第123章

"We're going home, no more to roam, No more to sin and sorrow, No more to wear the brow of care, We're going home to-morrow.

"We're going home; we're going home;

We're going home to-morrow."

Softer and softer grew the music. At last the voice fell silent.

Then Nurse Haley appeared, radiant, fresh, and sweet as a clover field with the morning dew upon it, but with a light as of another world upon her face.

With the spell of her voice, of her eyes, of her radiant face upon him, Cameron's scintillation faded and snuffed out. He felt like a boy at his first party and enraged at himself for so feeling. How bright she was, how pure her face under the brown gold hair, how dainty the bloom upon her cheek, and that voice of hers, and the firm lithe body with curving lines of budding womanhood, grace in every curve and movement! The Mandy of old faded from his mind.

Have I seen you before? And where? And how long ago? And what's happening to me? With these questions he vexed his soul while he strove to keep track of the conversation between the three.

A call from the other tent summoned Nurse Haley.

"Let me go instead," cried the little nurse eagerly. But, light-footed as a deer, Mandy was already gone.

When the tent flap had fallen behind her Cameron pushed back his plate, leaned forward upon the table and, looking the little nurse full in the face, said:

"Now, it's no use carrying this on. What have you done to her?"

And the little nurse laughed her brightest and most joyous laugh.

"What has she done to us, you mean."

"No. Come now, take pity on a fellow. I left her--well--you know what. And now--how has this been accomplished?"

"Soul, my boy," said the doctor emphatically, "and the hairdresser and--"

But Cameron ignored him.

"Can you tell me?" he said to the nurse.

"Well, as a nurse, is she quite impossible?"

"Oh, spare me," pleaded Cameron. "I acknowledge my sin and my folly is before me. But tell me, how was this miracle wrought?"

"What do you mean exactly? Specify."

"Oh, hang it! Well, beginning at the top, there's her hair."

"Her hair?"

"Yes."

"Then, her complexion--her grace of form--her style--her manner.

Oh, confound it! Her hands--everything."

"Well," said the little nurse with deliberation, "let's begin at the top. Her hair? A hairdresser explains that. Her complexion?

A little treatment, massage, with some help from the doctor. Her hands? Again treatment and release from brutalising work. Her figure? Well, you know, that depends, though we don't acknowledge it always, to a certain extent on--well--things--and how you put them on."

"Nurse," said the doctor gravely, "you're all off. The transformation is from within and is explained, as I have said, by one word--soul. The soul has been set free, has been allowed to break through. That is all. Why, my dear fellow," continued the doctor with rising enthusiasm, "when that girl came to us we were in despair; and for three months she kept us there, pursuing us, hounding us with questions. Never saw anything like it. One telling was enough though. Her eyes were everywhere, her ears open to every hint, but it was her soul, like a bird imprisoned and beating for the open air. The explanation is, as I have said just now, soul--intense, flaming, unquenchable soul--and, I must say it, the dressmaker, the hairdresser, and the rest directed by our young friend here," pointing to the little nurse. "Why, she had us all on the job. We all became devotees of the Haley Cult."

"No," said the nurse, "it was herself."

"Isn't that what I have been telling you?" said the doctor impatiently. "Soul--soul--soul! A soul somehow on fire."

And with that Cameron had to be content.

Yes, a soul it was, at one time dormant and enwrapped within its coarse integument. Now, touched into life by some divine fire, it had through its own subtle power transformed that coarse integument into its own pure gold. What was that fire? What divine touch had kindled it? And, more important still, was that fire still aglow, or, having done its work, had it for lack of food flickered and died out? With these questions Cameron vexed himself for many days, nor found an answer.