Meredith went out on the steps, and breathed the cool night air. A slender
taint of drugs hung everywhere about the building, and the almost
imperceptible permeation sickened him; it was deadly, he thought, and
imbued with a hideous portent of suffering. That John Harkless, of all
men, should lie stifled with ether, and bandaged and splintered, and
smeared with horrible unguents, while they stabbed and slashed and
tortured him, and made an outrage and a sin of that grand, big, dexterous
body of his! Meredith shuddered. The lights in the little ward were turned
up, and they seemed to shine from a chamber of horrors, while he waited,
as a brother might have waited outside the Inquisition--if, indeed, a
brother would have been allowed to wait outside the Inquisition.
Alas, he had found John Harkless! He had "lost track" of him as men
sometimes do lose track of their best beloved, but it had always been a
comfort to know that Harkless was--somewhere, a comfort without which he
could hardly have got along. Like others he had been waiting for John to
turn up--on top, of course; for people would always believe in him so,
that he would be shoved ahead, no matter how much he hung back himself--
but Meredith had not expected him to turn up in Indiana. He had heard
vaguely that Harkless was abroad, and he had a general expectation that
people would hear of him over there some day, with papers like the "Times"
beseeching him to go on missions. And he found him here, in his own home,
a stranger, alone and dying, receiving what ministrations were reserved
for Jerry the Teller. But it was Helen Sherwood who had found him. He
wondered how much those two had seen of each other, down there in
Plattville. If they had liked each other, and Harkless could have lived,
he thought it might have simplified some things for Helen. "Poor Helen!"
he exclaimed aloud. Her telegram had a ring, even in the barren four
sentences. He wondered how much they had liked each other. Perhaps she
would wish to come at once. When those fellows came out of the room he
would send her a word by telegraph.
When they came out--ah! he did not want them to come out; he was afraid.
They were an eternity--why didn't they come? No; he hoped they would not
come, just now. In a little time, in a few minutes, even, he would not
dread a few words so much; but now he couldn't quite bear to be told he
had found his friend only to lose him, the man he had always most needed,
wanted, loved. Everybody had always cared for Harkless, wherever he went.
That he had always cared for everybody was part of the reason, maybe.
Meredith remembered, now, hearing a man who had spent a day in Plattville
on business speak of him: "They've got a young fellow down there who'll be
Governor in a few years. He's a sort of dictator; and runs the party all
over that part of the State to suit his own sweet will, just by sheer
personality. And there isn't a man in that district who wouldn't
cheerfully lie down in the mud to let him pass over dry. It's that young
Harkless, you know; owns the 'Herald,' the paper that downed McCune and
smashed those imitation 'White-Caps' in Carlow County." Meredith had been
momentarily struck by the coincidence of the name, but his notion of
Harkless was so inseparably connected with what was (to his mind) a
handsome and more spacious--certainly more illuminated--field of action,
that the idea that this might be his friend never entered his head. Helen
had said something once--he could not remember what--that made him think
she had half suspected it, and he had laughed. He thought of the whimsical
fate that had taken her to Plattville, of the reason for her going, and
the old thought came to him that the world is, after all, so very small.
He looked up at the twinkling stars; they were reassuring and kind. Under
their benignancy no loss could befall, no fate miscarry--for in his last
thought he felt his vision opened, for the moment, to perceive a fine
tracery of fate.