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"Who is that calf, Evadne, standing by the piano?" Louis put the question to his cousin the next evening, as he sought a few moments' respite from his duties as host at her side.
"That is Mr. Simpson Kennard."
Louis surveyed the fashionably dressed, weak-faced, sandy-haired young man from head to foot. "He will never get above his collar!" he said in a tone of infinite scorn.
Evadne laughed. "You must confess it is high enough to limit the aspirations of an ordinary mortal."
Marion fluttered up to them, her cheeks aglow with excitement. "Louis, where are you? I want to introduce you to Simpsey. He has just arrived."
Evadne looked after her as she led her brother away. "Poor little soul.
What a butterfly it is! Fancy having a husband whom one could call
Simpsey!"
She started. Her knight of the gate was standing before her with outstretched hand. A great light was in his face. "Do you remember?" he asked, and Evadne's eyes glowed deep with pleasure, as she laid her hand in his. They would never be properly introduced, these two, "'Life is a beautiful possibility,'" she said, "I am proving it so every day,—but, oh, the awful suffering in the world! I cannot understand,—"
And John Randolph answered with his strong, sweet faith. "God understands, we do not need to."
They were standing in an alcove partially screened by a tall palm from the crowd which surged up and down through the rooms. He took from his pocket a morocco case, and, opening it, held it towards her. What made the color flush her cheeks while her eyes fell beneath his gaze? She only saw a little square of lawn and lace, but the name traced across one corner was 'Evadne'!
"Did you leave nothing behind you at Hollywood that day?" he asked gently.
"My handkerchief!" she cried. "I missed it before we reached Marlborough. I must have left it at the gate." But Evadne had left more behind her than she knew.
"I will keep it still," he said, "with your permission. Will you give it to me?"
"Oh, Doctor Randolph!" Isabelle's voice fell shrill upon Evadne's silence, "they are calling for you in the other room to decide a knotty question—something about microbes. I told them I was sure you would know. Will you come?"
John Randolph put the case quickly in his pocket and smiled as he turned away. He thought he had read consent in her lovely eyes.
After the reception was over Evadne knelt by her window until the stars faded one by one from the sky. Then she turned away with a happy sigh. When he came to get his answer, she would know.
* * * * *
"Give that to me!" Isabella spoke imperiously to the servant, who was passing through the hall with a note in her hand. From where she stood she had recognized the clear handwriting of the prescriptions which the new doctor wrote. Her demon of curiosity overcame her. The tempter was very near.
The girl held the note towards her. "It is for Miss Evadne," she said.
"Miss E. Hildreth, you see."
Isabelle gave a careless laugh. "Did you not know I had an E in my name also? Evelyn Isabelle. I know the writing. The note is meant for me."
So the truth and the lie mingled! When John Randolph called that evening he was ushered into the presence of Isabelle.
"I am so sorry about Evadne!" she exclaimed, before he had time to speak. "She had an engagement with my brother. He monopolizes her whenever he is at home." She laughed affectedly. "Oh, I cannot tell you when it is coming off, but she has worn his ring for years. They will not give us any satisfaction—deep as the sea, you know. It seems so strange to me, but then I am so transparent. She is a clever girl, but very peculiar. Does not seem to have much natural feeling, you know, but I suppose I am not fitted to judge, I am so emotional!"
John Randolph bit his lip hard. It startled him to find how sharp a pain could be.
* * * * *
Day after day Evadne waited but her knight never asked for his answer. She began to meet him professionally, for his reputation was steadily increasing, but he made no attempt to resume the conversation which had been so rudely interrupted. He treated her with a delicate chivalry always—that was John Randolph's way—and once she had caught such a strange, wistful expression on his face as he looked at her and then at a patient's arm which she was deftly bandaging. She was puzzled. What could it all mean? Well, God understood.
The surgical ward in the new Hospital at Marlborough was filled to its utmost capacity and Evadne found her work no sinecure. The force of nurses was inadequate to the demand. Often she would be called from her rest to minister to the critical cases which were her special care, and she would go down to the ward saying softly, "The Master is come and calleth for thee," and bending tenderly over the sufferers, would behold as in a vision the face of Christ.
"My dear Miss Hildreth!" the superintendent exclaimed one day, "how is it that you make the patients love you so?"
Evadne laughed merrily. "If they do," she said, "it must be because of my love for them." And the Superintendent answered in a hushed voice, "Why, that is the Gospel!"
They called her 'Sister,' these rough men. She liked it so. She felt herself a sister to the world.
It was evening and the lights were turned low in the surgical ward. Evadne was making her round before going to her room for a sorely needed rest. John Randolph, who had come to pay a second visit to an interesting case in one of the medical wards, stood in the shadow of the doorway and watched her hungrily. Each one wanted to say something and Evadne listened patiently. To her the mission of a nurse meant something higher than gruel and bandages. She never forgot as she ministered to the body that she was dealing with a soul.
John Randolph, standing with folded arms in the doorway, heard her low, sweet laugh, as she strove to brighten up a lachrymose patient; and caught at intervals the name of Jesus, as she reminded one and another of the Friend whose sympathy is strong enough to bear all the weight of human pain, and once he thought he heard the sweet note of a prayer. He started forward. Evadne was bending over a man who had been badly crippled in a saw mill. His left arm was gone and all the fingers from his right hand. With the morbidness of those who delight in concentrating attention upon their own sufferings, he had pulled off the loosened bandage with his teeth and held up the stump for inspection, and Evadne had laid her cool, soft hands on either side of the unsightly mass of red and angry flesh and was holding them there while she talked!
"She gives herself!" cried John Randolph with a great throb of longing.
"It is what Jesus did, in Galilee."
A wave of passion broke over him. It was not true, this story. It could not be! How could her nature, sweet as light, ever be attuned to that of her cynical cousin? She was coming nearer, nearer. He would stay and meet her. He thought he had read his answer in her eyes. Now he would have it from her lips as well.
But then, there was the ring! Isabelle had been right. It was no lady's ornament, and he had seen the initials L. H. graven in the heart of the stone as their hands had met one day in dressing a wound. Evadne Hildreth was not one to wear a man's ring lightly and John Randolph bent his head and groaned.
"Sister, Sister, won't you sing before you go?"
"Oh, yes, Sister, give us just one song!"
The men raised themselves on their elbows in pleading entreaty, and Evadne stood in all her sweet unconsciousness before him and began to do their will. Soft and clear the music fell about him. The air was 'The last Rose of Summer' but the words were 'Jesus, Lover of my soul.' When the song was ended, John Randolph, hushed and comforted, walked noiselessly down the stairway and out into the quiet street.
Evadne had sung her message, while she folded its leaves of healing down over her own sore heart, and human love had paled before the exquisite beauty of the love of God!