Dr. Ed had sent for Sidney. Max was still unconscious. Ed remembered
about her when, tracing his brother's career from his babyhood to man's
estate and to what seemed now to be its ending, he had remembered that Max
was very fond of Sidney. He had hoped that Sidney would take him and do
for him what he, Ed, had failed to do.
So Sidney was summoned.
She thought it was another operation, and her spirit was just a little
weary. But her courage was indomitable. She forced her shoes on her tired
feet, and bathed her face in cold water to rouse herself.
The night watchman was in the hall. He was fond of Sidney; she always
smiled at him; and, on his morning rounds at six o'clock to waken the
nurses, her voice was always amiable. So she found him in the hall,
holding a cup of tepid coffee. He was old and bleary, unmistakably dirty
too--but he had divined Sidney's romance.
"Coffee! For me?" She was astonished.
"Drink it. You haven't had much sleep."
She took it obediently, but over the cup her eyes searched his.
"There is something wrong, daddy."
That was his name, among the nurses. He had had another name, but it was
lost in the mists of years.
"Get it down."
So she finished it, not without anxiety that she might be needed. But
daddy's attentions were for few, and not to be lightly received.
"Can you stand a piece of bad news?"
Strangely, her first thought was of K.
"There has been an accident. Dr. Wilson--"
"Which one?"
"Dr. Max--has been hurt. It ain't much, but I guess you'd like to know
it."
"Where is he?"
"Downstairs, in Seventeen."
So she went down alone to the room where Dr. Ed sat in a chair, with his
untidy bag beside him on the floor, and his eyes fixed on a straight figure
on the bed. When he saw Sidney, he got up and put his arms around her.
His eyes told her the truth before he told her anything. She hardly
listened to what he said. The fact was all that concerned her--that her
lover was dying there, so near that she could touch him with her hand, so
far away that no voice, no caress of hers, could reach him.
The why would come later. Now she could only stand, with Dr. Ed's arms
about her, and wait.
"If they would only do something!" Sidney's voice sounded strange to her
ears.