Blister Jones Part 41

"You can't go down-town like this!" I said, making a last effort.

"Look at your dress!" and I pointed to the front of her gown--a bright crimson under the electric light.

She looked down at herself and shuddered.

"I'll go if it's the last thing I do," she said. "You can save your breath."

The car was all but empty. The girl sat staring, dry-eyed, straight before her. A dirty old woman, seeing the set face and blood-stained dress, leaned eagerly across the aisle.

"Has the young lady been hurt?" she wheezed.

"None of your business," said Miss Malloy. And the old woman subsided at this shaft of plain truth.

Our ride was half completed when my companion began to speak, in a broken monotone. She addressed no one in particular. If was as though conscience spoke through unconscious lips.

"And I've been foolin' with him just like all the rest--I thought it was smart! I never knew, for sure, till back there, and now _he'll_ never know . . . he'll not hear me when I tell it to him." Suddenly the monotone grew shrill. "_He'll never hear nothing of what Eve found out_!"

"Quiet! Quiet!" I said, and took her hand. "He's only hurt. The doctors will bring him around all right."

"No," she said. "I've been foolin' with him. I've been wicked and mean, and it's been sent to punish me."

A house surgeon and the engulfing odor of iodoform met us at the door of the emergency ward, whither we were led by a nurse.

"We can't tell anything before tomorrow," answered the surgeon to my question. "The pulse is fairly strong, and that means hope."

"I must see him," the girl stated.

"Sorry," said the surgeon, shaking his head. "No visitors allowed in this ward at night."

Two eyes, big and dark and beseeching, were raised to his. They shone from the white face and plead with him.

"Oh, doctor . . . _please_!" was all she said, but the eyes won her battle.

The nurse joined forces with the eyes. She looked past the surgeon.

"Very few in here to-night, Doctor Brandt," she urged.

"I wonder what would become of hospital rules if we left it to you nurses!" he protested, as he stepped aside and gently drew the girl within.

Down the dim aisle between the snowy beds we went, until the surgeon stopped at one, beside which sat a nurse, her fingers on the wrist of the bandaged occupant.

One bloodless hand picked feebly at the covering. The girl took this in both her own and pressed it to her cheek. Then stooping even lower, she cooed to the head on the pillow.

"The Big Train's pulled in . . ." muttered a far voice from between the bandages.

"Railroad man--isn't he?" inquired the surgeon of me.

"No. A horseman," I replied.

"He talks about trains. Was it a railroad accident?"

"He was injured by a horse called The Big Train," I explained.

"Oh--that one," he said, enlightened.

"Why don't they shoot him?"

"They did," I said.

"Good!" exclaimed the surgeon. "That is fine!"

After taking the girl to her home, I sent telegrams to "Mr. Van," as I had heard Blister call him--one to Morrisville, New Jersey, and one to the Union Club, New York. Judge and Mrs. Dillon were abroad.

When I had telephoned to the hospital the next morning, I went to the office and found a message on my desk. It read:

"Have everything possible done. Send all bills to me. He must come here to convalesce."

It was headed Morrisville, and was signed, "W. D. Van Voast."

That same day Blister was taken to a big, airy, private room with two nurses in attendance.

For a time it seemed hopeless. And then the fates decided to spare that valiant whimsical spirit and Death drew slowly back. The stallion had been unshod, and to this and the semi-darkness Blister owed his life.

I had met the girl frequently at the hospital and at last they told us we could see Blister for a moment the next day. Ten o'clock was the time set and as we sat in the visitor's room together, waiting, she seemed worried.

"You should be more cheerful," I said. "The danger is past, or we would not be allowed to see him."

"It isn't that," she replied. "I used to like horses. Now every horse I see scares me to death." Then she hesitated and looked at me timidly.

"Well," I encouraged, "that's natural, what of it?"

"I've been thinking--" she said slowly, "every girl should like what her husb--" she stopped and blushed till she looked like a rose in confusion.

"Oh, I see what you mean," I said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Since you care for Blister, you feel that you should also be interested in his profession."

"That's it! You say things just right!" she exclaimed gratefully.

"You will get over this dread of horses," I a.s.sured her. "Because there are murderers in the world you do not fear all men. Occasionally there are bad horses, just as there are bad people. You shouldn't judge all the splendid faithful creatures who spend their lives serving us, by one vicious brute."

"Oh, I know that!" she said. "And I'll try as hard as ever I can to get over it."

"This is quite a little woman . . . she has developed," I thought.

An unknown Blister with strange cavernous eyes, lay in the room to which we were presently taken. I stood at the foot of the bed, directly in his line of vision, but he did not seem to recognize me.

He looked through and beyond me. At last--

"h.e.l.lo, Four Eyes!" came feebly from him. Slowly he became conscious of the girl's face, looking down into his own. "You here, too?" he questioned.

"Yes, dear," she said tremblingly.