Cast Adrift

“Oh, there’s Mrs. Morton!” cried a glad voice, and Edith saw a girl who was sitting up in one of the beds clap her hands joyfully.

“That’s the little one I was telling you about,” said the lady, and she crossed to the bed, Edith following. The child reached up her arms and put them about Mrs. Morton’s neck, kissing her as she did so.

It took Edith some time to adjust herself to the scene before her. Mrs. Morton knew all the children, and had a word of cheer or sympathy for most of them as she passed from bed to bed through the ward. Gradually the first painful impressions wore off, and Edith felt herself drawn to the little patients, and before five minutes had passed her heart was full of a strong desire to do whatever lay in her power to help and comfort them. After spending half an hour with the girls, during which time Edith talked and read to a number of them, Mrs. Morton said,

“Now let us go into the boys’ ward.”

They crossed the hall together, and entered the room on the other side. Here, as in the opposite ward, Mrs. Morton was recognized as welcome visitor. Every face that happened to be turned to the door brightened at her entrance.

“There’s a dear child in this ward,” said Mrs. Morton as they stood for a moment in the door looking about the room. “He was picked up in the street about a week ago, hurt by a passing vehicle, and brought here. We have not been able to learn anything about him.”

Edith’s heart gave a sudden leap, but she held it down with all the self-control she could assume, trying to be calm.

“Where is he?” she asked, in a voice so altered from its natural tone that Mrs. Morton turned and looked at her in surprise.

“Over in that corner,” she answered, pointing down the room.

Edith started forward, Mrs. Morton at her side.

“Here he is,” said the latter, pausing at a bed on which child with fair face, blue eyes and golden hair was lying. A single glance sent the blood back to Edith’s heart. A faintness came over her; everything grew dark. She sat down to keep from falling.

As quickly as possible and by another strong effort of will she rallied herself.

“Yes,” she said, in a faint undertone in which was no apparent interest, “he is a dear little fellow.”

As she spoke she laid her hand softly on the child’s head, but not in a way to bring any response. He looked at her curiously, and seemed half afraid.

Meanwhile, a child occupying a bed only a few feet off had started up quickly on seeing Edith, and now sat with his large brown eyes fixed eagerly upon her, his lips apart and his hands extended. But Edith did not notice him. Presently she got up from beside the bed and was turning away when the other child, with a kind of despairing look in his face, cried out,

“Lady, lady! oh, lady!”

The voice reached Edith’s ears. She turned, and saw the face of Andy. Swift as a flash she was upon him, gathering him in her arms and crying out, in a wild passion of joy that could not be repressed,

“Oh, my baby! my baby! my boy! my boy! Bless God! thank God! oh, my baby!”

Startled by this sudden outcry, the resident physician and two nurses who were in the ward hurried down the room to see what it meant. Edith had the child hugged tightly to her bosom, and resisted all their efforts to remove him.

“My dear madam,” said the doctor, “you will do him some harm if you don’t take care.”

“Hurt my baby? Oh no, no!” she answered, relaxing her hold and gazing down upon Andy as she let him fall away from her bosom. Then lifting her eyes to the physician, her face so flooded with love and inexpressible joy that it seemed like some heavenly transfiguration, she murmured, in a low voice full of the deepest tenderness,

“Oh no. I will not do my baby any harm.”

“My dear, dear friend,” said Mrs. Morton, recovering from the shock of her first surprise and fearing that Edith had suddenly lost her mind, “you cannot mean what you say;” and she reached down for the child and made a movement as if she were going to lift him away from her arms.

A look of angry resistance swept across Edith’s pale face. There was a flash of defiance in her eyes.

“No, no! You must not touch him,” she exclaimed; “I will die before giving him up. My baby!”

And now, breaking down from her intense excitement, she bent over the child again, weeping and sobbing. Waiting until this paroxysm had expended itself, Mrs. Morton, who had not failed to notice that Andy never turned his eyes for an instant away from Edith, nor resisted her strained clasp or wild caresses, but lay passive against her with a look of rest and peace in his face, said,

“How shall we know that he is your baby?”

At this Edith drew herself up, the light on her countenance fading out. Then catching at the child’s arm, she pulled the loose sleeve that covered it above the elbow with hands that shook like aspens. Another cry of joy broke from her as she saw a small red mark standing out clear from the snowy skin. She kissed it over and over again, sobbing,

“My baby! Yes, thank God! my own long-lost baby!”

And still the child showed no excitement, but lay very quiet, looking at Edith whenever he could see her countenance, the peace and rest on his face as unchanging as if it were not really a living and mobile face, but one cut into this expression by the hands of an artist.

“How shall you know?” asked Edith, now remembering the question of Mrs. Morton. And she drew up her own sleeve and showed on one of her arms a mark as clearly defined and bright as that on the child’s arm.

No one sought to hinder Edith as she rose to her feet holding Andy, after she had wrapped the bed-clothes about him.

“Come!” she spoke to her friend, and moved away with her precious burden.

“You must go with us,” said Mrs. Morton to the physician.

They followed as Edith hurried down stairs, and entering the carriage after her, were driven away from the hospital.

CHAPTER XXIX

ABOUT the same hour that Edith entered the boys’ ward of the children’s hospital, Mr. Dinneford met Granger face to face in the street. The latter tried to pass him, but Mr. Dinneford stopped, and taking his almost reluctant hand, said, as he grasped it tightly,

“George Granger!” in a voice that had in it a kind of helpless cry.

The young man did not answer, but stood looking at him in a surprised, uncertain way.

“George,” said Mr. Dinneford, his utterance broken, “we want you!”

“For what?” asked Granger, whose hand still lay in that of Mr. Dinneford. He had tried to withdraw it at first, but now let it remain.

“To help us find your child.”

“My child! What of my child?”

“Your child and Edith’s,” said Mr. Dinneford. “Come!” and he drew his arm within that of Granger, the two men moving away together. “It has been lost since the day of its birth—cast adrift through the same malign influence that cursed your life and Edith’s. We are on its track, but baffled day by day. Oh, George, we want you, frightfully wronged as you have been at our hands—not Edith’s. Oh no, George! Edith’s heart has never turned from you for an instant, never doubted you, though in her weakness and despair she was driven to sign that fatal application for a divorce. If it were not for the fear of a scornful rejection, she would be reaching out her hands to you now and begging for the old sweet love, but such a rejection would kill her, and she dare not brave the risk.”

Mr. Dinneford felt the young man’s arm begin to tremble violently.

“We want you, George,” he pursued. “Edith’s heart is calling out for you, that she may lean it upon your heart, so that it break not in this great trial and suspense. Your lost baby is calling for you out of some garret or cellar or hovel where it lies concealed. Come, my son. The gulf that lies between the dreadful past and the blessed future can be leaped at a single bound if you choose to make it. We want you—Edith and I and your baby want you.”

Mr. Dinneford, in his great excitement, was hurrying the young man along at a rapid speed, holding on to his arm at the same time, as if afraid he would pull it away and escape.

Granger made no response, but moved along passively, taking in every word that was said. A great light seemed to break upon his soul, a great mountain to be lifted off. He did not pause at the door from which, when he last stood there, he had been so cruelly rejected, but went in, almost holding his breath, bewildered, uncertain, but half realizing the truth of what was transpiring, like one in a dream.

“Wait here,” said Mr. Dinneford, and he left him in the parlor and ran up stairs to find Edith.

George Granger had scarcely time to recognize the objects around him, when a carriage stopped at the door, and in a moment afterward the bell rang violently.

The image that next met his eyes was that of Edith standing in the parlor door with a child all bundled up in bed-clothing held closely in her arms. Her face was trembling with excitement. He started forward on seeing her with an impulse of love and joy that he could not restrain. She saw him, and reading his soul in his eyes, moved to meet him.

“Oh, George, and you too!” she exclaimed. “My baby and my husband, all at once! It is too much. I cannot bear if all!”

Granger caught her in his arms as she threw herself upon him and laid the child against his breast.

“Yours and mine,” she sobbed. “Yours and mine, George!” and she put up her face to his. Could he do less than cover it with kisses?

A few hours later, and a small group of very near friends witnessed a different scene from this. Not another tragedy as might well be feared, under the swift reactions that came upon Edith. No, no! She did not die from a excess of joy, but was filled with new life and strength. Two hands broken asunder so violently a few years ago were now clasped again, and the minister of God as he laid them together pronounced in trembling tones the marriage benediction.

This was the scene, and here we drop the curtain.