Chapter 15

Courtland had run three blocks and turned two corners before he dared stop and set the girl upon her feet again. He looked anxiously at her white face and great, frightened eyes. Her lips were trembling and she was shivering. He tore his overcoat off, wrapped it about her, and before she could protest caught her up again and ran on another block or two.

"Oh, you must not!" she cried. "I can walk perfectly well, and I don't need your coat. Please, please put on your coat and let me walk! You will take a terrible cold!"

"I can run better without it," he explained, briefly, "and we can get out of the way of those fellows quicker this way!"

So she lay still in his arms till he put her down again. He looked up and down either way, hoping to see the familiar red-and-green lights of a drug-store open late; but none greeted him; all the buildings seemed to be residences.

Somewhere in the distance he heard the whir of a late trolley. He glanced at his watch. It was half past one. If only a taxicab would come along. But no taxi was in sight. The girl was begging him to put on his overcoat. She had drawn it from her own shoulders and was holding it out to him insistently. But with the rare smile that Courtland was noted for he took the coat and wrapped it firmly about her shoulders again, this time putting her arms in the sleeves and buttoning it up to the chin.

"Now," said he, "you're not to take that off again until we get where it is warm. You needn't worry about me. I'm quite used to going out in all weathers without my coat as often as with it. Besides, I've been exercising. When did you have something to eat?"

"When I left the hospital this evening. I had some strong beef-tea," she answered, airily, as if that had been only a few minutes before.

"How did you happen to be where I found you?" he asked, looking at her keenly.

"Why, I must have missed my way, I think," she explained, "and I felt a little weak from having been in bed so long. I just sat down on a door-step to rest a minute before I went on, and I'm afraid I must have fallen asleep."

"You were _walking_?" His tone was stern. "Why were you walking?"

A desperate look came into her face. "Well, I hadn't any car fare, if you must know the reason."

They were passing a street light as she said it, and he looked down at her fine little white profile in wonder and awe. He felt a sudden choking in his throat and a mist in his eyes. He had it on the tip of his tongue to say, "You poor little girl!" but instead he said, in a tone of intense admiration:

"Well, you certainly are the pluckiest girl I ever saw! You have your nerve with you all right! But you're not going to walk another step to-night!"

And with that he stooped, gathered her up again, and strode forward. He could hear the distant whir of another trolley, and he determined to take it, no matter which way it was going. It would take them somewhere and he could telephone for an ambulance. So he sprinted forward, regardless of her protests, and arrived at the next corner just in time to catch the car going cityward.

There was nobody else in the car and he made her keep the coat about her. He couldn't help seeing how worn and thin her little shabby shoes were, and how she shivered now even in the great coat. He saw she was just keeping up her nerve, and he was filled with admiration.

"Why did you run away from the hospital?" he asked, suddenly, looking straight into her sad eyes.

"I couldn't afford to stay any longer."

"You made a big mistake. It wouldn't have cost you a cent. That room was free. I made sure of that before I secured it for you."

"But that was a private room!"

"Just a little more private than the wards. That room was paid for and put at the disposal of the doctor to use for whoever he thought needed quiet. Now are you satisfied? And you are going straight back there till you are well enough to go out again! You raised a big row in the hospital, running away. They've had the whole force of assistants out hunting you for hours, and your nurse is awfully upset about you. She seems to be crazy over you, anyway. She nearly wept when she telephoned me. And I've been out for hours hunting you, stirred up the old lady on your floor at your home, and a lot of hospitals and other places, and then just came on you in the nick of time. I hope you've learned your lesson, to be a good little girl after this and not run away."

He smiled indulgently, but the girl's eyes were full of tears.

"I didn't mean to make all that trouble for people. Why should you all care about a stranger? But, oh! I'm so thankful you came! Those men were terrible!" She shuddered. "How did you happen to come there? I think God must have led you."

"He did!" said Courtland, with conviction.

When they reached the big city station he stowed his patient into a taxi and sent a messenger up to the restaurant for hot chicken broth, which he administered himself.

She lay back with her eyes closed after the broth was finished. He realized that she had reached the full limit of her endurance. She had forgotten even to protest against wearing his overcoat any longer.

It was a strange ride. The silent girl sat closely wrapped in her corner, fast asleep. The car bounded over obstacles now and then, or swung around corners and threw her about like a ball, but she did not waken; and finally Courtland drew her head down upon his shoulder and put his arm about her to keep her from being thrown out of her seat; and she settled down like a tired child. He could not help thinking of that other girl lying stark and dead in the morgue, and being glad that this one was safe.

Nurse Wright was hovering about the hallway when the taxi drew up to the entrance of the hospital, and Bonnie was tenderly cared for at once.

Courtland began to realize that this great hospital was an evidence of the Presence of Christ in the world! He was not the only one who had felt the Presence. Some one moved as he had been to-night had established this big house of healing. There on the opposite wall was a great stained-glass window representing Christ blessing the little children, and the people bringing the maimed and halt and lame and blind to Him for healing.

The quiet night routine went on about him; the strong, pervasive odor of antiseptics; the padded tap of the nurses' rubber soles as they went softly on their rounds; the occasional click of a glass and a spoon somewhere; the piteous wail of a suffering child in a distant ward; the sharp whir of an electric bell; the homely thud of the elevator on its errands up and down; even the controlled yet ready spring to service of all concerned when the ambulance rolled up and a man on a stretcher, with a ghastly cut in his head and face, was brought in; all made him feel how little and useless his life had been hitherto. How suddenly he had been brought face to face with realities!

He began to wonder if the Presence was everywhere, or if there were places where His power was not manifest. There had been the red library! There also had been that church last Sunday.

The office clock chimed softly out the hour of three o'clock. It was Sunday morning. Should he go to church again and search for the Presence, or make up his mind that the churches were out of it entirely and that it was only in places of need and sorrow and suffering that He came? Still, that was not fair to the churches, perhaps, to judge all by one. What an experience the night had been! Did Wittemore, majoring in philanthropy, ever spend nights like this? If so, there must be depths to Wittemore's nature that were worth sounding.

He drew his handkerchief from his inner pocket, and as he did so a whiff of violets came remindingly, but he paid no heed. Gila's letter lay in his pocket, still unread. The antiseptics were at work upon his senses and the violets could not reach him.

There were dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was in a tumble, but he looked good to Nurse Wright as she came down the hall at last to give him her report. She almost thought he was good enough for her Bonnie girl now. She wasn't given to romances, but she felt that Bonnie needed one most mightily about now.

"She didn't wake up except to open her eyes and smile once," she reported, reassuringly. "She coughs a little now and then, with a nasty sound in it, but I hope we can ward off pneumonia. It was great of you to put your overcoat around her. That saved her, if anything can, I guess. You look pretty well used up yourself. Wouldn't you like the doctor to give you something before you go home?"

"No, thank you. I'll be all right. I'm hard as nails. I'm only anxious about her. You see, she's had a pretty tough pull of it. She started to walk to the city! Did you know that? I fancy she'd gone about two miles. It was somewhere along near the river I found her. It seems she got "all in" and sat down on a door-step to rest. She must have fallen asleep. Some tough fellows came out of a saloon--they were full, of course--and they discovered her. I heard her scream, and we had quite a little scuffle before we got away. She's a nervy little girl. Think of her starting to walk to the city at that time of night, without a cent in her pocket!"

"The poor child!" said Nurse Wright, with tears in her kind, keen eyes. "And she left her last cent here to pay for her room! My! When I think of it I could choke that smart young snob that called on her in the afternoon! You ought to have heard her sneers and her insinuations. Women like that are a blight on womanhood! And she dared to mention your name--said you had sent her!"

The color heightened in Courtland's face. He felt uncomfortable. "Why, I--didn't exactly send her," he began, uneasily. "I don't really know her very well. You see, I'm just a student at the university and of course I don't know a great many girls in the city. I thought it would be nice if some girl would call on Miss Brentwood; she seemed so alone. I thought another girl would understand and be able to comfort her."

"She isn't a _girl_, that's what's the matter with her; she's a little _demon_!" snapped the nurse. "You meant well, and I dare say she never showed _you_ the demon side of her. Girls like that don't--to young _men_. But if you take my advice you won't have anything more to do with _her_! She isn't worth it! She may be rich and fashionable and all that, but she can't hold a candle to Miss Brentwood! If you had just heard how she went on, with her nasty little chin in the air and her nasty phrases and insinuations, and her patronage! And then Miss Brentwood's gentle, refined way of answering her! But never mind, I won't go into that! It might take me all night, and I've got to go back to my patient. But you are not to blame yourself one particle. I hope Miss Brentwood's going to get through this all right in a few days, and she'll probably have forgotten all about it, so don't you worry. I think it would be a good thing if you were to come in and see her to-morrow afternoon a few minutes. It might cheer her up. You really have been fine, you know! No telling where she might have been by this time if you hadn't gone out after her!"

The young man shuddered involuntarily, and thought of the faces of the five young fellows who had surrounded her.

"I saw a little girl in the morgue to-night, drowned!" he said, irrelevantly. "She wasn't any older than Miss Brentwood."

The nurse gave an understanding look. On her way back to her rounds she said to herself: "I believe he's a _real man_! If I hadn't thought so I wouldn't have told him he might come and see her to-morrow!"

Then she went into Bonnie's room, took the letter with the Western postmark, and stood it up against a medicine-glass on the little table beside the bed, where Bonnie could see it the first thing when she opened her eyes.