Part 2

The pitiful thing was that the child herself was so changed. She had wasted to a little wraith. For some time she had not walked without her crutch. Now she scarcely walked at all. At the first she had sobbed a good deal, in downright childish fashion; then she wept silently; but now she did not cry any more,--she did but watch. Her sight had grown unnaturally keen, like that of pilots; she gazed out of great eyes, bright, and dry, and solemn. Already she had taken on the look of children whose span of time is to be short. She weakened visibly.

At first, her father took her out with him in the cab, so she should feel that she was conducting the search herself. But she had grown too feeble for this exertion. Sometimes, on such drives, she saw cruel sights,--animals suffering at the black tempers of men or the diabolic jests of boys; and she was hurried home, shivering and sobbing. When night came she would ask for the Yorkshire's bed to be put beside her own, and with trembling fingers would draw up the crimson blankets over the crimson mattress, as if the dog had been between them. Then she would ask the question that haunted her most:--

"Mamma, who will put Loveliness into a little baxet to sleep, and cover him up? Papa, Papa, will they be _kind_ to Loveliness?"

Stormy nights and days were always the hardest.

"Will Loveliness be out and get wet? Will he shiver like 'e black dog I saw to-day? Will he have warm milk for his supper? Is there anybody to rub him dry and cuddle my Loveliness?"

To divert the child from her grief proved impossible. They took her somewhere, in the old, idle effort to change the place and help the pain; but she mourned so, "because he might come home, and nobody see him but me," that they brought her back.

The president of the university, who was a dogless and childless man, presented the bereaved household with a mongrel white puppy, purchased under the amiable impression that it was of a rare, Parisian breed. The distinguished man cherished the ignorant hope of bestowing consolation. But the invalid child, with the sensitiveness of invalid children, refused to look at the puppy, who was returned to his donor, and constituted himself henceforth the tyrant and terror of that scholastic household.

As the weather grew warmer, little Adah failed and sank. It came on to be the bloom of the year, and she no longer left the house.

The carrier and the cab driver lifted their hats in silence now, when they passed the window where the little girl sat, and the newsboy looked up with a sober face, like that of a man. The faculty and the neighbors did not ask, "How is the child?" but always, "Have you heard from the dog?" The doctor began to call daily. He did not shake his head,--no doctor does outside of an old-fashioned story,--and he smiled cheerfully enough inside the house; but when he came out of it, to his carriage, he did not smile. So the spring mellowed, and it was the first of June.

One night, the poor professor sat trying to put into shape an impossible thesis on an incomprehensible subject (it was called The Identity of Identity and Non-Identity), for Commencement delivery in his department. Pulling aside some books of reference that he needed, he dragged to view a pamphlet from the lowest shelf of the revolving bookcase. Then he saw the marks of the Yorkshire's teeth and claws on the pamphlet corners, and, sadly smiling, he opened and read.

The Commencement thesis on The Identity of Identity and Non-Identity was not corrected that night. The professor of psychology sat moulded into his study chair, rigid, with iron lips and clenched hands, and read the pamphlet through, every word, from beginning to end. For the first time in his life, this eminent man, wise in the wisdom of the world of mind, and half educated in the practical affairs of the world of matter, studied for himself the authenticated records of the torments imposed upon dumb animals in the name of science.

As an instructed man, of course this subject was not wholly unfamiliar to him, but it was wholly foreign. Hitherto he had given it polite and indifferent attention, and had gone his ways. Now he read like a man himself bound, without anaesthesia, beneath the knife. Now he read for the child's sake, with the child's mind, with the child's nerves, and with those of the little helpless thing for whom her life was wasting. He tore from his shelves every volume, every pamphlet that he owned upon the direful subject which that June night opened to his consciousness; and he read until the birds sang.

With brain on fire, he crept, in the brightness of coming day, to his wife's side.

"Tired out, dear?" she asked gently. Then he saw that she too had not slept.

"Adah has such dreams," she explained; "cruel things,--all the same kind."

"About the dog?"

"Always about the dog. I have been sitting up with her. She is--not as strong as--not quite"--

The professor set his teeth when he heard the mother's moan. When she had sunk into broken rest he stole back to his study, and locked out of sight the pamphlet which Loveliness had chewed. So, with the profound and scientific treatises on the subject, arguing and illustrating this way and that (some of these had cuts and photogravures which would haunt the imagination for years), he crowded the whole out of reach. His own brain was reeling with horrors which it would have driven the woman or the child mad to read. Scenes too ghastly for a strong mind to dwell upon, incidents too fearful for a weak one to conceive, flitted before the sleepless father.

Now the professor began to do strange and secretive things. Unknown to his wife, unsuspected by his fading child, he began to cause the laboratories of the city and its environs to be searched. In the process, curious trades developed themselves to his astonished ignorance: the tricks of boys who supply the material of anguish; the trade of the janitor who sells it to the demonstrator; the trade of the brute who allures his superior, the dog, to the lairs of medical students. Dark arts started to the foreground, like imps around Mephistopheles concealed. From such repellent education the professor came home and took his little girl into his arms, and did not speak, but laid his cheek to hers, and heard the piteous, familiar question, "Papa, did you promise me they'd be kind to Loveliness?" It was always a whispered question now; for Adah had entirely lost command of her voice, partly from weakness, partly from the old injury to the vocal organs; and this seemed, somehow, to make it the harder to answer her.

So there fell a day when the child in the window, propped by more than the usual pillows, sat watching longer than usual, or more sadly, or more eagerly,--who can say what it was? Or did she look so much more translucent, more pathetic, than on another day? She leaned her cheek on one little wasted hand. Her great eyes commanded the street. She had her pilot's look. Now and then, if a little dog passed, and if he were gray, she started and leaned forward, then sank back faintly. The sight of her would have touched a savage; and one beheld it.

A man in a yellow jersey passed by upon the other side of the street, and glanced over. His straight, black brows contracted, and he looked at the child steadily. As he walked on, it might have been noticed that his brutal head hung to his breast. But he passed, and that cultivated street was clean of him. The carrier met him around the corner, and glanced at him with coldness.

"What's de matter of de kid yonder, in de winder?" asked the foreigner.

"Dyin'," said the carrier shortly.

"Looks she had--what you call him?--gallopin' consum'tion," observed the man with the eyebrows.

"Gallopin' heartbreak," replied the carrier, pushing by. "There's a devil layin' round loose outside of hell that stole her dog,--and she a little sickly thing to start with, ---- him! There's fifty men in this town would lynch him inside of ten minutes, if they got a clue to him, ---- him to ----!"

That afternoon, when the professor left the house, the newsboy ran up eagerly. "There's a little nigger wants yez, perfesser, downstreet. He's in wid the dog robbers, that nigger is. Jes' you arsk him when he see Mop las' time. Take him by the scruff the neck, an' wallop like hell till he tells. Be spry, now, perfesser!"

The professor hurried down the street, fully prepared to obey these directions, and found the negro boy, as he had been told.

"Come along furder," said the boy, looking around uneasily. He spoke a few words in a hoarse whisper.

The blood leaped to the professor's wan cheeks, and back again.

"I'll show ye for a V," suggested the boy cunningly. "But I won't take no noter hand. Make it cash, an' I'll show yer. Ye ain't no time to be foolin'," added the gamin. "It's sot for termorrer 'leven o'clock. He's down for the biggest show of the term, _he_ is. The students is all gwineter go, an' the doctors along of 'em."

* * * * *

His own university! His own university! The professor repeated the three words, as he dashed into the city with the academic cabman's fastest horse. For weeks his detectives had watched every laboratory within fifty miles. But--his own college! With the density which sometimes submerges a superior intellect, it had never occurred to him that he might find his own dog in the medical school of his own institution. Stupidly he sat gazing at the back of the gamin who slunk beside the aversion of the driver on the box. The professor seemed to himself to be driving through the terms of a false syllogism.

The cabman drew up in a filthy and savage neighborhood, in whose grim purlieus the St. George professors did not take their walks abroad. The negro boy tumbled off the box.

The professor sat, trembling like a woman. The boy went into the tenement, whistling. When he came out he did not whistle. His evil little face had fallen. His arms were empty.

"The critter's dum gone," he said.

"_Gone?_"

"He's dum goneter de college. Dey'se tuk him, sah. Dum dog to go so yairly."

The countenance of the professor blazed with the mingling fires of horror and of hope. The excited driver lashed the St. George horse to foam; in six minutes the cab drew up at the medical school. The passenger ran up the walk like a boy, and dashed into the building. He had never entered it before. He was obliged to inquire his way, like a rustic on a first trip to town. After some delay and difficulty he found the janitor, and, with the assurance of position, stated his case.

But the janitor smiled.

"I will go now--at once--and remove the dog," announced the professor. "In which direction is it? My little girl--There is no time to lose. Which door did you say?"

But now the janitor did not smile. "Excuse me, sir," he said frigidly, "I have no orders to admit strangers." He backed up against a closed door, and stood there stolidly. The professor, burning with human rage, leaned over and shook the door. It was locked.

"Man of darkness!" cried the professor. "You who perpetrate"--Then he collected himself. "Pardon me," he said, with his natural dignity; "I forget that you obey the orders of your chiefs, and that you do not recognize me. I am not accustomed to be refused admittance to the departments of my own university. I am Professor Premice, of the Chair of Mental Philosophy,--Professor Theophrastus Premice." He felt for his cards, but he had used the last one in his wallet.

"You might be, and you mightn't," replied the janitor grimly. "I never heard tell of you that I know of. My orders are not to admit, and I do not admit."

"You are unlawfully detaining and torturing my dog!" gasped the professor. "I demand my property at once!"

"We have such a lot of these cases," answered the janitor wearily. "We hain't got your dog. We don't take gentlemen's dogs, nor ladies' pets. And we always etherize. We operate very tenderly. You hain't produced any evidence or authority, and I can't let you in without."

"Be so good," urged the professor, restraining himself by a violent effort, "as to bear my name to some of the faculty. Say that I am without, and wish to see one of my colleagues on an urgent matter."

"None of 'em's in just now but the assistant demonstrator," retorted the janitor, without budging. "_He_'s experimenting on a--well, he's engaged in a very pretty operation just now, and cannot be disturbed. No, sir. You had better not touch the door. I tell you, I do not admit nor permit. Stand back, sir!"

The professor stood back. He might have entered the lecture room by other doors, but he did not know it; and they were not visible from the spot where he stood. He had happened on the laboratory door, and that refused him. He staggered out to his cab, and sank down weakly.

"Drive me to my lawyer!" he cried. "Do not lose a moment--if you love her!"

* * * * *

It was eleven o'clock of the following morning; a dreamy June day, afloat with color, scent, and warmth, as gentle as the depths of tenderness in the human heart, and as vigorous as its noblest aspirations.

The students of the famous medical school of the University of St. George were crowding up the flagged walk and the old granite steps of the college; the lecture room was filling; the students chatted and joked profusely, as medical students do, on occasions least productive of amusement to the non-professional observer. There chanced to be some sprays of lily of the valley in a tumbler set upon the window sill of the adjoining physiological laboratory, and the flower seemed to stare at something which it saw within the room. Now and then, through the door connecting with the lecture room, a faint sound penetrated the laughter and conversation of the students,--a sound to hear and never to forget while remembrance rang through the brain, but not to tell of.

The room filled; the demonstrator appeared suddenly, in his fresh, white blouse; the students began to grow quiet. Some one had already locked the door leading from the laboratory to the hallway. The lily in the window looked, and seemed, in the low June wind, to turn its face away.

"Gentlemen," began the operator, "we have before us to-day a demonstration of unusual beauty and interest. It is our intention to study"--here he minutely described the nature of the operation. "There will be also some collateral demonstrations of more than ordinary value. The material has been carefully selected. It is young and healthy," observed the surgeon. "We have not put the subject under the usual anaesthesia,"--he motioned to his assistant, who at this point went into the laboratory,--"because of the importance of some preliminary experiments which were instituted yesterday, and to the perfection of which consciousness is conditional. Gentlemen, you see before you"--

The assistant entered through the laboratory door at this moment, bearing something which he held straight out before him. The students, on tiered and curving benches, looked down from their amphitheatre, lightly, as they had been trained to look.

"It is needless to say," proceeded the lecturer, "that the subject will be mercifully disposed of as soon as the demonstration is completed. And we shall operate with the greatest tenderness, as we always do. Gentlemen, I am reminded of a story"--

The demonstrator indulged in a little persiflage at this point, raising a laugh among the class; he smiled himself; he gestured with the scalpel, which he had selected while he was talking; he made three or four sinister cuts with it in the air, preparatory cuts,--an awful rehearsal. He held the instrument suspended, thoughtfully.

"The first incision"--he began. "Follow me closely, now. You see--Gentlemen? Gentlemen! Really, I cannot proceed in such a disturbance--What _is_ that noise?" With the suspended scalpel in his hand, the demonstrator turned impatiently.

"It's a row in the corridor," said one of the students. "We hope you won't delay for that, doctor. It's nothing of any consequence. Please go ahead."

But the locked door of the laboratory shook violently, and rattled in unseen hands. Voices clashed from the outside. The disturbance increased.

"Open! Open the door!" Heavy blows fell upon the panels.

"In the name of humanity, in the name of mercy, open this door!"

"It must be some of those fanatics," said the operator, laying down his instrument. "Where is the janitor? Call him to put a stop to this."

He took up the instrument with an impetuous motion; then laid it irritably down again. The attention of his audience was now concentrated upon the laboratory door, for the confusion had redoubled. At the same time feet were heard approaching the students' entrance to the lecture room. One of the young men took it upon himself to lock that door also, which was not the custom of the place; but he found no key, and two or three of his classmates joined him in standing against the door, which they barricaded. Their blood was up,--they knew not why; the fighting animal in them leaped at the mysterious intrusion. There was every prospect of a scene unprecedented in the history of the lecture room.

The expected did not happen. It appeared that some unsuccessful effort was made to force this door, but it was not prolonged; then the footsteps retreated down the stairs, and the demand at the laboratory entrance set in again,--this time in a new voice:--

"It is an officer of the court! There is a search-warrant for stolen property! Open in the name of the Law! _Open this door in the name of the Commonwealth!_"

Now the door sank open, was burst open, or was unlocked,--in the excitement, no one knew which or how,--and the professor and the lawyer, the officer and the search-warrant, fell in.

The professor pushed ahead, and strode to the operating table.

There lay the tiny creature, so daintily reared, so passionately beloved; he who had been sheltered in the heart of luxury, like the little daughter of the house herself; he who used never to know a pang that love or luxury could prevent or cure; he who had been the soul of tenderness, and had known only the soul of tenderness. There, stretched, bound, gagged, gasping, doomed to a doom which the readers of this page would forbid this pen to describe, lay the silver Yorkshire, kissing his vivisector's hand.

In the past few months Loveliness had known to the uttermost the matchless misery of the lost dog (for he had been sold and restolen more than once); he had known the miseries of cold, of hunger, of neglect, of homelessness, and other torments of which it is as well not to think; the sufferings which ignorance imposes upon animals. He was about to endure the worst torture of them all,--that reserved by wisdom and power for the dumb, the undefended, and the small.

The officer seized the scalpel which the demonstrator had laid aside, and slashed through the straps that bound the victim down. When the gag was removed, and the little creature, shorn, sunken, changed, almost unrecognizable, looked up into his master's face, those cruel walls rang to such a cry of more than human anguish and ecstasy as they had never heard before, and never may again.

The operator turned away; he stood in his butcher's blouse and stared through out of the laboratory window, over the head of the lily, which regarded him fixedly. The students grew rapidly quiet. When the professor took Loveliness into his arms, and the Yorkshire, still crying like a human child that had been lost and saved, put up his weak paws around his master's neck and tried to kiss the tears that fell, unashamed, down the cheeks of that eminent man, the lecture room burst into a storm of applause; then fell suddenly still again, as if it felt embarrassed both by its expression and by its silence, and knew not what to do.

"Has the knife touched him--anywhere?" asked the professor, choking.

"No, thank God!" replied the demonstrator, turning around timidly; "and I assure you--our regrets--such a mistake"--

"That will do, doctor," said the professor. "Gentlemen, let me pass, if you please. I have no time to lose. There is one waiting for this little creature who"--

He did not finish his sentence, but went out from among them. As he passed with the shorn and quivering dog in his arms, the students rose to their feet.

* * * * *

He stopped the cab a hundred feet away, went across a neighbor's lot, and got into the house by the back door, with the Yorkshire hidden under his coat. The doctor's buggy stood at the curbstone in front. The little girl was so weak that morning--what might not have happened?

The father felt, with a sudden sickness of heart, that time had hardly converged more closely with fate in the operating room than it was narrowing in his own home. The cook shrieked when she saw him come into the kitchen with the half-hidden burden in his arms; and Kathleen ran in, panting.

"Call the doctor," he commanded hoarsely, "and ask him what we shall do."

All the stories that he had ever read about joy that killed blazed through his brain. He dared neither advance nor retreat, but stood in the middle of the kitchen, stupidly. Then he saw that the quick wit of Kathleen had got ahead of him; for she was on her knees arranging the crimson blankets in the empty basket. Between the three, they gently laid the emaciated and disfigured dog into his own bed. Nora cried into the milk she was warming for the little thing. And the doctor came in while Loveliness feebly drank.

"Wait a minute," he said, turning on his heel. He went back to the room where the child lay among the white pillows, with her hand upon the empty gray satin cushion. Absently she stroked one of the red puppies whose gold eyes gazed forever at the saucer of green milk. She lay with her lashes on her cheeks. It was the first day that she had not watched the street. Her mother, sitting back at the door, was fanning her.

"Adah!" said the doctor cheerily. "We've got something good to tell you. Your father has found--there, there, my child!--yes, your father has found him. He looks a little queer and homesick--guess he's missed you some--and you mustn't mind how he looks, for--you see, Adah, we think he has lived with a--with a barber, and got shaved for nothing!" added the doctor stoutly.

The doctor had told his share of professional fibs in his day, like the most of his race; but I hope he was forgiven all the others for this one's merciful and beautiful sake.

"Come, professor!" he called, courageously enough. But his own heart beat as hard as the father's and the mother's, when the professor slowly mounted the stairs with the basket bed and the exhausted dog within it.

"LOVE-_li-ness_!" cried the child. It was the first loud word that she had spoken for months.

Then they lifted the dog and put him in her arms; and they turned away their faces, for the sight of that reunion was all the nerve could bear.

* * * * *

So it was as it has been, and ever will be, since the beginning to the end of time. Joy, the Angel of Delight and Danger, the most precious and the most perilous of messengers to the heart that loves, came to our two little friends, and might have destroyed, but saved instead.