The young girl looked at him with tears shining in her great dark eyes.
"We live in the tenement just around the corner, sir," she said, "on the sixth floor. My father is David Moore, the basket-maker."
Doctor Gardiner dared not remain another moment talking with them, and with a hasty bow he re-entered his carriage. But during the remainder of his journey he could think of nothing but the sad, beautiful face of Bernardine Moore, the basket-maker"s daughter.
"What in the name of Heaven has come over me!" he muttered. "I have seen a face, and it seems as though I have stepped through the gates of the old world and entered a new one."
He collected his thoughts with a start, as the carriage reached its destination.
He had not realized how quickly the time had pa.s.sed. He resolutely put all thoughts from him as he walked up the steps of the mansion before which he found himself.
The door opened before he could touch the bell.
"We have been waiting for you, doctor," said the low-voiced attendant who had come to the door.
He followed her through the magnificent hall-way, and up the polished stairs to the apartment above, where he knew his patient was awaiting him.
The wan face lying against the pillow lighted up as the doctor entered.
His bright, breezy presence was as good as medicine.
"You!" he cried, advancing to the couch. "Why, this will never do, Miss Rogers! Tut, tut! you are not sick, you do not look it! This is only an excuse to send for me, and you know it. I can see at a glance that you are a long way from being ill, and you know it!" he repeated.
He said it in so hearty a manner and in such apparent good faith, that his words could not help but carry conviction with them.
Already the poor lady began to feel that she was not nearly so ill as she had believed herself to be.
But the doctor, bending over her, despite his rea.s.suring smile and light badinage, realized with alarm that his patient was in great danger, that there was but a fighting chance for her life.
An hour or more he worked over her unceasingly, doing everything that skill and science could suggest.
With the dawning of the morning he would know whether she would live or die.
"Doctor," she said, looking up into his face, "do you think my illness is fatal? Is this my last call?"
He scarcely knew how to answer her. He felt that the truth should not be kept from her. But how was he to tell her?
"Because," she went on, before he could answer, "if it is, I had better know it in time, in order to settle up my affairs. I--I have always dreaded making a will; but--but there will come a time, sooner or later, when it will be necessary for me to do so."
Again Doctor Gardiner laughed out that hearty, rea.s.suring laugh.
"That is the natural feeling of a woman," he said. "Men never have that feeling. With them it is but an ordinary matter, as it should be."
"Would you advise me to make a will, doctor?" and the white face was turned wistfully to him.
"Certainly," he replied, with an attempt at light-heartedness. "It will occupy your mind, give you something to think about, and take your thoughts from your fancied aches and pains."
"Fancied?" replied the poor lady. "Ah, doctor, they are real enough, although you do not seem to think so. I--I want to leave all my money to _you_, doctor," she whispered. "You are the only person in the whole wide world who, without an object, has been kind to me," she added, with sudden energy. The fair, handsome face of the young doctor grew grave.
"Nay, nay," he said, gently. "While I thank you with all my heart for the favor you would bestow on me, still I must tell you that I could not take the money. No, no, my dear Miss Rogers; it must go to the next of kin, if you have any."
Her face darkened as an almost forgotten memory rose up before her.
"No!" she said, sharply; "anything but that! They never cared for me!
They shall not fight over what I have when I am dead!"
"But you have relatives?" he questioned, anxiously.
"Yes," she said; "one or two distant cousins, who married and who have families of their own. One of them wrote me often while I lived at San Francisco; but in her letters she always wanted something, and such hints were very distasteful to me. She said that she had named one of her children after me, saying in the next sentence that I ought to make the girl my heiress. I wrote to her to come on to San Francisco, when I fell so ill, a few weeks ago. She answered me that she could not come, that she was very sick herself, and that the doctors had ordered her out to Lee, Ma.s.sachusetts, to live on a farm, until she should become stronger. When I grew stronger, I left San Francisco with my faithful attendant, Mary. I did not let them know that I was in New York, and had taken possession of this fine house, which I own. Suddenly I fell ill again. I intended to wait until I grew stronger to hunt her up, and see how I should like her before making overtures of friendship to her. I should not like to make a will and leave all to these people whom I do not know. There are hundreds of homes for old and aged women that need the money more."
"Still, a will should always be made," said the doctor, earnestly. "I will send for some one at once, if you will entertain the idea of attending to it."
"No!" she replied, firmly. "If anything happens to me, I will let them take their chances. Don"t say anything more about it, doctor; my mind is fully made up."
He dared not argue with a woman who was so near her end as he believed her to be.
This case proved to be one of the greatest achievements of his life.
From the very Valley of the Shadow of Death he drew back the struggling, fluttering spirit of the helpless lady. And when the first gray streaks of dawn flushed the eastern sky, the doctor drew a great sigh of relief.
"Thank G.o.d, she will live!" he said.
When the sun rose later the danger was past--the battle of life had been won, and death vanquished.
Although Doctor Gardiner was very weary after his night"s vigil, still he left the house with a happy heart beating in his bosom.
He scarcely felt the fatigue of his arduous labors as he stepped into his carriage again. His heart gave a strange throb as he ordered the driver to go to the tenement house, the home of the old basket-maker and his beautiful daughter.
How strange it was that the very thought of this fair girl seemed to give his tired brain rest for a moment!
He soon found himself at the street and number he wanted.
"Does Mr. Moore, the basket-maker, live here?" he asked, pausing for a moment to inquire of a woman who sat on the doorstep with a little child in her arms.
"Yes," she answered, in a surly voice; "and more"s the pity for the rest of us tenants, for he is a regular fiend incarnate, sir, and has a fit of the delirium tremens as regularly as the month comes round. He"s got "em now. A fine dance he leads that poor daughter of his. Any other girl would get out and leave him. Are you the doctor Miss Bernardine was expecting? If so, walk right up. She is waiting for you."
CHAPTER VIII.
"OH, I AM SO GLAD THAT YOU HAVE COME, DOCTOR!"
Doctor Jay Gardiner, with as much speed as possible, made his way up the long, steep flights of dark, narrow stairs, and through the still darker pa.s.sages, which were only lighted by the open doors here and there, revealing rooms inhabited by half a dozen persons. They were all talking, fighting or scrambling at the same time; and the odor of that never-to-be-forgotten smell of frying onions and sausages greeted his nostrils at every turn until it seemed to him that he must faint.
"Great heavens! how can so fair a young girl live in an atmosphere like this?" he asked himself.
At length, almost exhausted, for he was unused to climbing, this haughty, aristocratic young doctor found himself on the sixth floor of the tenement house, and he knocked at the first door he came to.
It was opened by the young girl Bernardine. He could see at a glance that her face bore the traces of trouble, and the dark eyes, still heavy with unshed tears, showed signs of recent weeping.