Jane Cable

"I'm sorry I said it, daddy. I did not mean it in that way. It isn't the money, you know, and it isn't the home, either. No, you must let me choose my own way of living the rest of my life. I came from a foundling hospital. A good and tender nurse found me there and gave me the happiest years of my life. I shall go back there and give the rest of my years to children who are less fortunate than I was. I want to help them, mother, just as you did--only it is different with me."

"You'll see it differently some day," said Mrs. Cable earnestly.

"I don't object to your helping the foundlings, Jane," said Cable, "but I don't see why you have to be a nurse to do it. Other women support such causes and not as nurses, either. It's--"

"It's my way, daddy, that's all," she said firmly.

"Then why, in the name of Heaven, were you so unkind as to keep that poor boy over there alive when he might have died and ended his misery? You nursed him back to life only to give him a wound that cannot be healed. You would ruin his life, Jane. Is it fair? Damn me, I'm uncouth and hard in many ways--I had a hard, unkind beginning--but I really believe I've got more heart in me than you have."

"David!" exclaimed his wife. Jane looked at the exasperated man in surprise.

"Now here's what I intend you to do: you owe me something for the love that I give to you; you owe Graydon something for keeping him from dying. If you want to go into the nursing business, all right. But I'm going to demand some of your devotion for my own sake before that time comes. I've loved you all of your life--"

"And I've loved you, daddy," she gasped.

"And I'm going to ask you to begin your nursing career by attending to me. I'm sick for want of your love. I'm giving up business for the sake of enjoying it unrestrained. Your mother and I expect it. We are going abroad for our health and we are going to take you with us. Right now is where you begin your career as a nurse. You've got to begin by taking care of the love that is sick and miserable. We want it to live, my dear. Now, I want a direct decision--at once: will you take charge of two patients on a long-contemplated trip in search of love and rest--wages paid in advance?"

She looked at him, white-faced and stunned. He was putting it before her fluently and in a new light. She saw what it was that he considered that she owed them--the love of a daughter, after all.