Trusia Part 31

It is easy to die, easier to drown, when there is no escape.

XXVII

YOU ARE STILL MY KING

It seemed that the shadows were being withdrawn from his eyes, just as a curtain is pulled back from a window. As consciousness became a more certain quant.i.ty he wondered vaguely why he did not feel drenched and uncomfortable, instead of cozy and warm. He was aware of a pinkish-gray blur hanging above his head; this slowly resolved itself into a human face. While he could not distinguish the features in the darkened light of the room, he was certain that it was that of a woman.

"Trusia," he cried ecstatically.

"Please be quiet," responded an unfamiliar voice in a tone of undemurrable authority. He pondered. He puzzled. Finally he gathered courage to speak.

"Who are you?" he queried dubiously.

"I am the nurse," came back indulgently through the dim haze of semi-consciousness still enveloping him.

"Nurse," he exclaimed, throwing off the gray mist, to notice for the first time that he was in his own bed and room, in New York City.

Accepting conditions as they were for the time being, he settled back and sighed the long, indolent sigh of convalescence. He glanced expectantly toward the door, Carrick should be coming soon with the much needed shaving things. Carrick? It all came back to him now. He no longer was satisfied to lie back comfortably on the pillow and dream the hazy dreams of the convalescent. Carrick was dead and he himself had been drowned--but Trusia? He groaned in great distress. The nurse hastened to his side.

"Are you in pain?" she asked, a trifle surprised that such a symptom should appear in this case.

"No," he said abstractedly, his mind revisiting the banks of the Vistula; "no, I am not in pain. I was thinking."

The nurse held a draught to his lips. Carter resolutely put it to one side. "Wait," he commanded, "I must know how I came here, or I will not rest with a thousand soporifics."

"Mr. Saunderson picked you up just as you were drowning in the Vistula.

You have been ill ever since--delirious."

"Good old Billy," he said in grat.i.tude, then turned a silent inquiry on the nurse. She saw the awful heart-hunger in his eyes and, had she followed her impulse, would have thrown a sisterly arm about him in solace, so compelling was the look, so hopeless its message. "Was any--was any one saved with me?" he ventured. "Did any one come with me here? On the boat? For G.o.d's sake, nurse, tell me." His quivering life seemed hanging in the balance. The magnitude of his gravity filled the woman with sudden apprehension. She feared equally to tell him or refuse him.

"I was not there, Mr. Carter. I cannot tell," she compromised. "Mr.

Saunderson will make his usual call this afternoon. You can ask him; he will doubtless tell you." Partially rea.s.sured by this, Carter fell asleep.

When he awoke he felt much stronger. The nurse was standing at the bedside smiling down at him.

"Mr. Saunderson is waiting in the library. If I let him come in to see you, will you be good?"

Carter readily promised, as he would have anything just then, at the opportunity of resolving his doubts. Saunderson was ushered in quietly; when he bent over the patient, the latter wrenched the proffered hand with hysterical strength.

"See here, Carter, this won't do," said his caller, making a wry face; "I believe that you have been shamming these two months."

"Two months?" Carter sat upright. "Have I been laid up that long?"

"To the very day," said Saunderson, smiling.

"Tell me, Billy, how you came to be out there. I want to thank you for saving my life, though I don't know yet whether you have done a wise or a foolish thing."

"So? How soon can you let me know? Dorothy says it's the only sensible, useful thing I've ever done. You always were a favorite of Mrs.

Saunderson, you know."

"It's a serious matter, Billy, so I want the truth for what I'm going to ask you. Give it to me straight from the shoulder and don't mince matters. Promise?"

"I must confess, Cal, I don't see what you're driving at, but I suppose it's all right. Yes, I promise. Now, fire away. Wait a minute. Perhaps I'd better lead off with how I got there. You've been pretty loose up here, you know," he touched his forehead by way of ill.u.s.tration.

"Perhaps I may save you the worry of framing up questions--my account may cover everything."

"Did I talk much--rot?" asked Carter.

"Yes, rather. Calling all the time for Trusia--said Carrick was a King--and lots more of the same kind. Who was Trusia?"

"The d.u.c.h.ess of Schallberg." Carter's reply was unnaturally grave and his face solemn and tense. "Tell me, Billy," he requested quietly, "when I sank--was there any one with me?"

"It might have been a bundle of rags--it might have been a man or a woman, I rather thought it was a woman. What did you do, Cal, run off with some Cossack's wife?"

"It was Her Grace."

"The deuce it was!" exclaimed Saunderson.

Carter bent forward until their faces were close. "Oh, Billy," he begged piteously, "don't tell me you let her drown! Don't tell me she is dead!

Don't----"

"I didn't. She isn't," said Saunderson with more care for denial than lucidity. He laid a restraining, friendly hand on Carter's shoulder.

"You saved her too, then?" The thin talon-like hand clutched Billy's like a vise.

"No," answered Saunderson reluctantly, beginning to see how matters stood.

"Where is she then?" was the eager question.

"See here, Cal, you haven't given me a chance to tell you how I came to be there. I'm just aching for the opportunity too. You don't know it, but I had a bet with Jackson that you'd go over there when the matter became known to you. Naturally I took more than a casual interest in Krovitch after that. Reports got disturbing, so I ran the _Bronx_ over to sort of hang around until needed. To be perfectly frank, I was looking for you. When the skipper called me that morning and said some one was swimming for the boat I took a long guess that it was you. The first time you sank the launch was almost on top of you. We pulled you out of the very claws of a Cossack."

"But the girl?--But Her Grace of Schallberg?" It was pitiable how abject a strong man could become.

"If that was the d.u.c.h.ess of Schallberg, Cal, a second Russian picked her up, apparently unconscious, and made off with her--toward the Austrian sh.o.r.e. Just why he went that way no one seemed to know. His comrades fired after them. No, don't start; no one hit. b.u.m shots, those Asiatics."

Seeing the terrible pressure under which Carter was laboring, the nurse came forward at this juncture and sent Saunderson away. For some unaccountable reason Carter could not force the conviction on himself that serious evil had befallen Trusia. Hope departs only with life.

Paradoxical as it may seem, he worried not about her safety, but about the dangers which, without his aid, she could overcome only with great difficulty. Such is the egotism of love. He reverted anxiously to the story of her questionable rescue. Who could the Cossack have been--why hadn't he returned to his comrades? Why,--why,--why? Question followed question, like the alarm bells at a fire. At last he wearily fell asleep.

He opened his eyes the second time to find the day was gathering darkness from the corners and niches of the room.

"Nurse," he called. In an instant, silent as the gloaming, she approached the bed. "Might I have my mail? It must have been acc.u.mulating for months."

"You must not read," she said firmly.

"Then read for me," he urged.