The next week was memorable to Claire as marking the beginning of serious anxiety with regard to Sophie.  She had looked ill since the beginning of the term, and the bottle of aspirin tabloids had become quite an accustomed feature on the luncheon table; but when questioned she had always a smile and an easy excuse.

“What can you expect in this weather?  No one but a fish could help aching in these floods.  I’m perfectly all right!”

But one morning this week, meeting her on an upper landing, Claire discovered Sophie apparently dragging herself along with her hands, and punctuating each step with a gasp of pain.  She stood still and stared, whereupon Sophie instantly straightened herself, and ascended the remaining steps in a normal manner.

“Sophie,” cried Claire sternly, “don’t pretend!  I heard you; I saw you!  My dear girl, is the rheumatism so bad?”

Sophie twisted her head this way and that, her lips pursed in warning.

“S-sh!  Be careful!  You never know who is about.  I am rather stiff to-day.  This raw fog has been the last straw.  I shall be all right when we get through this month.  I hate March!  It finds out all the weak spots.  Please, Claire, don’t take any notice.  A Gym. mistress has no business to have rheumatism.  It’s really very good for me to be obliged to keep going.  It is always worse at the beginning of the day.”

Claire went away with a pain in her heart, and the pain grew steadily as she watched Sophie throughout the week.  The pretty face was often drawn with pain, she rose and sat down with an obvious effort; and still the rain poured, and the dark fog enveloped the city, and Sophie struggled to and from her work in a thin blue serge suit which had already seen three winters’ wear.

One day the subject came up for discussion in the staff-room, and Claire was shocked and surprised at the attitude of the other teachers.  They were sorry for Sophie, they sympathised, to a certain extent they were even anxious on her account, but the prevailing sentiment seemed to be that the kindest thing was to take no notice of her sufferings.  No use pitying her; that would only make her more sorry for herself.  No use suggesting cures; cures take time, not to speak of money.  The Easter holidays would soon be here; perhaps she might try something then.  In the meantime-tant pis! she must get along as best she could.  There was simply no time to be ill.

“I’ve a churchyard cough myself,” declared the Arts mistress.  “I stayed in bed all Saturday and Sunday, and it was really a little better, but it was as bad as ever after a day in this big draughty hole.”

“And I am racked with neuralgia,” chimed in Miss Bates.  The subject of Sophie was lost in a general lamentation.

Friday evening came, and after the girls had departed Claire went in search of Sophie, hoping tactfully to be able to suggest remedial methods over the week-end.  She peeped into several rooms before at last, in one of the smallest and most out-of-the-way, she caught sight of a figure crouched with buried head at the far end of the table.  It was Sophie, and she was crying, and catching her breath in a weak exhausted fashion, pitiful to hear.  Claire shut the door tightly, and put her arms round the shaking form.

“Miss Blake-Sophie!  You poor, dear girl!  You are tired out.  You have been struggling all the week, but it’s Friday night, dear, remember that!  You can go home and just tumble into bed.  Don’t give way when you’ve been so brave.”

But for the moment Sophie’s bravery had deserted her.

“It’s raining!  It’s raining!  It always rains.  I can’t face it.  The pain’s all over me, and the omnibuses won’t stop!  They expect you to jump in, and I can’t jump!  I don’t know how to get home.”

“Well, I do!” Claire cried briskly.  “There’s no difficulty about that.  I’m sick of wet walks myself.  I’ll whistle for a taxi, and we’ll drive home in state.  I’ll take you home first, and then go on myself; or, if you like, I’ll come in with you and help you to bed.”

“P-please.  Oh, yes, please, do come!  I don’t want to be alone,” faltered Sophie weakly; but she wiped her eyes, and in characteristic fashion began to cheer up at the thought of the drive home.

There was a cheerful fire burning in Sophie’s sitting-room, and the table was laid for tea in quite an appetising fashion.  The landlady came in at the sound of footsteps, and showed a sympathetic interest at the sight of Sophie’s tear-stained face.

“I told you you weren’t fit to go out!” she said sagely.  “Now just sit yourself down before the fire, and I’ll take your things upstairs and bring you down a warm shawl.  Then you shall have your teas.  I’ll bring in a little table, so you can have it where you are.”  She left the room, and Sophie looked after her with grateful eyes.

“That’s what I pay for!” she said eloquently.  “She’s so kind!  I love that woman for all her niceness to me.  I told you I had no right to pay so much rent.  I came in just for a few weeks until I could find something else, and I haven’t had the heart to move.  I’ve been in such holes, and had such awful landladies.  They seem divided into two big classes, kind and dirty, or clean and mad!  When you get one who is kind and clean, you feel so grateful that you’d pay your last penny rather than move away.  Oh, how lovely! how lovely! how lovely!  It’s Friday night, and I can be ill comfortably all the time till Monday morning!  Aren’t we jolly well-off to have our Saturdays to ourselves?  How thankful the poor clerks and typists would be to be in our place!”

She was smiling again, enjoying the warmth of the fire, the ease of the cushioned chair.  When Mrs Rogers entered she snoodled into the folds of a knitted shawl, and lay back placidly while the kind creature took off her wet shoes and stockings and replaced them by a long pair of fleecy woollen bed-socks, reaching knee high.  The landlady knelt to her task, and Sophie laid a hand on the top of starched lace and magenta velvet, and cried, “Rise, Lady Susan Rogers!  One of the truest ladies that ever breathed...”

“How you do talk!” said the landlady, but her eyes shone.  As she expounded to her husband in the kitchen, “Miss Blake had such a way with her.  When ladies were like that you didn’t care what you did, but there was them as treated you like Kaffirs.”

Tea was quite a cheerful and sociable little meal, during which no reference was made to Sophie’s ailments, but when the cups had been replaced on the central table, Claire seated herself and said with an air of decision-

“Now we’re going to have a disagreeable conversation!  I don’t approve of the way you have been going on this last month, and it’s time it came to an end.  You are ill, and it’s your business to take steps to get better!”

“Oh!”

“Yes; and you are going to take them, too!”

“What am I going to do?”

“You are going to see a specialist next week.”

“You surprise me!” Sophie smiled with exaggerated lightness.  “What funny things one does hear!”

“Why shouldn’t you see a specialist?  I defy you to give me one sensible reason?”

“I’ll do better than that.  I’ll give you two.”

“So do, then!  What are they?”

“Guineas!” said Sophie.

For a moment Claire stared blankly, then she laughed.

“Oh, I see!  Yes.  It is rather a haul.  But it’s better to harden your heart once for all, and pay it down.”

“The two guineas is only the beginning.”

“The beginning of what?”

“Trouble!” said Sophie grimly.  “Baths, at a guinea apiece.  Massage, half-a-guinea a time.  Medicine, liniments, change of air.  My dear, it’s no use.  What’s the use of paying two guineas to hear a man tell you to do a dozen things which are hopelessly impossible?  It’s paying good money only to be aggravated and depressed.  If it comes to that, I can prescribe for myself without paying a sou...  Knock off all work for a year.  Go to Egypt, or some perfectly dry climate, and build up your strength.  Always get out of London for the winter months.  Live in the fresh air, and avoid fatigue...  How’s that?  Doesn’t that strike you as admirable advice?”

She put her head on one side with a gallant attempt at a smile, but her lips twitched, and the flare of the incandescent light showed her face lined and drawn with pain.  Claire was silent, her heart cramping with pain.  The clock ticked on for several minutes, before she asked softly-

“Have you no savings, Sophie?  No money to keep you if you did take a rest?”

“Not a sou.  It’s all I can do to struggle along.  I told you I had to help a young sister, and things run up so quickly, that it doesn’t seem possible to save.  I suppose many people would say one ought to be able to do it on a hundred a year; that’s all I have left for myself!  Hundreds of women manage on less, but as a rule they come from a different class, and can put up with a style of living which would be intolerable to us.  I don’t complain of the pay.  I don’t think it is bad as things go:  it’s only when illness comes that one looks ahead and feels-frightened!  Suppose I broke down now, suppose I broke down in ten years’ time!  I should be over forty, and after working hard for twenty years I should be left without a penny piece; thrown on the scrap heap, as a worn-out thing that was no more use.  But I might still live on, years upon years.  Oh, dear! why did you make me think of it?  It does no good; only gives one the hump.  There is no Pension scheme, so I simply can’t afford to be ill.  That’s the end of it.”

“Don’t you think if you went to Miss Farnborough, and explained to her-”

Sophie turned a flushed, protesting face.

“Never!  Not for the world, and you mustn’t either.  Promise me faithfully that you will never give so much as a hint.  Miss Farnborough is a capital head, but her great consideration is for the pupils; we only count in so far as we are valuable to them.  She’d be sorry for me, of course, and would give me quite a lot of advice, but she’d think at once, `If she’s rheumatic, she won’t be so capable as a Gym. mistress; I must get some one else!’ No, no, my dear, I must go on, I must fight it out.  You’d be surprised to see how I can fight when Miss Farnborough comes on the scene!”

“Very well.  You have had your say, now I’m going to have mine!  If you go on as you have been doing the last month, growing stiffer week by week, you won’t be able to hide it!  The other mistresses talk about it already.  They were discussing you in staff-room last week.  If you go on trusting to chance, you are simply courting disaster.  Now I’ll tell you what I am going to do.  I’m going to find out the address of a good specialist, and make an appointment for next Saturday morning.  You shan’t have any trouble about it, and I’ll call in a taxi, and take you myself, and bring you safely back.  And it will be the wisest and the cheapest two guineas you ever spent in your life.  Now!  What have you got to say to that?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know!  You are very kind.  I suppose I ought to be grateful.  I suppose you are right.  Oh, I’ll go, I suppose, I must go. Bother!” cried Sophie ungraciously, whereupon Claire hastily changed the conversation, and made no further reference to health during the rest of her visit.

Mrs Willoughby supplied the name of a specialist; the specialist granted an appointment for the following Saturday at noon, when the two girls duly appeared in his consulting-room; and Sophie underwent the usual examination, during which the great doctor’s face assumed a serious air.  Finally he returned to the round-backed chair which stood against the desk, and faced his patient across the room.  Sophie was looking flushed and pretty, she was wearing her best clothes, and she wore them with an air which might well delude a masculine eye into believing them much better than they really were.  Claire had her usual smart, well-turned-out appearance.  They seemed to the doctor’s eyes two prosperous members of Society.

“I fear,” he said gravely, “I fear that there is no doubt that your rheumatism is the sort most difficult to treat.  It is a clear case of rheumatoid arthritis, but you are young, and the disease is in an early stage, so that we must hope for the best.  In olden times it was supposed to be an incurable complaint, but of late years we have had occasional cures, quite remarkable cures, which have mitigated that decision.  You must realise, however, that it is a difficult fight, and that you will need much patience and perseverance.”

“How soon do you think you can cure me?”

The doctor looked into Sophie’s face, and his eyes were pitiful.

“I wish I could say, but I fear that’s impossible.  Different people are affected by different cures.  You must go on experimenting until you find one that will suit your case; meanwhile there are certain definite instructions which you would do well to observe.  In what part of London do you live?” He pursed-up his lips at the reply.  “Clay!  Heavy clay.  The worst thing you could have.  That must be altered at once.  It is essential that you live on light, gravelly soil, and even then you should not be in England in winter.  You should go abroad for four or five months.”

Sophie cast a lightning glance at her companion.  “It’s impossible!” she said shortly.  “I can’t move.  I can’t go abroad.  I am a High School-mistress.  I am obliged to stay at my work.  I am dependent on my salary.  I knew it was stupid to come.  I knew what you would say.  I told my friend.  It was her doing.  She made me come-”

“I am very much indebted to your friend,” the doctor said genially.  “She was quite right to insist that you should have advice, and now that I know the circumstances, I’ll try not to be unreasonable.  I know how aggravating it must be to be ordered to do things which are clearly impossible; but you are young, and you are threatened with a disease which may cripple your life.  I want to do all that is in my power to help you.  Let’s talk it over quietly, and see what can be done.”

“I’m in school every day until half-past four, except on Saturdays, and I can’t afford to wait.  I must get better, and I must be quick about it, or I shall lose my post.  If I leave this school through rheumatism, it will go down in my testimonial, and I should never get another opening.  I’m the Gym. mistress.”

“Poor girl!” said the doctor kindly.  “Well,” he added, “I can say one thing for your encouragement; you could not help yourself more than by preserving your present attitude of mind.  To determine to get better, and to get better quickly, is a very valuable aid to material means.  And now I will tell you what I propose.”

He bent forward in his chair, talking earnestly and rapidly.  There was no time to be lost, since the disease was apt to take sudden leaps forward; at this stage every day was of value; the enemy must be attacked before he had made good his hold.  There was a new treatment which, within his own experience, had had excellent results.  It was not a certainty; it was very far from a certainty, but it was a chance, and it had this merit, that a month or six weeks would prove its efficacy in any special case.  If this failed, something else must be tried, but most cures were very long, very costly.  He would propose in the first instance giving two injections a week; later on three or even four.  There might be a certain amount of reaction.

“What do you mean by reaction?” Sophie asked.

“Fever, headache.  Possibly sickness, but not lasting for more than twenty-four hours.”

Sophie set her lips.

“I have no time to be ill!”

The doctor looked at her with deliberate sternness.

“You will have all your life to be ill, if you do not take care now!  I will do what I can to help you; we will arrange the times most convenient to you.  You might come to me at first direct from school on Wednesdays and Saturdays.  Later on the system will accustom itself, and you will probably feel no bad effects.  I should like to undertake your case myself.  My charge to you will be a quarter of my ordinary fee.”

“Thank you very much,” stammered Sophie, “but-”

Claire jumped up, and hastily interposed.

“Thank you so very much!  We are most grateful, but it’s-it’s been rather a shock, and we have not had time to think.  Will you allow us to write and tell you our decision?”

“Certainly.  Certainly.  But be quick about it.  I am anxious to help, but every week’s delay will make the case more difficult.  Try to arrange for Wednesday next.”

As he spoke he led the way towards the door.  He had been all that was kind and considerate, but there were other patients waiting; all day long a procession of sufferers were filing into that room.  He had no more time to give to Sophie Blake.  The two girls went out into the street, got into a taxi and were driven swiftly away.  Neither spoke.  They drew up before the door of Sophie’s lodgings, entered the cosy sitting-room and sat down by the fire.

“Well!” Sophie’s face was flushed, her eyes were dry and feverishly bright.  “I hope you are satisfied, my dear.  I’ve been to a specialist to please you, and a most depressing entertainment it has been.  Arthritis!  That’s the thing people have who go about in Bath chairs, and have horrible twisted fingers.  It was supposed to be incurable, but now they have `an occasional cure,’ so I must hope for the best!  I do think doctors are the stupidest things!  They have no tact.  He could tell me that in one breath, and in the other that it was most important that I should have hope.  Well!  I have hope.  I have faith, but it’s not because of his stupid injections.  I believe in God, and God knows that I need my health, and that other people need it too.  My little sister!  What would happen to her if I crocked now?  I don’t believe He will let me grow worse!”

“That’s all right, Sophie dear, but oughtn’t you to use the means?  I don’t call it trusting in the right sense if you set yourself against the help that comes along.  God doesn’t work miracles as He did in the old way; the world has progressed since those old times, and now He works through men.  It is a miracle just the same, though it shows itself in a more natural fashion.  Don’t you call it a miracle that a busy doctor should offer to treat you himself, at the hours most convenient to you, and to do it at a quarter of his usual fees?”

“His fee for to-day was two guineas.  They always charge that, I suppose-these specialist people.  A quarter of that would mean half-a-guinea a visit.  Two half-guineas equal one guinea.  Later on, three or four half-guineas a week would equal one-and-a-half to two guineas.  Two guineas equal my whole income.  Very kind, no doubt-very kind indeed.  And just about as feasible as if he’d said a thousand pounds.”

Claire was busy calculating, her fingers playing upon her knee.  Ten guineas ought to pay for the six weeks which would test the efficacy of the vaccine.  Surely there could not be any serious difficulty about ten guineas?

“Wouldn’t your brother?”

Sophie shook her head.

“I wouldn’t ask him.  He has four small children, and he does so much for Emily.  More than he can afford.  He works too hard, poor fellow.  If it were a certainty, perhaps it might be managed somehow; but it’s only a chance, and six weeks won’t see the end.”

“But the end will be quicker if you begin at once.  The doctor said that every day was of importance.  Sophie, listen!  I’ve got the money.  I’ve got it lying in the bank.  I’ll lend it to you.  I’d love to lend it.  If you’ll let me, I’ll send you a cheque to-night; that will pay for the first six weeks-”

Sophie stretched out her hand, and gave a momentary clasp to Claire’s fingers.

“You are a good soul!  Fancy offering that to a stranger like me!  It’s noble of you, my dear.  Perfectly sweet!  I’m awfully grateful, but it’s absolutely impossible that I could accept.  When could I pay you back?  I’ve never been able to save, but I have kept out of debt, and it would worry me to death to have ten pounds hanging round my neck.  Besides, we shouldn’t be any further.  At the end of the six weeks I should either be better, in which case he would certainly want me to go on; or worse, when I should have to try something else!  You don’t propose that I should go on borrowing from you at the rate of one or two guineas a week?”

“I-I’m afraid I haven’t got it to give.”

“Very well, then-there you are!  What’s the good of beginning at all?”

Claire put her hands over her face and thought with that intense and selfless thought which is as a prayer for help.  The future seemed dark indeed, and the feeling of helplessness was hard to bear.  Two lonely girls, with no one to help, and so much help that was needed!  Here was indeed the time for prayer.

“Sophie, it’s horribly difficult; we can’t see ahead.  We can only `do the next thing.’  It is your duty to take this cure now, and the way has opened for that.  When we’ve come to the end of the six weeks, it may open again.  You said you have trust in God.  It’s no use talking generalities, if you are not prepared to put your faith into practice.  The question for to-day is, Can you trust Him for the beginning of May?”

Sophie smiled.

“I like that!  That’s a nice way of putting it.  Yes, I can; but, Claire (I must call you Claire, you are such a dear!), I wish it didn’t mean borrowing other people’s money!  It will be years before I can pay you back.  It may be that I can never do it.”

“I would have said `give,’ but I was afraid it would hurt your pride.  My stepfather gave me some money to buy jewellery for a wedding present, and as a pure matter of selfishness I’d get more pleasure out of helping you than out of a stupid brooch.  And listen, Sophie, listen!  I’m going to explain.-I chose to take up teaching because I wanted to be independent, and I knew my mother would be happier without me during the first years of her marriage; but she is devoted to me, and I know in time she will crave to have me back.  She isn’t strong, and she finds the Indian climate trying, so very likely she may need my help.  I shall never be sorry that I came to London, for work is a splendid experience, and I am glad to have it; but I have never the feeling that it is going to last.  Mother comes first, and my stepfather is quite well-off, and can afford to keep me; so if I were needed, I should not feel that I was sacrificing my independence in letting him do it.  So you see I am not quite in the same position as the other mistresses, and money is not of the same importance.  If you were in my place, Sophie, would you hesitate to lend me a ten-pound note?”

“Guineas, please!” cried Sophie, laughing to hide her tears.  “All right, my dear, all right!  I give in.  I lie down.  You’ve beaten me.  I’ve nothing more to say.  I’ll take the horrid old injections, and pay for them with your money, and-and-I think I’ll go to bed now, please!  I’ve had about as much as I can bear for one short day!”

“And I’ll go home and have a rest myself.  I am to help at a bazaar this afternoon, and I don’t feel at all in my full beauty.  Good-bye, Sophie.  Cheer up!  There’s a good time coming!”

“There’s a good time coming for you!” predicted Sophie confidently.