LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

sought to keep the muscles doing their duty to the end, and then the poor brain fagged as the last stroke was made, and the man slumped back to the pillow, the limp hand dropped to his side, the grasp on the pen relaxed, and the pen snapped away to the floor, its duty done.

      The young man recovered the pen. Astra dropped down in her chair where she had sat for dictation and began to get the papers in shape for the witnesses.

      The doctor, with his finger on the sick man's pulse, was giving attention to his patient, the nurse removing the bed table, straightening the covers.

      Then the sick man's eyes opened anxiously, as if there were one more command he must give. His lips were stiff, but he murmured with a wry twist one word. "Witnesses!" He tried to motion toward the papers, but his hand dropped uselessly on the bed. He looked at the doctor pleadingly and the doctor bowed.

      "Yes sir! I'll sign as a witness!" Turning, he stooped over the little table that had been placed beside Astra and wrote his name clearly, hastily, on each paper. The sick man's glance went to the others, and one by one they all signed their names: Astra, the young man, and the nurse. Then the sick man drew a deep sigh and closed his eyes with finality, as if he felt he had done everything and was content.

      The doctor and nurse did their best, but a gray shadow was stealing over the man's face. He scarcely seemed to be breathing.

      Astra, after signing her name as a witness, gathered the papers up carefully, laid them together on the table, and sat there watching that dying face, a little at a loss to know just what was expected of her next. The young man and the doctor had stepped outside in the corridor and were talking in low tones. The nurse was mixing something from a bottle in a glass. Then suddenly the sick man opened his eyes and looked up, and his face was filled with anguish.

      "Pray!" he murmured, almost inaudibly.

      The nurse was on the alert at once with a spoonful of medicine.

      "Pray!" she said snappily. "You want someone should make a prayer? Well, I'll ask the doctor to get a preacher."

      She stepped to the door and murmured something to the doctor, but the sick man cast an anguished glance toward Astra.

      "Can't you—pray?" he gasped. "I can't—wait!"

      His breath was almost gone, and the girl sensed his desperation. Swiftly, she dropped back to the chair again and bent her head, her lips not far from the dying man's ear, and began to pray in a clear young voice.

      "Oh heavenly Father, Thou didst so love the whole world that though all of us were sinners, Thou didst send Thine own dear Son to take our sins upon Himself and die on the cross to pay our penalty, so that all who would believe on Him might be saved. Hear us now as we cry to Thee for this soul in need. Give him faith to believe in what Thou hast done for him. May he rest in Thy strength and know that Thou wilt put Thine arms around him and guide him into the Light. Give him Thy peace in his soul as he trusts in what the precious blood of Jesus has done for him. Make him know that he has nothing to do but trust Thee. We ask it in the name of Jesus our Savior, Amen."

      "Amen!" came a soft murmur from the dying lips.

      Then suddenly a loud, disagreeable voice boomed into the solemnity of the little room, where the voice of prayer still lingered.

      "Well, really! What's the meaning of all this? George Faber, what are you doing in here, I'd like to know?"

      Astra looked up and saw a tall, imposing woman, smartly turned out and groomed to the last hair. Lipstick and rouge and expensive powder combined to give her a lovely baby complexion that somehow only made her look older and very hard. She was looking straight at Astra with cold, hostile eyes.

      Yet so sacred had been the scene through which Astra had just passed that she did not at first take in that this hostility was directed toward herself.

      The doctor had suddenly arrived, with a warning hand flung up for silence, but the woman paid no attention and boomed on.

      "I go into the diner to get my dinner and leave my husband in his seat because he said he didn't want any dinner! Just stubbornness that he wouldn't eat! And then I come back and find him gone! And when I at last track him down, I find him in bed with a whole mob around him! And this designing young woman—who is she?—whining around and putting over some sort of pious act. Who is she?—I demand to know!"

      But the last of the question was smothered by the doctor's hand firmly laid across the woman's lips as he and the nurse grasped her arms and forced her out of the room into the corridor, closing the door sharply behind her.

      After that things were a bit confused. The sick man's eyes were closed. He looked like death. Had he heard that awful voice maligning him?

      Astra stood at one side, the papers with the dictation grasped in her hands, her frightened eyes on the sick man. Was he living yet?

      Then the door opened and the young man beckoned her to come out. The woman seemed to have disappeared for the moment.

      The young man drew Astra over to an unoccupied section and made her sit down.

      "Shall I take these papers for the time being?" he said, and she surrendered them thankfully. He slipped them inside his briefcase.

      "Mr. Faber seemed to be anxious that no one else came in on this side. He told me that before I came after you," he said in explanation of his care.

      "Now will you sit here for a few minutes until I can scout around and find out the possibilities? I suppose these telegrams ought to get off at once. There's a Western Union man on board. Just stay here and I'll see what can be done. I won't be long."

      He hurried away, and Astra sat there staring at the great white flakes that were coming down like miniature blankets lapping over each other on the windowpanes. The warm train seemed so protected from the darkness that had come down while she had been busy. There seemed a great quiet sadness all about her as she sat thinking of the little tragedy. She had a strange feeling that God had been in that stateroom while she had been praying for the dying man, and He had heard her prayer. She seemed still to hear the echo of that whispered "Amen!" as if it were the heartfelt assent of the man's passing soul. And it seemed a strange thing that it had been so arranged that she should have been the one to answer that cry from a dying man.

      She wondered, was he gone yet? It surely had seemed like the end. Her own sorrowful experience when her father died had taught her to know the signs. And it had really seemed to give him relief to leave those messages behind. She was glad she had been able to help.

      Then she heard a door open sharply at the extreme other end of the car, and footsteps, silken stirrings, sounded down the corridor. Suddenly there was the smart lady coming stormily down toward her, battle in her eyes.

      She sighted Astra almost at once and fixed her cold blue gaze upon her, coming on with evident intention to do her worst.

      Now she was upon her, standing in front of her with the attitude of an officer of the law come to bring her to justice.

      "Who are you?" she demanded, and her voice rose again. "And what were you doing in my husband's stateroom, you shameless creature, you?"

      CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

      Astra looked at the woman with surprise, growing into dawning comprehension, and then a quick glow of interest.

      "Oh," she said pleasantly, "you didn't understand what happened, did you? I didn't go in there of my own accord. I was asked to go."

      "Indeed!" said the woman arrogantly. "Who could possibly have asked you to go? Who had a right to do so? Who are you, anyway?"

      "Oh," said Astra with a quiet calm upon her and the hint of a smile through the gravity of her expression, "I am just a stenographer they asked to come and take some dictation for a man who was dying."

      "Nonsense!"

Скачать книгу