Vignettes of Manhattan; Outlines in Local Color Part 38

"You've been asleep, haven't you?" she began. "I'm so glad, for of course that's so good for you. We all missed you down-stairs, and everybody asked about you and said they were _so_ sorry you were not there. You must hurry up and get well; and I'll give another dinner like this, for it was a _great_ success. The flowers were superb--and I don't think any of the women had a handsomer gown than I did. And I know all of them together hadn't as elegant diamonds. I don't believe _anybody_ at the dance will have as many either."

"Sit down by me here and tell me all about the dinner," said the sick husband.

"Oh, I can't wait now," the young wife answered. "I _must_ be off at once. I've simply _got_ to be there in time to see the old year out and the new year in. They say Mrs. Jimmy has a surprise for us, and n.o.body at dinner had the slightest idea what it _could_ possibly be!"

"Are you going to the dance to-night?" asked the man in the bed; and the nurse saw the pleading look in his eyes, even if his wife failed to perceive it.

"Of course I am," was the wife's reply. "I wouldn't miss it for _anything_. I think it's a lovely idea to have a dance on New-Year's Eve, don't you? I _do_ wish you were well enough to go, and I'm certain sure Mrs. Jimmy will ask about you--she's always _so_ polite. You won't miss me--you will be asleep again in five minutes, won't you?"

"Perhaps," he answered, still clinging to her fingers. "I'll try to sleep."

"That's right," she responded, withdrawing her hand and going towards the door. "I'll trust you to the nurse. She'll take better care of you than I should, I'm afraid. I never was _any_ good when people were sick.

Now good-bye. I _do_ hope you'll be better when I get back. I'll come in and say good-night, of course. I sha'n't be late, either--I'll be home by three--or before four, _anyway_."

And with that she glided away, smiling back at her husband as she left the room. He followed her with his eyes, and he gazed at the door fixedly after she had gone. There was a hungry look in his face, so it seemed to the nurse, as of one starving in the midst of plenty. With the vain hope that the vision of beauty might yet return, he lay silent, but listening intently, until he heard the sharp slam of the carriage doors.

Then he relaxed and turned restlessly in bed.

It was then half-past eleven, and the nurse took his temperature and administered another capsule, as the doctor had ordered. It seemed to her that he was more feverish and that he was coughing more frequently; and even as she saw the patient sink into a broken sleep, she wished that the physician would come soon.

The arrival of the doctor was delayed till a few minutes before midnight, and the nurse had time to reconsider, once and forever, her decision to marry for money and without love. Her mind had been made up slowly and with great deliberation; it was unmade suddenly and unhesitatingly and irrevocably. It was the sight of the mute pleading in the sick man's eyes which made her change her mind. After seeing that look she felt that it would be impossible for her to make a loveless marriage--not for her own sake only, but also for the sake of the man she should marry. If he loved her and she did not love him, there would be no fair exchange; she would be cheating him. When she beheld clearly the meaning of the transaction her honesty revolted. She had refused to marry him more than once, and now her refusal was final.

She stood for a moment at the window and looked out. The snow had ceased falling, and there was already a clearing of the clouds, which let the moonlight pierce them fitfully. The wind blew steadily across the broad meadows of the Park, bending the whitened skeletons of the trees.

Three immense sleighs filled with a joyous and laughing party went down the avenue, bandying songs from one sleigh to the other. A horn was tooted repeatedly in one of the side streets, and there were louder and more frequent whistles from the river craft on both sides of the city. A pistol-shot rang out now and again. It was almost midnight on the last day of the old year; and the new year was to be greeted with the customary chorus of wild noises.

As the nurse turned from the window the doctor entered the room. She made her report briefly, and she told him that the old man's cough was worse, and that he seemed weaker.

While they were standing at the foot of the bed, the patient was seized with another paroxysm. He sat up, shaken by the violent effort--far more violent than any that had preceded it. He seemed to struggle vainly for relief, and then he dropped back limply on the pillows. The physician was at his side instantly, and laid a hand on his heart. There was a moment of silence, and the clock on the stairs began to strike twelve, its chimes mingling with the uproar made by the pistols and the horns and the steam-whistles out-doors.

"That's what I was afraid of," said the doctor at last. "I suspected that he had fatty degeneration of the heart."

"Is he--is he dead?" asked the nurse.

"Yes, he is dead."

But it was not for five or ten minutes that the shrill noises outside ceased.