第86章 THE INEVITABLE(1)

Why should not human nature be the same in Arrowhead Village as elsewhere?It could not seem strange to the good people of that place and their visitors that these two young persons,brought together under circumstances that stirred up the deepest emotions of which the human soul is capable,should become attached to each other.But the bond between them was stronger than any knew,except the good doctor,who had learned the great secret of Maurice's life.

For the first time since his infancy he had fully felt the charm which the immediate presence of youthful womanhood carries with it.

He could hardly believe the fact when he found himself no longer the subject of the terrifying seizures of which he had had many and threatening experiences.

It was the doctor's business to save his patient's life,if he could possibly do it.Maurice had been reduced to the most perilous state of debility by the relapse which had interrupted his convalescence.

Only by what seemed almost a miracle had he survived the exposure to suffocation and the mental anguish through which he had passed.It was perfectly clear to Dr.Butts that if Maurice could see the young woman to whom he owed his life,and,as the doctor felt assured,the revolution in his nervous system which would be the beginning of a new existence,it would be of far more value as a restorative agency than any or all of the drugs in the pharmacopoeia.He told this to Euthymia,and explained the matter to her parents and friends.She must go with him on some of his visits.Her mother should go with her,or her sister;but this was a case of life and death,and no maidenly scruples must keep her from doing her duty.

The first of her visits to the sick,perhaps dying,man presented a scene not unlike the picture before spoken of on the title-page of the old edition of Galen.The doctor was perhaps the most agitated of the little group.He went before the others,took his seat by the bedside,and held the patient's wrist with his finger on the pulse.

As Euthymia entered it gave a single bound,fluttered for an instant as if with a faint memory of its old habit,then throbbed full and strong,comparatively,as if under the spur of some powerful stimulus.Euthymia's task was a delicate one,but she knew how to disguise its difficulty.

"Here is a flower I have brought you,Mr.Kirkwood,"she said,and handed him a white chrysanthemum.He took it from her hand,and before she knew it he took her hand into his own,and held it with a gentle constraint.What could she do?Here was the young man whose life she had saved,at least for the moment,and who was yet in danger from the disease which had almost worn out his powers of resistance.

"Sit down by Mr.Kirkwood's side,"said the doctor."He wants to thank you,if he has strength to do it,for saving him from the death which seemed inevitable."Not many words could Maurice command.He was weak enough for womanly tears,but their fountains no longer flowed;it was with him as with the dying,whose eyes may light up,but rarely shed a tear.

The river which has found a new channel widens and deepens--it;it lets the old water-course fill up,and never returns to its forsaken bed.The tyrannous habit was broken.The prophecy of the gitana had verified itself,and the ill a fair woman had wrought a fairer woman bad conquered and abolished.

The history of Maurice Kirkwood loses its exceptional character from the time of his restoration to his natural conditions.His convalescence was very slow and gradual,but no further accident interrupted its even progress.The season was over,the summer visitors had left Arrowhead Village;the chrysanthemums were going out of flower,the frosts had come,and Maurice was still beneath the roof of the kind physician.The relation between him and his preserver was so entirely apart from all common acquaintances and friendships that no ordinary rules could apply to it.Euthymia visited him often during the period of his extreme prostration.

"You must come every day,"the doctor said."He gains with every visit you make him;he pines if you miss him for a single day."So she came and sat by him,the doctor or good Mrs.Butts keeping her company in his presence.He grew stronger,--began to sit up in bed;and at last Euthymia found him dressed as in health,and beginning to walk about the room.She was startled.She had thought of herself as a kind of nurse,but the young gentleman could hardly be said to need a nurse any longer.She had scruples about making any further visits.She asked Lurida what she thought about it.