IV He Did Not Know That It Was Loaded
One day the nurse told him—as he insisted—the mystery of his opulent situation.
The person who had fired the shot had learned the effect of it from the newspapers, and being rich and sorry, had put his fortune at the disposal of the victim, and none of it was to be spared if it might help in the least to make him perfectly well again. Every cent of the very many the person had was at his disposal. And that his disposal of it might be the more free from embarrassment, he preferred to remain anonymous himself, and to make the hospital, or the nurse herself, if the victim preferred that, his almoner.
“Preferred to remain anonymous!” laughed Ravant. “He preferred to keep out of jail. I’d have him there in no time if I knew who he was!”
“It appears,” said the nurse, “that he did not know his pistol was loaded.”
Ravant exploded again—first with mirth, then with vengeance.
“The infernal old sneak and liar! To shoot a man simply because he happened to be drunk! Thank God a jag is not capital yet! It is no excuse to say that he didn’t know it was loaded. When he took up that pistol, it was with intent to kill. And, if I still remember any law, that is enough to hang him—”
“But they don’t hang people,” gasped the little nurse, “for anything but murder, do they?”
“I was going to say if he had killed me.”
“Oh!”
“Anyhow, we’ll make it the dearest lesson to the gentlemen who do not know it is loaded that ever was taught! We will spend that last cent of his. If not, we’ll throw it away! We are going to Europe at his expense. I need that to complete my recovery. And even then I will always wear this plate on my head in memory of him! And we’ll let the newspapers have it. It may prevent some other drunkard from such happiness as I am now enjoying, and teach the idiot with an empty gun to respect it as if it were loaded. I’ll be a missionary to my drunken kind all the world over! What do you say? By the way, what is your name?”
“Brown,” said the nurse.
“Whew!” said the invalid. “We can’t change that—can we?”
“No.”
“Marriage would do it.”
“Yes.”
“Ravant is better than Brown, eh?”
But then he laughed—he had frightened her!
“What’s your first name?”
“Rachel.”
“Heavens! But we might call you Ray. Ray Brown is not impossible. Did you notice that when I spoke of going to Europe and spending the old man’s money, I said we?”
“Yes,” said the girl.
“And it didn’t appeal to you?—make your little heart flutter—Ray?”
“No.”
“But you would help to try to ruin the old man?”
“I think it just for you to punish him in that way—but I am only a nurse.”
“Well—you are going with me—and that is the end of it. I need you and shall need you for a long time. In fact, I shall need you always. But, since you won’t marry me, as a nurse you will go!”
“Impossible! Mr. Ravant!” gasped the girl.
“Which?” snarled Ravant, in the old manner.
“Going to Europe with you—as your nurse—alone—”
“Well, then, we’ll take a chaperon. The old man must pay for her too.”
The girl was silent.
“Look here. I noticed that you didn’t say that the other thing was—impossible! Marrying me?”
“Yes—that is impossible, too,” said the girl.
“Oh!”
“What?”
For his tone was sinister.
“I’ll become a sot again.”
“The doctor says that with that wound in your head it will kill you!”
Ravant laughed—the brutal laugh once more.
“Well, let it. You can’t open the gate of paradise and let me get one glimpse and then shut it in my face. I’ll go back to my own little paradise.”
He was laughing. But she caught the note of hopelessness under it.
“Do you mean to say that if I marry you—”
“I will be good.”
“Understand that I do not love you! Not at all!”
“No one does. Marry me anyhow. Marry me to get rid of me. If you fall in love with some one else, it is off.”
The girl sobbed. She was on her knees at his bed. He did not like this.
“Never mind—never mind—child. I only thought we could make it less expensive to the old man in that way. I could then stop your wages, and we would not need a chaperon. And I really fancied that this thing inside of me which yearns for you—can’t wait till the night is over and you and morning come—is love. But I don’t know what the thing is—I never had the symptoms before—speak to the doctor about it—tell him I have ceased to be a pig. But, perhaps you know. Do you? Were you ever in love?”
“No, sir,” answered the nurse.
“Stop crying!” thundered Ravant.
“Yes, sir,” said the little nurse.