CHAPTER XXIV — TERESA VELASQUEZ
Great was the disappointment of Major March and his men when they found that neither Aguinaldo nor Pilar had fallen into their hands. Although they had come just in time to prevent the complete annihilation of the little company, the leaders had escaped with the remnant of their surprised forces. Scores of Filipinos were captured, dozens were killed and wounded. Eight of the dashing scouts who went out with Jerry Connell gave up their lives in exchange for the final victory.
A small guard was left at the convent to care for the wounded, the bulk of the command hurrying off at dawn to search for the routed Filipinos. Graydon Bansemer was put in charge of the convent guard. A surgeon and the application of "first aid to the injured" principles soon transformed the convent into a well arranged hospital. Uncle Sam's benevolence was also cheerfully extended to the wounded Filipinos. The days of the "water cure" and "ungodly butchery" had not yet come.
Young Velasquez died soon after daybreak. He had been dying for days. His sister's grief was pathetic in the extreme—aye, demoralising, for it struck deep into the hearts of soldiers who had scoffed at the life-blood of man, but could not brave the tears of a woman.
Bansemer did all in his power to comfort and console her. It was to him that she clung in her despair. He had been her captor; and yet it had been he who stood forth in his might to defend her and the loved one who was dead. At nightfall the dead were buried in that far-off wilderness, their humble graves marked and recorded before the time when the government could come to give other graves in other lands to these who had given their lives. Velasquez was laid beside the Americans. Teresa, a shivering, sobbing little figure in the garb of an insurgent soldier, was supported by big Graydon Bansemer. There was no service except the short army ritual; there was no priest or pastor; there was but one real mourner—a pretty, heart-broken girl who lay for hours beside the rude mound on the hillside.
Word came back at nightfall that the detachments were to form a junction at one of the big villages westward in two days. The instructions were that the wounded Filipinos should be left in the village, where native women and doctors would care for them.
"What in thunder are we to do with the girl?" was the question that came from the officer in command. More than one man scratched his head thoughtfully and looked toward the disturbing element that had come into the army. She was sitting alone and disconsolate in front of the church.
"There's no way to send her back to her friends, and we can't leave her here," said Bansemer.
"But, gee whiz, we can't take her on a hike like this," protested the sergeant. "She'll be in the way, and she'll give out, and all that. Besides, what would we do with a woman around all the time?"
"I fancy she can hike all right," said Graydon. "Major March wouldn't expect us to leave her behind. That would be heartless."
By the time the party and guides was ready to start on its forced march, the opinion, unanimously expressed was that Teresa Velasquez should go forward also, come what might. She had pleaded so hard and so effectually that the men were fairly swept off their feet in a storm of sympathy.
"If she gives out we'll carry her," roared a deeply impressed young man with long red whiskers.
"And when we get up to the command we'll make them derned correspondents take turn about walkin', so she can ride a pony all the time. They've got no business ridin', anyhow."
And so with rosy confidence in the fitness of things and a just belief in the charity of Major March, the detachment marched out into the hills, the ward of the company trudging bravely beside the tall and envied Mr. Bansemer—who, by the way, aside from being politely attentive, did not exhibit any undue signs of exaltation.
The presence of a woman—and a very pretty one at that, with a sadness in her eyes that was appealing—served only to send his thoughts bounding back to the girl he had left behind. He grew more and more morose and silent as the day wore on; at times the tired, lonely girl at his side lagged and cast wondering, piteous glances at him. Her woman's intuition told her that this man did not belong where he was; it told her also that he had a secret and that one of her sex was deeply involved.
The events of the next two weeks are of small consequence in this narrative, which deals not so much with the history and mystery of the campaign in the fall of '99 as with the welfare and emotions of a single soldier at the front. Aguinaldo and Pilar had become refugees by this time, hunted and hounded from place to place with relentless fervour. Pilar was somewhere in the hills with his men, the pride of the insurgent forces; Aguinaldo's remnant had scurried off in another direction, and General Tono was on the coast with what was left of the scattered force.
The net about Gregorio del Pilar was being drawn in and tightened. The closing week in November saw him driven to the last extremity. The tragedy of Tilad Pass was near at hand.
Teresa Velasquez never faltered, never tired. She proved herself to be no incumbrance. Day after day, the officer in command expected the expedition which would take her back to Manila; forces came up from the south, but none were ready to go back.
She was an inspiration to the camp. Men who had forgotten their manners completely brushed them up and danced attendance upon the girl in the Filipino uniform.
Every man prayed for opportunity to do brave deeds, and when chance came she was permitted to witness heroism that savoured of the boyhood malady known as "showing off."
The reserved, but considerate Bansemer was her closest friend and confidant. One evening, as they sat side by side watching the preparations for supper, she turned suddenly and announced that she knew he was dying of love for someone. He started and his hand trembled.
"Tell me about her," she commanded. There was a piquancy, a gay impelling force in this girl that grief and hardship had not been strong enough to conquer. Her hours of sadness were spent alone—hours when she was supposed to sleep, but instead, lay awake and sobbed without tears.
"Nonsense!" said Graydon. "Why do you think that of me?"
"Because everybody else thinks it," she said; "and because I am a very wise person. The men are not so charitable as I, senor. They say that you joined the army because of some woman whom you could not marry. I agree with them, except that it is she who would not marry you. Forgive me, if I have hurt you."
Impulsively, she put her hand upon his, her dark eyes full of pleading. The touch of her hand did not send a thrill through him; such contact, however, caused the blood to tingle in the quick veins of the girl. He merely sat and stared into space. After a moment, she drew her hand away.
"I am sorry," she said.
"There is a girl, Teresa," he said shortly.
"Yes, I know. Tell me about her."
"I can't," he exclaimed, bitterly. He arose and walked quickly away. Teresa's dark eyes followed him in pity and wonder, aye, affection. Then she shook her head sadly and turned her attention elsewhere—not piqued, much to her own amazement.
Reinforcements came up two days later with the word that the commander in chief expected the campaign against Pilar to end within a week, and that hard fighting was ahead. The Red Cross people were following hard upon the heels of the regiment and field hospitals were to be established. This information was so suggestive of fierce and final combat that the men felt their sluggish blood leap wildly into life.
Every man in the band of newcomers was singing the praises of a wonderfully beautiful Red Cross nurse. The stories told of her charms were varied, but none lacked enthusiasm. Some said she was the daughter of a rich magnate come to do service in the cause of humanity; others were sure she was a great and beautiful actress who was sacrificing everything to conspicuous advertising. All, however, were agreed in the praise of her noble beauty.
The little detachment on guard turned up its collective nose and proudly pointed to Teresa Velasquez.
"Look at that," said Bob Spurrier. "Can she stack up with the hiking queen? Our girl is real quality. She's no common American. She's a grandee's daughter. There's royal blood in her. By thunder, gentlemen, she's blood kin to little Alfonso."
Teresa sought shelter from the curious though admiring eyes of the fresh arrivals.
"I don't like these new soldiers," she complained to Graydon. "I wish they had not come. They talk of this beautiful nurse and they laugh at me. Oh, I wish I had something else to wear."
"Don't worry, little girl, you're worth ten nurses," said he.
"Alas, though I am dressed as a man, I do not feel as bold as one," she lamented.
The next day reinforcements came up and the whole command advanced upon Tilad Pass, where Pilar, at last, had been cornered. On the second of December a desperate conflict took place. Pilar was intrenched in the Pass near the celebrated rock known as El Obispo—"the Bishop." His resistance for a time was valorous and deadly. Corporal Parry saw him mount his horse behind the barricade, six hundred yards away. Parry was the best marksman in the regiment, and turning to his chief officer, asked if he should take a shot at him.
He fired and Pilar fell, face downward; and the Americans crushed the little band of insurgents. Gregorio Del Pilar was dead. His death in the great hills, after a most courageous battle against an overwhelming force, brought to an end a life that would have been worth much to the islands in after years. In his pockets were found valuable papers, letters and keepsakes. The letters were from his sweetheart, Dolores Jose, who lived at Dagupan, and they were tender in the extreme. Her lace handkerchief rested over his heart.
When the Americans, victorious and jubilant, fell back to camp, they had no small number of wounded to turn over to the tender mercies of the little company of Red Cross nurses and the surgeons.
One of the most dangerously injured was Graydon Bansemer. He was one of the first to cross the danger line; a Mauser ball from a distant hill tore through his side, leaving an ugly gaping wound that foretold certain death.
CHAPTER XXV — THE BEAUTIFUL NURSE
When the beautiful and mysterious nurse whose fame had gone up with the soldiers into Tilad Pass, arrived with others to take charge of the Red Cross hospital, on the day following the battle, she found the man she had been longing to see for many weary, heartsick months. She found him dying.
To the surprise of the enthralled command, she fell in a dead swoon when she looked upon the pallid face of Graydon Bansemer. She had gone eagerly from one pallet to another, coming upon his near the last. One glance was enough. His face had been in her mind for months—just as she was seeing it now; she had lived in the horror of finding him cold in death.
It was Teresa Velasquez who first understood. She knew that Bansemer's one woman had found him at last. Her heart leaped with hatred for one brief instant, then turned soft and contrite. If she had learned to care for the big American herself during the hard days when he had been so tender, she also had learned that her worship was hopeless. She had felt his yearning love for another; now she was looking upon that other. While the attendants were bending over their unconscious companion, the Spanish girl stood guard over the man who had been her guardian, the man whose life was going out before her miserable, exhausted eyes.
Jane Cable stirred with returning life; Teresa was quick to see that words not medicine would act as the restorative. She went swiftly to the American girl's side and, clasping her hands, cried sharply into her half conscious ears:
"He is not dead! He is alive! He needs you!"
The effect was magical. Life leaped into Jane's eyes, vigour into her body. She recovered from the swoon as mysteriously as she had succumbed to it. Her sudden breakdown had puzzled her companions. It is true that she was new in the service; she had seen but little of death and suffering; but, with all that, she was known to possess remarkable strength of purpose and fortitude. That she should collapse almost at the outset of her opportunities was the source of wonder and no little contempt among her fellow workers. The words of the strange girl in men's clothing opened the way to smart surmises. It was not long before everyone in the command knew that the "beautiful Red Cross nurse" was not wearing the garb of the vocation for the sake of humanity alone—in fact, it was soon understood that she did not care a straw for the rest of mankind so long as Graydon Bansemer needed her ministrations.
Ignoring the principles of the cause she served, she implored the doctors to confine their efforts to one man among all of them who suffered; she pleaded and stormed in turn, finally offering fabulous bribes in support of her demands. For the time being, she was half crazed with fear and dread, woefully unworthy of her station, partially divorced from reason.
The more desperately wounded were left in the village with an adequate guard, the rest of the command departing with Major March. A temporary hospital was established in the convent. There were two doctors and four or five nurses, with a dozen soldiers under command of Lieutenant Bray. It was while the apparently dead Bansemer was being moved to the improvised hospital that Jane presented herself, distraught with fear, to the young Southerner who had so plainly shown his love for her. She pleaded with him to start at once for Manila with the wounded, supporting her extraordinary request with the opinion that they could not receive proper care from the two young surgeons. Bray was surprised and distressed; he could not misunderstand her motive.
He had gone on caring for her without suspecting that there was or had been another man; she had not confided in him during those weary, pleasant months since they left San Francisco behind them. To learn the true situation so suddenly and unexpectedly stunned his sensibilities; he found difficulty in grasping the importance of the change an hour or two had made. He had fought valiantly, even exultantly, in the Pass that morning, her face ever before him, her words of praise the best spoils of the victory, should they win. He had come down to the village with joy and confidence in his heart, only to find that he was not, and could never be, anything to her, while the life or memory of this fallen comrade stood as a barrier.
Bray's hour following the discovery that she had deliberately sought out and found this stricken private was the most bitter in his life. His pride suffered a shock that appalled him; his unconscious egotism, born of hereditary conquests, revolted against the thought that his progress toward her heart was to be turned aside by the intervention of a common soldier in the ranks. Gentleman though he was, he could not subdue the feeling of exultation that came over him when she approached with her plea. He knew that it was a base sense of power that made him feel that he could punish his pride's offender by either denying or granting her appeal. The attitude of self-sacrifice appealed to his wounded vanity; he was tempted to profit by an exhibition of his own pain and generosity.
He went with her into the convent and to the pallet on which was stretched the long, still figure of Graydon Bansemer. A surgeon was standing near by, studying the grey face with thoughtful eyes. Bray's first glance at the suffering face sent a thrill of encouragement through his veins. The man was beyond all human help; the grip of death was already upon his heart.
Then, the true manhood that had been his, through all generations, revolted against the thought that was in his mind. The man should not die if it was in his power to prevent; no matter what the cost to him, he would give his aid to her and hers. He tried to put aside the feeling that death was certain—and very soon, at that; he sought honestly to justify himself in the hope that Bansemer's life could be saved, after all.
"Leave me alone with the doctor, Miss Cable," he said. She was kneeling beside the man on the cot. Without a word, but with a dark appealing look into the Virginian's eyes, she arose and went swiftly away. "What chance has this poor fellow, doctor?"
"None whatever, sir. He'll be dead in an hour. I'm sorry, on her account. Strange case. I've heard she belongs to a fine family in the East. Poor devil, he's got an awful hole in his side."
"Have you made a careful examination? Is it possible that no vital spot has been touched?"
"We haven't had time for a thorough examination; it was better not to waste the time on him when there were others whom we have a chance to save."
"You will oblige me, doctor, by giving him the quickest and most careful attention. There may be a chance. He is one of the bravest men in the army. Don't let him die if there is a chance for him. Miss—er—the nurse—has asked if he can be moved to-day."
"No. But wait; I don't see why, if it will satisfy her. He will die anyhow, so why not tell her that we will start south with him to-morrow?"
"It isn't fair. She should be told the truth."
"He'd die, that's all—any way you put it."
"You will make the examination?"
"Yes, in—at once."
"But you—you feel that it is hopeless?"
"Certainly, sir."
"I'm-I'm sorry," said Bray, walking away. The doctor looked after him with a queer expression in his eyes and then called his confrere to the pallet.
Bray found Jane waiting for him outside the door; Teresa Velasquez was standing beside her, holding her hand.
"What does he say?" cried Jane, grey with anguish.
"He cannot be moved. There is no—but little hope, Miss Cable. They are to make another examination."
"He must be saved! He must! Let me go to him now. I will help. I will give my life to save his," she cried. Bray stood between her and the door, his arms extended.
"Don't go in now, I implore. Wait! There may be good news."
"He is everything in the world to me!" she moaned.
"Come with me," whispered Teresa. Bray looked at the Spanish girl, and a new light broke in upon his understanding. What was this refugee to Bansemer? The answer shot into his brain like a flash and he turned cold.
"Miss Cable, I think I understand your anxiety," he said, his voice trembling. "Won't you let this young lady take you away for half an hour or—-"
"But I am a nurse! Why should I be kept from him? I am here to care for all of them," she protested.
"You are not fit to do duty just now," he said. "Miss Cable, I understand why you are here. It is noble of you. I am truly sorry that there is so little hope." He was leading her away from the building, leaving Teresa standing there with her eyes fastened upon the door with a look that could not be mistaken. "I would give my own life to have his spared for your sake, Jane. Forgive me. I would willingly give all I have in life for you. But I am afraid it is impossible to save him."
"Don't say that," she whispered.
"You—you would be his wife?" he asked.
"No, that cannot be. I COULD not be his wife."
"You mean—he is married?"
"No, no! not that. You can't understand. I can never marry him—never!"
Bray struggled for a moment with the puzzle; his eyes went slowly to Teresa. Then he suddenly understood why Jane Cable would not marry the man she had come to find. He asked no questions of himself, but Teresa would have been the result of every conjecture had he done so.
"He might better be dead," he thought, his eyes hardening. "She's found him out. Gad, I hope—-" but he put it from him.
Graydon Bansemer did not die within the hour, nor that day. The careful examination of the surgeons gave little additional hope; it did, however, reveal the fact that no vital organ had been destroyed or injured. The ball had torn a great hole in his left side and had gone through the body. Probing was not necessary. The flow of blood was frightful. There was a spark of life left on which to build a frail hope, and they worked with new interest.
The attention of everyone was directed to this tragic struggle; the efforts of all were lent to the successful end. Jane Cable, dogged and tireless, came to be his nurse, now that the life thread still held together. It is not the purpose of this narrative to dwell upon the wretched, harrowing scenes and incidents of the wilderness hospital. The misery of those who watched and waited for death; the dread and suffering of those who gave this anxiety; the glow of spiritual light which hovered above the forms of men who had forgotten their God until now.
The first night passed. There were sleepless eyes to keep company with the faint moans and the scent of chloroform. Over the figure of Graydon Bansemer hung the eager, tense face of Jane Cable. Her will and mind were raised against the hand of death; down in her soul she was crying! "You shall not die!" and he was living, living on in spite of death. The still, white face gave back no sign of life; a faint pulse and an almost imperceptible respiration told of the unbroken thread. Hoping against hope!
Dawn came, and night again, and still the almost breathless girl urged her will against the inevitable. She had not slept, nor had she eaten of the food they brought to her. Two persons, a soldier and a girl, stood back and marvelled at her endurance and devotion; the harassed surgeons, new in experience themselves, found time to minister to the seeming dead man, their interest not only attracted by his remarkable vitality but by the romance attached to his hope of living.
That night he moved, and a low moan came from his lips. The Goddess of Good Luck had turned her face from the rest of the world for a brief instant to smile upon this isolated supplicant for favour. Jane's eyes and ears had served her well at last; she caught the change in him and her will grasped the hope with more dogged tenacity than before. The word went out that there was a chance for him. Her vigil ended when Bray came to lead her away—ended because she dropped from exhaustion.
The next morning, after a dead sleep of hours, she returned to his side. The surgeon smiled and the nurse clasped her hands with tears in her eyes. Bansemer was breathing thickly and tossing in delirium. It was as if he had been lifted from the grave.
Lieutenant Bray was seated in front of the convent late that evening, moodily studying his own emotions. Teresa, still attired as she had been for weeks, hung about the chapel with the persistance of a friendless dog. He watched her and pitied her, even as he pitied himself for the wound he was nursing. What was to become of her? He called her to him.
"Senorita, they say he is better. Tell me, does it mean much to you?"
"Oh, senor, he has been noble and good and honourable. If he lives I shall always hold these weeks with him in absolute reverence."
"Then she does not understand?"
"She? What is there for her to understand? She loves him and he loves her. That is enough."
"She says she will not marry him. There must be a reason."
The girl's face darkened instantly and her breath came quickly.
"You—you think that I am the reason? Is it so? Because I am here in these hateful clothes? You would say that to me? How dare you!"
She burst out with tears of rage and shame and fled from his sight.
Jane came rapidly through the church door, out of the gloom and odour into the warm sunshine and the green glow of the world, her face bright, her eyes gleaming.
"He is conscious!" she cried. "He knows me!"
CHAPTER XXVI — THE SEPARATION OF HEARTS
When Graydon Bansemer opened his eyes upon the world for the second time—it was as if he had been born again—he looked up into the eager, wistful face of Jane Cable. It was too much for her to expect that he could see and understand at once; he would not know what had gone before, nor why she was there. His feeble glance took in her face with lifeless interest. Perhaps it was because he had seen her in that death-like dream; perhaps his weakness kept him from true realisation. In any event, he did no more than to allow the flicker of a smile to come into his eyes before he closed them again. Breathlessly, she waited for the lids to lift once more. She uttered his name softly, tenderly, time and again. As if hearing someone calling from a great distance, he moved and again looked upward, the consciousness of pain in his grey eyes. This time he stared hard at her; his eyes grew brighter and then darkened with wonder. At last she saw the look of surprise and joy and relief that she had been hungering for; he knew her and he was beginning to understand.
If he heard her while she knelt and thanked Ged for this first great ray of hope, he gave forth no sign. When she turned her eyes to his face again he was asleep. But she went forth into the day with a song in her heart.
She looked about for Teresa. The girl was gone, no one knew whither. Bray alone could say that she had started toward the thicket. He pointed out the direction, but did not offer to accompany Jane when she hurried away to carry the good news to the Spanish girl who had been her staunch helper during the long vigil. Bray shook his puzzled head as he followed her with his gaze. It had come to him suddenly that the Spanish girl was not the solution to the puzzle, after all.
Jane found the slim boyish figure lying on the ground, deep in the wood. She had been crying and made no attempt to subdue her emotions when the American girl came up to her; instead, she bitterly poured out her woe into the ears of the other. She told her of Bray's insult—as she termed his unfortunate speculation—and she told how it came about.
"I am a good girl, Miss Cable," she cried. "I am of a noble family-not of the canaille. You do not believe it of me? No! He had no right to accuse me. I was a prisoner; Senor Bansemer was my rescuer. I loved him for it. See, I cannot help it, I cannot hide it from you. But he is yours. I have no claim. I do not ask it. Oh!" and here her voice rose to a wail of anguish, "can you not procure something else for me to wear? These rags are intolerable. I hate them! I cannot go back there unless I have—-"
"We can give you a few garments, dear," said Jane. "Come! You shall wear the nurse's uniform. We are to start on the long march to the coast to-morrow. They say that ALL of the wounded can be moved by that time."
It was three days, however, before the little company left the village and began its slow, irksome march across the country toward the coast where the ship was to pick up the wounded men and convey them to Manila, Native carriers, cheerful amigos since the disaster to Pilar, went forward with the stretchers, the hospital wagons and guard following. Travelling was necessarily slow and the halts were frequent. There were occasional shots from hidden riflemen, but there were no casualties. Food had been scarce; the commissary was thinly supplied for the hard trip. Lieutenant Bray grew strangely morose and indifferent. He was taciturn, almost unfriendly in his attitude toward everyone.
The little company stopped to rest in a beautiful; valley, beside the banks of a swift stream. He watched Jane as she moved away from the stretcher which held Bansemer, following her to the edge of the stream where she had come to gaze pensively into the future.
"How is he?" he asked. She started and a warm glow came into her cheek.
"He is doing nicely. If he can bear up until we reach Manila, he will surely live. Are we going as rapidly as we should, Lieutenant Bray?"
"Quite, Miss Cable. It isn't an easy march, you must: remember." After a long silence, he suddenly remarked: "Miss Cable, I've got a rather shameful confession to make. I've had some very base thoughts to contend with. You may have guessed it or not, but I care a great deal for you—more than for anyone else I've ever known. You say he is to get well. For days I wished that he might die. Don't look like that, please. I couldn't help it. I went so far, at one stage, as to contemplate a delay in marching that might have proved fatal to him. I thought of that way and others of which I can't tell you. Thank God, I was man enough to put them away from me! Wait, please! Let me finish. You have said you will not marry him. I don't ask why you will not. I love you. Will you be my wife?"
She stared at him with consternation in her eyes. He had gone on so rapidly that she could not check his rapid speech. Her hand went to her brow and a piteous smile tried to force itself to her lips.
"I am sorry," she said at last. "I am sorry you have spoken to me of it. I have felt for some time that you—you cared for me. No, Lieutenant Bray, I cannot be your wife."
"I know you love him," he said.
"Yes, it is plain. I have not tried to hide it."
"You must understand why I asked you to be my wife, knowing that you love him. It was to hear it from your own lips, so that I would not go through life with the feeling, after all, that it might have been. Will you tell me the reason why you cannot marry him? He must love you."
"Lieutenant Bray, he would marry me to-morrow, I think, if I were to consent. It isn't that. It would not be right for me to consent. You profess to love me. I have seen it in your eyes—oh, I have learned much of men in the past few months—and I determined, if you ever asked me to marry you, to ask a question in return. Do you really know who I am?"
He looked his surprise. "Why, the daughter of David Cable, of course."
"No, I am not his daughter."
"His stepdaughter?"
"Not even that. You come from a proud Southern family. I do not know who my parents were."
"Good Heaven, you-you don't mean you were waif?"
"A waif without a name, Lieutenant Bray. This is not self-abasement; it is not the parading of misfortune. It is because you have made the mistake of loving me. If you care less for me now than you did before, you will spread this information throughout the army."
"Believe me, I am not that sort."
"Thank you. Knowing what you now do, could you ask me to be your wife?"
"Don't put it just that way," he stammered.
"Ah, I see. It was a cruel question. And yet it proves that you do not love as Graydon Bansemer loves."
"Some day you may find out all about your parents and be happy. You may have been abducted and—-" he was saying, his face white and wet. Somehow he felt that he was chastening himself.
"Perhaps," she said quietly. "I might not have told you this had not the story been printed in every newspaper in the States just before I left. You see, I did not know it until just a few months ago. I thought you might have read of me. I—I am so notorious."
"Jane, dear Jane, you must not feel that way!" he cried, as she started quickly away. "It's—-" But she turned and motioned for him to cease. There were tears in her eyes. He stood stock still. "She's wonderful!" he said to himself, as she walked away. "Even now, I believe I could—Pshaw! It ought not to make any difference! If it wasn't for my family—What's in a name, anyway? A name—-" He started to answer his own question, but halted abruptly, squared his shoulders and then with true Southern, military bearing strode away, murmuring:
"A name is something; yes, family is everything."
Jane went at once to Graydon. His great grey eyes smiled a glad welcome. She took his hand in hers and sat upon the ground beside him, watching his face until they were ready to resume the journey.
"Would it not be better if he were to die?" she found herself wondering, with strange inconstancy to her purpose. "Why could it not have been I instead of he? How hard it will be for us to live after this. Dear, dear Graydon, if—if I only were different from what I am."
Not a word of his father's conduct toward her, not a word of blame for the blow his father had struck. She held him to no account for the baseness of that father; only did she hold herself unfit to be his wife. All of the ignominy and shame fell to her lot, none to the well-born son of the traducer.
Fortune and strength went hand in hand for the next two days and the famished, worn-out company came to the coast. The wounded men were half-delirious once more for lack of proper attention, and the hardships of travel. But the ill-wind had spent its force. Bray's instructions were to place his charges on board ship at San Fernando de Union, and then await further orders in the little coast town. It meant good-bye to Jane, and that meant more to him than, he was willing to admit, despite all that she had said to him. He went to her when the ship was ready to leave port.
"Good-bye!" he said. "I'm more grieved than I can tell you, because I believe you think I am a cad."
"Lieutenant Bray, a cad never would have helped me as you have helped me, in spite of yourself. Good-bye!"
He went out of her life in that moment.
There were vexatious delays, however, before sailings Almost at the last moment Jane was approached by Teresa Velasquez, now partly dressed as a Red Cross nurse. The Spanish girl was nervous and uneasy. Her dark eyes held two ever changing lights—one sombre, the other bright and piercing.
"I have decided to wait for the next ship," she announced briefly.
"You are not going with us?" cried Jane in surprise and distress. "What has happened?"
"It is impossible; I cannot go with you. Pray do not ask for my reason. Good-bye. Will you say good-bye to—to him for me?"
Jane was silent for a long time, studying the eyes of the Spanish girl.
"I think I understand," she said at last, taking Teresa's hands in hers.
"It is better that it be ended here," said Teresa, "I have endured it as long as I can. You have been good to me, and I want to say good-bye while there is love for you in my heart. I am afraid to stay near you—and him. Don't you see? I cannot go on in this way."
"Oh, Teresa!"
"Yes, yes, I know it is wrong, but how can I help it? I've loved him ever since I first saw him—saved his life." Jane was astounded. The thrust pierced her to the quick.
"Saved his life?"
"Yes, though he does not know it. It was when we were prisoners of the Filipinos. My poor brother was dying. From the convent Aguinaldo and his men were watching and directing the fight on the plaza. They paid no attention to me—a girl. The noise of the fighting men was terrible, and I climbed up to a window where I could see. Suddenly, below me, I saw two men fighting apart from the struggling mass. In an instant it flashed through my mind that the Filipino was overpowering the other—was going to kill him. Although I hated them equally, there was something in the young soldier's face—I could not see him murdered. I seized a pistol that was lying near me and fired; the Filipino fell. In terror of the deed and fear of discovery, I ran to my brother. In a moment the Americans broke into the convent. You know the rest."
Jane was suffering the keenest pangs of jealousy, and asked, excitedly:
"You—you did that?"
"And finally, when I had learned to care for him and he was wounded, to have been denied the right of nursing him back to life—my place usurped by you. Surely, I have as much to be proud of as you and I love him a great deal more!"
"As much to be proud of—-" Jane was saying, for the moment all the warmth gone from her voice, the flame from her cheeks; but her meaning could not have been understood by the other who proudly, defiantly tossed back her head. Beautiful indeed was this brown-skinned, black-eyed girl, as she stood there pleading her rights to an unrequited love—a heart already tenanted by another, and that other, the woman before her.
"Now, can you imagine," the girl went on, "how it has hurt me to see you caring for him, to see his eyes forever searching for you? No?" They were silent a moment. A wistful look was in her eyes now, and her voice unmistakably reconcilable when she resumed: "Ah, he was so good and true when I was alone with them—before you came! I pray God, now, that he may be well and that you may make him happy."
"Alas, I am afraid that can never be! You cannot understand, and I cannot explain."
"Your family objects because he is poor and a common soldier? Yes?" She laughed bitterly, a green light in her eyes. "If it were I, no one could keep me from belonging to him—I would—-"
"Don't! Don't say it! You don't understand!" Jane reiterated.
"Dios, how I loved him! I would have gone through my whole life with him! He must have known it, too."
"He was true to me," said Jane, her figure straightening involuntarily, a new gleam in her eyes.
"Ah, you are lucky, senorita! I love you, and I could hate you so easily! Go! Go! Take him with you and give him life! Forget me as I shall forget you both!" And impulsively taking from round her neck an Agnus Dei which she was wearing, she placed it in Jane's hands, and added: "Give this to him, please, and do not forget to tell him that I sent good-bye and good luck."
Jane would have kissed her had not the blazing eyes of the other forbade. They merely clasped hands, and Teresa turned away.
"My uncle lives in Manila. He will take me to Madrid. We cannot live here with these pigs of Americans about us," she said shortly. A moment later she was lost in the crowd.
Jane's heart was heavy when the ship moved away. Her eyes searched through the throng for the slight figure of the girl who had abandoned a lost cause.
CHAPTER XXVII — "IF THEY DON'T KILL YOU"
Jane had been a nurse in the Red Cross society for a little more than six weeks. She was inexperienced but willing and there was such urgent need for nurses that the army accepted any and all who seemed capable of development under the training of experts. There had been tremendous opposition on the part of the Harbins, but in the end, finding her unalterably determined, the colonel permitted her to go out in the service. She was sent forth on the special expedition in the wake of Major March's forces, her secret desire being to be near Graydon Bansemer in event of his injury. She gave no heed to their protest that the name of Bansemer should be hateful to her; she ignored the ugly remarks of her aunt and the angry reproaches of the colonel. It was more the spirit of spite than any other motive which at last compelled him to accept the situation; he even went so far as to growl to his wife: "Cursed good riddance, that's what I say. I didn't want her to come in the first place."
But when, after a month, she brought Bansemer back to the city, wounded almost to death, the heart, of the soldier was touched. It was Colonel Harbin who wrestled with the hospital authorities and, after two or three days, had her installed regularly as a nurse for Bansemer, a concession not willingly granted. Those days were like years to her. She was thin and worn when she came down from the north, but she was haggard with anxiety and despair when the two days of suspense were ended.
Ethel Harbin was her ablest ally. This rather lawless young person laid aside the hearts with which she was toying and bent her every endeavour to the cause of romance. It was not long before every young officer in the city was more or less interested in the welfare of Graydon Bansemer. She threw a fine cloak of mystery about the "millionaire's son" and the great devotion of her cousin, The youth of the army followed Ethel to and from the hospital for days and days; without Ethel it is quite doubtful if anybody could have known what a monstrous important personage Private Bansemer really was.
At the end of a fortnight he was able to sit up and converse with his nurse and the occasional Ethel, Dr. G—-, chief of the ward, remarked to Colonel Harbin:
"He'll get well, of course. He can't help it. I never knew before what society could do for a fellow. He's got a society nurse and he is visited by a society despot. It beats Christian Science all to pieces."
"Do you think he will be able to do any more fighting? Will he be strong enough?"
"I don't see why. The government won't let him do it, that's all. He can claim a pension and get out of service with an honourable discharge—and maybe a medal. He'll be strong enough, however. That fellow could go on a hike inside of a month."
"I suppose we'll all be going home before long. This war is about over," growled Harbin.
"No sirree! We'll be fighting these fellows for ten years. Ah, there's your daughter, Colonel. Good-day."
With the first returning strength, freed from lassitude and stupor, Graydon began whispering joyous words of love to Jane. His eyes were bright with the gladness that his pain had brought. She checked his weak outbursts at first, but before many days had passed she was obliged to resort to a firmness that shocked him into a resentful silence. She was even harsh in her command. It cut her to the quick to hurt him, but she was steeling herself against the future.
When he was able to walk out in the grounds, she withdrew farther into the background of their daily life. He hungered for her, but she began to avoid him with a strange aloofness that brought starvation to his heart. While she was ever attentive to his wants, her smile lacked the tenderness he had known in the days of danger, and her face was strangely sombre and white.
"Jane," he said to her one day as he came in from his walk and laid down his crutches, "this can't go on any longer. What is the matter? Don't you love me—not at all?"
She stood straight and serious before him, white to the lips, her heart as cold as ice.
"I love you, Graydon, with all my soul. I shall always love you. Please, please, don't ask any more of me. You understand, don't you? We cannot be as we once were—never. That is ended. But, you—you must know that I love you."
"It is sheer madness, dearest, to take that attitude. What else in the world matters so long as we love one another? I felt at first that I could not ask you to be my wife after what my father did that night. That was as silly of me as this is of you. I did not contend long against my love. You have never been out of my mind, night or day. I was tempted more than once to desert-but that was impossible, you know. It was the terrible eagerness to go back to you and compel you to be mine. My father did you a grave wrong. He—-"
"But my father did me a graver wrong, Graydon. I have thought it all out. I have no right to be alive, so what right have I to be any man's wife?"
"Nonsense, dearest. You are alive, and you live for me, as I do for you. You have saved my life; you must save my love. These last few weeks have knit our lives together so completely that neither of us has the right to change God's evident purpose. I love you for yourself, Jane. That is enough. There has not been an instant in which I have felt that any circumstance could alter my hope to marry you. You say; you have no name. You forget that you may have mine, dearest—and it is not much to be proud of, I fear, in the light of certain things. You must be my wife, Jane."
"I cannot, Graydon. That is final. Don't! Don't plead, dear. It will not avail. Look into my eyes. Don't you see that I mean it, Graydon?"
"By Heaven, Jane, your eyes are lying to me. You can't mean what is back of them. It's cruel—it's wrong."
"Hush! you must not become excited. You are far from strong, and I am still your nurse. Be—-"
"You are my life—you are everything. I can't give you up It's ridiculous to take this stand. Be sensible. Look at it from my point of view."
"There is only one point of view and love has nothing to do with it. Come, let us talk of something else. Have you heard from your—your father? Does he know you've been injured?"
He looked long into her tense face and then muttered, with the sullen despair of the sick: "I don't know. I've had no word from anyone."
"The despatches have doubtless given your name. One of the Chicago correspondents was talking about you recently. Your father will surely write to you now."
"Are you eager to have him do so? I should think you'd hate his name. I can't help caring for dad, Jane. I tried to curse him one time, but he really has been good to me. I don't see how he can have done the things they say he's done."
"There may be a mistake."
"That's good of you, dear, but you forget your mother's statements and all that Rigby says—all that. Oh, I've gone over all of it, and I am convinced. I wonder what has become of him. He was afraid of—of—well, there was talk of an arrest before I left. I have not looked at a newspaper since I saw the headlines that awful morning. God, how they must have hurt you!"
"I, too, have not looked at a newspaper since then, Graydon," she said simply. He smiled wearily and there was response in her eyes.
He took her hand in his and they sat silently side by side on the bench for half an hour, their thoughts far away but of one another.
"Graydon," she said at last, "are you going to remain in the army?"
"No, I am through with it. My discharge is to be recommended. I'm disabled."
"You will be as strong as ever, dear."
"Do you want me to stick to the army? I am only a private."
"You can do greater things out in the world, I know. You will be a great man if you don't lose heart, Graydon."
"I can't be a soldier, dear, and support a wife on the pay I get," he said with a smile.
"You shouldn't marry,"
"But I am going to marry," he said.
"I have decided to become a nurse. It is my intention to give my whole life to—-"
"The Red Cross?"
"No. The hospitals at home—the hospitals for the poor and homeless."
Ethel Harbin was coming through the grounds toward them. Her face was clouded by a dark frown and she was visibly excited.
"It's all off," she announced as she came up.
"Where is the usual hero?" asked Graydon.
"I'm through with the real army. They've dismissed me. That is father and mother have. They are driving me into the Salvation Army," she exclaimed, seating herself beside Graydon. "I wish I were Jane and my own mistress."
"Dear me, Ethel, what an ambition!" said Jane. "What has happened to upset you so?"
"Father has."
"I should have asked who, not what."
"I suppose they expect me to marry a Salvation Army man. They say Harry isn't good enough. I think he is a very moral young man."
"Harry? Who is Harry?"
"Why, haven't you heard? Harry Soper. I'm engaged to him."
"The lieutenant?"
"Certainly. He's going to be promoted, though, if he ever gets on the firing line. It's not his fault that he has to do duty in the walled city. He's aching to get out and fight. But father—-" Here she paused, her lips coming together with a firmness that boded ill.
"Colonel Harbin doesn't approve?"
"No—he says Harry is a 'little pup.' It's outrageous, Jane."
"Don't cry, dear. The world is full of men."
"Not for me," said Ethel dolefully. "I've picked Harry out of a hundred or more and I think my discrimination ought to be considered. I'm the one to be satisfied. Father has no—-"
"But how about that young fellow back in New York? You used to say he was the only one."
"He is the only one in New York. But look how far off he is! It takes weeks for his letters to get to me."
"But he writes every day."
"Harry telephones every day. I tell you, Jane, the voice has a good deal to do with it. You like to HEAR a fellow say nice things. It beats ink all to pieces. It will go hard with him, perhaps, but he's young. He'll get over it."
"You are young, too. That is why you have gotten over George."
"I'm not as young as I was. But I've decided on Harry. If father doesn't let us get married right away, I'm liable to get over him, too. It's silly doing that all the time; one might never get married, you know. But father is firm. He says I can't, and he says he'll kick Harry into the middle of next summer. Father says I shall not marry into the regular army. He says they don't make good husbands. I've got the joke on him, though. He appealed to mother, and she forgot herself and said the same thing. They were quarrelling about it when I left the hotel. It was an awful jar to father. For two cents I'd elope with Harry."
"It would be pretty difficult for an officer on duty to elope, don't you think?" asked Graydon, amused.
"Not if he loved the girl. He does, too. But I haven't told you the worst. Mother says I am being absolutely spoiled out here in Manila, and she says flatly, that she's going to take me back to the States. Isn't it awful?"
"Back to the fellow in New York?" smiled Jane encouragingly.
Ethel thought for a moment and a dear little smile came into her troubled eyes.
"I hope he hasn't gone and fallen in love with some other girl," she said.
It was true, as Jane soon learned, that Mrs. Harbin had concluded to return to the United States with Ethel. Jane's aunt had grown immeasurably tired of Manila—and perhaps a little more tired of the Colonel. It was she who aroused the Colonel's antipathy to little Lieutenant Soper. She dwelt upon the dire misfortune that was possible if Ethel continued to bask in the society of "those young ninnies." The Colonel developed a towering rage and a great fear that Ethel might become fatally contaminated before she could be whisked off of the island. It was decided that Mrs. Harbin and Ethel should return to the United States soon after the first of March, to take up their residence in New York City.
"Mother wants to be a soldier's widow—on parole," sniffed Ethel, almost audibly enough for her father's ears.
Mrs. Harbin at once informed Jane that she was expected to return with them. She demurred at first, purely for the sake of appearances, but in the end agreed to tender her resignation to the Red Cross society. The knowledge that Graydon Bansemer's discharge was soon forthcoming and that he intended to return to America in the spring had more to do with this decision than she was willing to admit. She therefore announced her ambition to become a trained nurse and gave no heed to Mrs. Harbin's insinuating smile.
Letters, of late, from Mrs. Cable, had been urging her to return to Chicago; David Cable was far from well—breaking fast—and he was wearing out his heart in silent longing for her return. He wrote to her himself that he expected to retire from active business early in the year, and that his time and fortune from that day on would be devoted to his family. He held out attractive visions of travel, of residence abroad, of endless pleasure which they could enjoy together.
Jane had written to them that she would not live in Chicago—any place else in the world, she said—and they understood. There was no word of James Bansemer in all these letters. She was always daughter to them and they were father and mother.
Graydon Bansemer one day received three letters—all from Chicago. He knew the handwriting on the envelope of each. Three men had written to him, his father, Elias Droom, and Rigby. A dark scowl came over his face as he looked at the Rigby envelope. It was the first letter that he opened and read. Jane was sitting near by watching the expression on his face.
"It's from Rigby," he said as he finished.
"What does he say?" she asked anxiously.
"He says he is my devoted friend for life," replied Graydon bitterly. "I can't forget, though, Jane. He is not the sort of friend I want."
"He thought it was for the best, Graydon."
"Yes, and he may have thought he was my friend, too. This letter says as much. But I like an enemy better, dear. You know what to expect of an enemy at all times. Here's one from Elias Droom—old Elias." Droom scrawled a few words of cheer to the young soldier, urging him not to re-enlist, but to come home, at the end of his two years. He enclosed a letter from Mr. Clegg, in which that gentleman promised to put Graydon in charge of their New York office, if he would take the place. This news sent his spirits bounding. Tears of a gratefulness he never expected to feel sprang to his eyes. Jane's happiness was a reflection of his own.
James Bansemer's letter was not read aloud to Jane. When he had finished the perusal of the long epistle he folded it and stuck it away in his pocket. His eyes seemed a bit wistful and his face drawn, but there was no word to let her know what had been written by the man who had denounced her.
"He is well," was all he said. He did not tell her that his father had urged him to go into business in the Philippines, saying that he would provide ample means with which to begin and carry on any enterprise he cared to exploit. One paragraph cut Graydon to the quick:
"I'd advise you to steer clear of Chicago. If they don't kill you in the Philippines, you're better off there. They hate us here."