Chapter IV

The Avenue Girl improved slowly. Morning and evening came the Dummy and smiled down at her, with reverence in his eyes. She could smile back now and sometimes she spoke to him. There was a change in the Avenue Girl. She was less sullen. In the back of her eyes each morning found a glow of hope--that died, it is true, by noontime; but it came again with the new day.

"How's Polly this morning, Montmorency?" she would say, and give him a bit of toast from her breakfast for the bird. Or: "I wish you could talk, Reginald. I'd like to hear what Rose said when you took the parrot. It must have been a scream!"

He brought her the first chrysanthemums of the fall and laid them on her pillow. It was after he had gone, while the Probationer was combing out the soft short curls of her hair, that she mentioned the Dummy. She strove to make her voice steady, but there were tears in her eyes.

"The old goat's been pretty good to me, hasn't he?" she said.

"I believe it is very unusual. I wonder"--the Probationer poised the comb--"perhaps you remind him of some one he used to know."

They knew nothing, of course, of the boy John and the window.

"He's about the first decent man I ever knew," said the Avenue Girl--"and he's a fool!"

"Either a fool or very, very wise," replied the Probationer.

The _interne_ and the Probationer were good friends again, but they had never quite got back to the place they had lost on the roof. Over the Avenue Girl's dressing their eyes met sometimes, and there was an appeal in the man's and tenderness; but there was pride too. He would not say he had not meant it. Any man will tell you that he was entirely right, and that she had been most unwise and needed a good scolding--only, of course, it is never the wise people who make life worth the living.

And an important thing had happened--the Probationer had been accepted and had got her cap. She looked very stately in it, though it generally had a dent somewhere from her forgetting she had it on and putting her hat on over it. The first day she wore it she knelt at prayers with the others, and said a little Thank You! for getting through when she was so unworthy. She asked to be made clean and pure, and delivered from vanity, and of some use in the world. And, trying to think of the things she had been remiss in, she went out that night in a rain and bought some seed and things for the parrot.

Prodigal as had been Father Feeny and his battalion, there was more grafting needed before the Avenue Girl could take her scarred body and soul out into the world again. The Probationer offered, but was refused politely.

"You are a part of the institution now," said the _interne_, with his eyes on her cap. He was rather afraid of the cap. "I cannot cripple the institution."

It was the Dummy who solved that question. No one knew how he knew the necessity or why he had not come forward sooner; but come he did and would not be denied. The _interne_ went to a member of the staff about it.

"The fellow works round the house," he explained; "but he's taken a great fancy to the girl and I hardly know what to do."

"My dear boy," said the staff, "one of the greatest joys in the world is to suffer for a woman. Let him go to it."

So the Dummy bared his old-young arm--not once, but many times. Always as the sharp razor nicked up its bit of skin he looked at the girl and smiled. In the early evening he perched the parrot on his bandaged arm and sat on the roof or by the fountain in the courtyard. When the breeze blew strong enough the water flung over the rim and made little puddles in the hollows of the cement pavement. Here belated sparrows drank or splashed their dusty feathers, and the parrot watched them crookedly.

The Avenue Girl grew better with each day, but remained wistful-eyed. The ward no longer avoided her, though she was never one of them. One day the Probationer found a new baby in the children's ward; and, with the passion of maternity that is the real reason for every good woman's being, she cuddled the mite in her arms. She visited the nurses in the different wards.

"Just look!" she would say, opening her arms. "If I could only steal it!"

The Senior, who had once been beautiful and was now calm and placid, smiled at her. Old Maggie must peer and cry out over the child. Irish Delia must call down a blessing on it. And so up the ward to the Avenue Girl; the Probationer laid the baby in her arms.

"Just a minute," she explained. "I'm idling and I have no business to. Hold it until I give the three o'clocks." Which means the three-o'clock medicines.

When she came back the Avenue Girl had a new look in her eyes; and that day the little gleam of hope, that usually died, lasted and grew.

At last came the day when the alibi was to be brought forward. The girl had written home and the home folks were coming. In his strange way the Dummy knew that a change was near. The kaleidoscope would shift again and the Avenue Girl would join the changing and disappearing figures that fringed the inner circle of his heart.

One night he did not go to bed in the ward bed that was his only home, beside the little stand that held his only possessions. The watchman missed him and found him asleep in the chapel in one of the seats, with the parrot drowsing on the altar.

Rose--who was the stout woman--came early. She wore a purple dress, with a hat to match, and purple gloves. The ward eyed her with scorn and a certain deference. She greeted the Avenue Girl effusively behind the screens that surrounded the bed.

"Well, you do look pinched!" she said. "Ain't it a mercy it didn't get to your face! Pretty well chewed up, aren't you?"

"Do you want to see it?"

"Good land! No! Now look here, you've got to put me wise or I'll blow the whole thing. What's my little stunt? The purple's all right for it, isn't it?"

"All you need to do," said the Avenue Girl wearily, "is to say that I've been sewing for you since I came to the city. And--if you can say anything good----"

"I'll do that all right," Rose affirmed. She put a heavy silver bag on the bedside table and lowered herself into a chair. "You leave it to me, dearie. There ain't anything I won't say."

The ward was watching with intense interest. Old Maggie, working the creaking bandage machine, was palpitating with excitement. From her chair by the door she could see the elevator and it was she who announced the coming of destiny.

"Here comes the father," she confided to the end of the ward. "Guess the mother couldn't come."

It was not the father though. It was a young man who hesitated in the doorway, hat in hand--a tall young man, with a strong and not unhandsome face. The Probationer, rather twitchy from excitement and anxiety, felt her heart stop and race on again. Jerry, without a doubt!

The meeting was rather constrained. The girl went whiter than her pillows and half closed her eyes; but Rose, who would have been terrified at the sight of an elderly farmer, was buoyantly relieved and at her ease.

"I'm sorry," said Jerry. "I--we didn't realise it had been so bad. The folks are well; but--I thought I'd better come. They're expecting you back home."

"It was nice of you to come," said the girl, avoiding his eyes. "I--I'm getting along fine."

"I guess introductions ain't necessary," put in Rose briskly. "I'm Mrs. Sweeney. She's been living with me--working for me, sewing. She's sure a fine sewer! She made this suit I'm wearing."

Poor Rose, with "custom made" on every seam of the purple! But Jerry was hardly listening. His eyes were on the girl among the pillows.

"I see," said Jerry slowly. "You haven't said yet, Elizabeth. Are you going home?"

"If--they want me."

"Of course they want you!" Again Rose: "Why shouldn't they? You've been a good girl and a credit to any family. If they say anything mean to you you let me know."

"They'll not be mean to her. I'm sure they'll want to write and thank you. If you'll just give me your address, Mrs. Sweeney----"

He had a pencil poised over a notebook. Rose hesitated. Then she gave her address on the Avenue, with something of bravado in her voice. After all, what could this country-store clerk know of the Avenue? Jerry wrote it down carefully.

"Sweeney--with an e?" he asked politely.

"With three e's," corrected Rose, and got up with dignity.

"Well, good-bye, dearie," she said. "You've got your friends now and you don't need me. I guess you've had your lesson about going to sleep with a cig--about being careless with fire. Drop me a postal when you get the time."

She shook hands with Jerry and rustled and jingled down the ward, her chin well up. At the door she encountered Old Maggie, her arms full of bandages.

"How's the Avenue?" asked Old Maggie.

Rose, however, like all good actresses, was still in the part as she made her exit. She passed Old Maggie unheeding, severe respectability in every line of her figure, every nod of her purple plumes. She was still in the part when she encountered the Probationer.

"It's going like a house afire!" she said. "He swallowed it all--hook and bait! And--oh, yes, I've got something for you." She went down into her silver bag and pulled out a roll of bills. "I've felt meaner'n a dog every time I've thought of you buying that parrot. I've got a different view of life--maybe--from yours; but I'm not taking candy from a baby."

When the Probationer could speak Rose was taking herself and the purple into the elevator and waving her a farewell.

"Good-bye!" she said. "If ever you get stuck again just call on me."

With Rose's departure silence fell behind the screen. The girl broke it first.

"They're all well, are they?"

"All well. Your mother's been kind of poorly. She thought you'd write to her." The girl clenched her hands under the bedclothing. She could not speak just then. "There's nothing much happened. The post office burned down last summer. They're building a new one. And--I've been building. I tore down the old place."

"Are you going to be married, Jerry?"

"Some day, I suppose. I'm not worrying about it. It was something to do; it kept me from--thinking."

The girl looked at him and something gripped her throat. He knew! Rose might have gone down with her father, but Jerry knew! Nothing was any use. She knew his rigid morality, his country-bred horror of the thing she was. She would have to go back--to Rose and the others. He would never take her home.

Down at the medicine closet the Probationer was carbolising thermometers and humming a little song. Everything was well. The Avenue Girl was with her people and at seven o'clock the Probationer was going to the roof--to meet some one who was sincerely repentant and very meek.

In the convalescent ward next door they were singing softly--one of those spontaneous outbursts that have their origin in the hearts of people and a melody all their own:

_'Way down upon de S'wanee Ribber,
Far, far away,
Dere's wha my heart is turnin' ebber--
Dere's wha de old folks stay._

It penetrated back of the screen, where the girl lay in white wretchedness--and where Jerry, with death in his eyes, sat rigid in his chair.

"Jerry?"

"Yes."

"I--I guess I've been pretty far away."

"Don't tell me about it!" A cry, this.

"You used to care for me, Jerry. I'm not expecting that now; but if you'd only believe me when I say I'm sorry----"

"I believe you, Elizabeth."

"One of the nurses here says----Jerry, won't you look at me?" With some difficulty he met her eyes. "She says that because one starts wrong one needn't go wrong always. I was ashamed to write. She made me do it."

She held out an appealing hand, but he did not take it. All his life he had built up a house of morality. Now his house was crumbling and he stood terrified in the wreck. "It isn't only because I've been hurt that I--am sorry," she went on. "I loathed it! I'd have finished it all long ago, only--I was afraid."

"I would rather have found you dead!"

There is a sort of anesthesia of misery. After a certain amount of suffering the brain ceases to feel. Jerry watched the white curtain of the screen swaying in the wind, settled his collar, glanced at his watch. He was quite white. The girl's hand still lay on the coverlet. Somewhere back in the numbed brain that would think only little thoughts he knew that if he touched that small, appealing hand the last wall of his house would fall.

It was the Dummy, after all, who settled that for him. He came with his afternoon offering of cracked ice just then and stood inside the screen, staring. Perhaps he had known all along how it would end, that this, his saint, would go--and not alone--to join the vanishing circle that had ringed the inner circle of his heart. Just at the time it rather got him. He swayed a little and clutched at the screen; but the next moment he had placed the bowl on the stand and stood smiling down at the girl.

"The only person in the world who believes in me!" said the girl bitterly. "And he's a fool!"

The Dummy smiled into her eyes. In his faded, childish eyes there was the eternal sadness of his kind, eternal tenderness, and the blur of one who has looked much into a far distance. Suddenly he bent over and placed the man's hand over the girl's.

The last wall was down! Jerry buried his face in the white coverlet.

* * * * *

The _interne_ was pacing the roof anxiously. Golden sunset had faded to lavender--to dark purple--to night.

The Probationer came up at last--not a probationer now, of course; but she had left off her cap and was much less stately.

"I'm sorry," she explained; "but I've been terribly busy. It went off so well!"

"Of course--if you handled it."

"You know--don't you?--it was the lover who came. He looks so strong and good--oh, she is safe now!"

"That's fine!" said the _interne_ absently. They were sitting on the parapet now and by sliding his hand along he found her fingers. "Isn't it a glorious evening?" He had the fingers pretty close by that time; and suddenly gathering them up he lifted the hand to his lips.

"Such a kind little hand!" he said over it. "Such a dear, tender little hand! My hand!" he said, rather huskily.

Down in the courtyard the Dummy sat with the parrot on his knee. At his feet the superintendent's dog lay on his side and dreamed of battle. The Dummy's eyes lingered on the scar the Avenue Girl had bandaged--how long ago!

His eyes wandered to the window with the young John among the lilies. In the stable were still the ambulance horses that talked to him without words. And he had the parrot. If he thought at all it was that his Father was good and that, after all, he was not alone. The parrot edged along his knee and eyed him with saturnine affection.

THE MIRACLE