It is not strange, then, that he should start and stagger backward when
he came so suddenly upon the doctor, or that the first impulse of weak
human nature was to leave the fallen man, but the second, the Christian
impulse, bade him stay, and forgetting his own slight but painful wound,
he bent over Adah's husband, and did what he could to alleviate the
anguish he saw was so hard to bear. At the sound of his voice, a spasm
of pain passed over the doctor's pallid face, and the flash of a sudden
fire gleamed for a moment in his eye, as he, too, remembered Adah, and
thought of what might be when the grass was growing over his untimely
grave.
The doctor knew that he was dying, and yet his first question was: "Do you think I can live? Did any one ever recover with such a wound as
this?"
Eagerly the dim eyes sought the face above them, the kind, good face of
one who would not deceive him. Irving shook his head as he felt the
pulse, and answered frankly: "I believe you will die."
There was a bitter moan, as all his misspent life came up before him,
followed closely by the dark future, where there shone no ray of hope,
and then with the desperate thought, "It's too late now for regrets.
I'll meet it like a man," he said: "It may as well be I as any one, though it's hard even for me to die;
harder than you imagine;" then, growing excited as he talked, he raised
himself upon his elbow, and continued: "Major Stanley, tell me truly, do
you love the woman you know as Maria Gordon?"
"I did love her once, before I knew I must not--but now--I--yes, Dr.
Richards, my heart tells me that never was she so dear to me as now when
her husband lies dying at my side."
Irving Stanley hardly knew what he was saying, but the doctor--the
husband, understood, and almost shrieked out the words: "You know then that she is Adah, a wife, a mother, and that I am her
lawful husband?"
"I know the whole," was the reply, as with his hand Irving dipped water
from the brook and laved the feverish brow of the dying man, who went on
to speak of Adah as she was when he first knew her, and of the few happy
months spent with her in those humble lodgings.
"You don't know my darling," he whispered. "She's an angel, and I might
have been so happy with her. Oh, if I could only live, but that can't be
now, and it is well. Come close to me, Major Stanley, and listen while I
tell you that Adah promised if I would do my duty to my country
faithfully, she would live with me again, and all the while she
promised, her heart was breaking, for she did not love me. It had all
died out for me. It had been given to another; can you guess to whom?"