healing, and that the overstrained nerves must find relief before words would come.
At last she grew quieter, and said brokenly, "He knew me! You heard him! 'Goody! Goody will understand!' I that have nursed him and tended him from babyhood! And never to know me—never to know his old Goody all these weary years! At last! At last! Oh! if my lady were but here to see!"
"Will you try and realise that I know nothing?" Philippa said gently. "I lost my way last night and went into the wrong room, and found—him. I do not even know who he is, but he seemed to expect me. Try and tell me what it all means."
"First, will you please tell me who you are?" said Mrs. Goodman.
"I am Philippa Harford."
"Aye, Philippa Harford! How little I thought ever to speak that name again! You are Philippa Harford, that I know—it is written clearly on your face for all to see; but you are not the Miss Philippa I knew, although I had not imagined that two faces could be so much alike."
"My father was James Harford. He died a few years ago. I did not know there was another Philippa."
"James Harford!" echoed the woman. "That would be Mr. Jim."
Philippa rose to her feet, and walking over to the dressing-table returned with a photograph in her hand.
"This was my father," she said. "It is an old photograph."
Mrs. Goodman looked at it.
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