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Show WW By MARY I t Mf I A thriLLing mystery story about a I J i I tk j man who lost his courage and the j j ROBERTS j j j girl who helped him tofind it again j j Rjvp ! I , ,,? L j J IF A GIRL discovered on the day of her wedding that the young man about to become her husband was a rake and that he had despoiled one girl and broken her heart, would she be wise if she refused to marry him, no matter how deep her love? The Trend of the Story. Mr. K. LeMoyne becomes a roomer at the Page home, where Sidney, Sid-ney, her mother, Anna, and her old maid aunt, Harriet, a dressmaker preside. Through the influence of Dr. Max Wilson, a successful young surgeon, Sidney becomes a probationary nurse at the hospital. Aunt Harriet opens a fashionable shop downtown and prospers. Christine Lorenz and Palmer Howe are about to be married, and they are going to take rooms at the Pages'. Sidney is loved by K., by Joe Drummond a beau attentive from high school days, and by Doctor Max, who fascinates fasci-nates her. At the hospital she begins to see the underside of the world. She meets Carlotta narrison, who is very "thick" with Doctor Max. K. LeMoyne is a mystery. He works at the gas office as a clerk-but clerk-but his past is hidden, and Doctor Max knows something about him which he keeps secret. Sidney goes to Christine's home to prepare for the wedding and finds the bride-to-be in a queer mood. 1 CHAPTER X Continued. 9 She got up quickly, and, trailing her long satin train across the floor, bolted the door. Then from Inside her corsage cor-sage she brought out and held to Sidney Sid-ney a letter. "Special delivery. Read It" It was very short; Sidney read it at a glance: Ask your future husband if he knows a girl at 213 avenue. Three months before, the Avenue would have meant nothing to Sidney. Now she knew. Christine, more sophisticated, so-phisticated, had always known. 'Ton see," she said. . "That's what I'm up against." Quite suddenly Sidney knew who the girl at 213 Avenue was. The paper she held In ber hand was hospital hospi-tal paper with the heading torn off. The whole sordid story lay before her : Grace Irving, with her thin face and cropped hair, and the newspaper on the floor of the ward beside her ! She picked up her veil and set the coronet on her head. Sidney stood with the letter in her hands. One of K.'s answers to her hot question had been this : "There is no sense in looking look-ing back unless it helps us to lpok ahead. What your little girl of the ward has been is not so important as what she is going to be." "Even granting this to be true," she said to Christine slowly "and it may only be malicious, after all, Christine Chris-tine ifs surely over and done with. It's not Palmer's past that concerns you now it's his future with you, isn't it?" Christine had finally adjusted her veil. She rose and put her hands on Sidney's shoulders. "The simple truth is," she said qui- M 'JIFc ' Sidney Read It at a Glance. etly, "that I might hold rainier If I f cared terribly. I don't. And I'm afraid he knows it. It's my pride that's ' hurt, nothing else. '( , And thus did Christine Loronz go ',' down to her wedding. " Sidney (Stood for a moment, her eyes on the letter she held. Already, in y ' her new philosophy, she had learned many strange . things. One of thorn i was this that women like Grace Ir- )S ving dUl not betray their lovers; that i the code of the underworld was "dealh ji to the sttuoaler;" that one played the l- game, and won or lost, and if he lost, S took his medicine. If not Grace, then (fi who? Somebody else in the hospital Jt who knew her story, of course. But J) who? And again why? pr? Before going downstairs, Sidney placed Die letter in a saucer and set sure to it with a .match. Some of the wdinriariiatrdielf out of her eyes. To K., sitting in the back of the church between Harriet and Anna, the wedding was Sidney Sidney only. Afterward he could not remember the wedding party at all. The service for him was Sidney, rather awed and very serious, beside the altar. It was Sidney Sid-ney who came down the aisle to the triumphant strains of the wedding march, Sidney with Max beside her ! On his right sat Harriet, having reached the first pinnacle of her new career. The wedding gowns were successful. suc-cessful. They were more than that they were triumphant Sitting there, she cast comprehensive eyes over the church, filled with potential brides. But to Anna, watching the ceremony with blurred eyes and ineffectual bluish lips, was coming her hour. Sitting Sit-ting back in the pew, with her hands folded over her prayerbook, she said a little prayer for her straight young daughter, facing out from the altar with clear, unafraid eyes. As Sidney and Max drew near the door, Joe Drummond, who had been standing at the back of the church, turned quickly and went out. He stumbled, rather, as if he could not see. CHAPTER XI. The supper at the White Springs hotel ho-tel had not been the last supper Carlotta Car-lotta Harrison and Max Wilson had taken together. Carlotta had selected for her vacation a small town within easy motoring distance of the city, and two or three times during her two weeks off duty Wilson had gone out to see her. He liked being with her. She stimulated him. For once that he could see Sidney, he saw Carlotta twice. She had kept the affair well in hand. She was playing for high stakes. She knew quite well the kind of man with whom she was dealing that ne would pay as little as possible. But she knew, too, that, let him want a thing enough, he would pay any price for it, even marriage. She was very skillful. The very ardor ar-dor in her face was in her favor. Behind Be-hind her eyes lurked cold calculation. She would put the thing through, and show those puling nurses, with their pious eyes and evening prayers, a thing or two. During that entire vacation he never saw her In anything more elaborate than the simplest of white dresses modestly open at the throat, sleeves rolled up to show her satiny arms. There were no other boarders at the little farmhouse. She sat for hours in the summer evenings in the square yard filled with apple trees that bordered bor-dered the highway, carefully posed over a book, hut with her keen eyes always on the road. She read Browning, Brown-ing, Emerson, Swinburne. Once he found her with a book that she hastily has-tily concealed. He insisted on seeing it, and secured it. It was a book on brain surgery. Confronted with It, she blushed and dropped her eyes. His delighted de-lighted vanity found in it the most insidious in-sidious of compliments, as she had intended. in-tended. "I feel such an idiot when I am with you," she said. "I wanted to know a little more about the things you do." That put their relationship on a new and advanced basis. Thereafter he occasionally talked surgery Instead of sentiment. He found her responsive, intelligent. His work, a sealed book to his women before, lay open to hor. Now and then their professional discussions dis-cussions ended In something different The two lines of their interest converged. con-verged. "Gad!" he said one day. "I look forward to these evenings. I can tulk shop with you without cither shocking or nauseating you. You are the most intelligent woman I know and one of the prettiest." The one element Carlotta had left out of her calculations was herself. She had known the man, had taken the situation at its proper value. But into her calculating ambition had come a new and destroying element. She who, like K. in his little room on the Street, had put aside love and the things thereof, found Unit It would nut put her aside. By the end of her short vacation va-cation Carlotta Harrison was wildly In love with the younger Wilson. They continued to meet not as often as before, but once a week, perhaps. per-haps. The meetings were full of danger dan-ger now; and if for the girl they lost by this quality, they gained attraction for the man. She was shrewd enough to realize her own situation. The thing had gone wrong. She cared, and he did not. It was his game now, not hers. All women are intuitive ; women in love are dangerously so. As well as she knew that his passion for her was not the real thing, so also she realized that there was growing up in his heart something akin to the real thing for Sidney Page. Suspicion became certainty cer-tainty after a talk they had over the supper table at a country roadhouse the day after Christine's wedding, "How was the wedding tiresome?" "Thrilling! There's always something some-thing thrilling to me in a man tying himself up for life to one woman. It's it's so reckless." Her eyes narrowed. "That's not exactly ex-actly the Law and the Prophets, is it?" "It's the truth. To think of selecting select-ing out of all the world one woman, and electing to spend the rest of one's days with her ! Although " His eyes looked past Carlotta into distance. "Sidney Page was one of the bridesmaids," brides-maids," he said irrelevantly. "She was lovelier than the bride." "Pretty, but stupid," said Carlotta. "I like her. I've really tried to teach her things, but you know " She shrugged her shoulders. Doctor Max 'was learning wisdom. If there was a twinkle in his eye, he veiled it discreetly. But, once again In the machine, he bent over and put his cheek against hers. "You little cat! You're jealous," he said exultantly. Nevertheless, although he might smile, the image of Sidney lay very close to his heart those autumn days. And Carlotta knew it. Sidney came off night duty the middle mid-dle of November. The night duty had been a time of comparative peace to Carlotta. There were no evenings when Doctor Max could bring Sidney back to the hospital in his car. ' Sidney's half-days at home were occasions oc-casions for agonies of jealousy on Car-lotta's Car-lotta's part. On such an occasion, a month after the wedding, she could not contain herself. She pleaded her old excuse of headache, and took the trolley trol-ley to a point near the end of the Street After twilight fell, she slowly walked the length of the Street. Christine Chris-tine and Palmer had not returned from their wedding journey. The November No-vember evening was not cold. Sidney was not in sight or Wilson. But standing on the wooden doorstep of the house was Le Movne. The ailan- thus trees were bare at that time, throwing gaunt arms upward to the November sky. The street lamp, which in the summer left the doorstep In the shadow, now shone through the branches and threw Into strong relief Le Moyne's tall figure and set face. Carlotta saw him too late to retreat. But he did not see her. She went on, startled, her busy brain scheming anew. Another element had entered Into her plotting. It was the first time she had known that K. lived in the Page house. It gave her a sense of uncertainty and deadly fear. She made her first friendly overture over-ture of many days to Sidney the following fol-lowing day. They met in the locker room in the basement where the street clothing for the ward patients was kept. Here, rolled in bundles and ticketed, side by side lay the heterogeneous hetero-geneous garments in which the patients pa-tients had met accident or illness. Rugs and tidiness, filth and cleanliness, cleanli-ness, lay almost touching. Far away on the other side of the whitewashed basement, men were unloading un-loading gleaming cans of milk. Floods of sunlight came down the cellarwny, touching their white coats and turning turn-ing the cans to silver. Everywhere was the religion of the hospital, which is order. Sidney, harking back from recent slights to the staircase conversations of her night duty, smiled at Carlotta cheerfully. "A miracle Is happening," she said. "Grace Irving is going out today. When one remembers how ill she was and how we thought she could not live, it's rather a triumph, isn't it?" "Are those her clothes?" Sidney examined with some dismay the elaborate negligee garments in her hand. "She can't go out in those; I shall have to lend her something." A little of the light died out of her face. "She's had a hard light, and she has won," she said, "But when I think of what she's probably going back to " Carlotta shrugged her shoulders. "It's all In the day's work," she observed ob-served indifferently. "You can take them up into the kitchen and give them steady work paring potatoes, or put them in the laundry Ironing. In the end It's the same thing. They a!! go back." 'i She turned, on her way out of the locker room, and shot a quick glance at Sidney. "I happened to be on your street the other night," she said. "You live across the street from Wilsons', don't you?" "Yes." "I thought so ; I had heard you speak of the house. Your-your brother was standing on the steps." Sidney laughed. "I have no brother. That's a roomer, room-er, a, Mr. Le Moyne. It isn't really right to call him a roomer; he's one of the family now." "Le Moyne !" He had even taken another name. It had hit him hard, for sure. K.'s name had struck an always responsive re-sponsive chord in Sidney. The two girls went toward the elevator to- "Pretty, but Stupid," Said Carlotta. gether. With a very little encouragement, encourage-ment, Sidney talked of K. She was pleased at Miss Harrison's friendly tone, glad that things were all- right between them again. At her floor she put a timid hand on the girl's arm. "I was afraid I had offended you or displeased you," she said. 'Tin so glad it isn't so." Carlotta shivered under her hand. Things were not going any too well with K. True, he had received hi promotion at the office, and with this present affluence of $22 a week he was able to do several things. Mrs. Rosen-feld Rosen-feld now washed and ironed one day a week at the little house, so that Katie might have more time to look after Anna. He had increased also the amount of money that he periodically sent east So far, well enough. The thing that rankled and filled him with a sense of failure was Max Wilson's attitude. It was not unfriendly ; it was, indeed, consistently respectful, almost reverential. rever-ential. But he clearly considered L Moyne's position absurd. There was no true comradeship between be-tween the two men ; but there was beginning be-ginning to be constant association, and lately a certain amount of friction. They thought differently about almost everything. Wilson began to bring all his problems prob-lems to Le Moyne. There were long consultations In that small upper room. Perhaps more than one man ci woman who did not know of K.'s existence exist-ence owed his life to him that fall. Under K.'s direction, Max did marvels. mar-vels. Cases began to come in to hira from the surrounding towns. To his own daring was added a new and re-marknble re-marknble technique. But Le Moyne, who had found resignation if not content, con-tent, was once again in touch with the work he loved. There were times when, having thrashed a case out together to-gether and outlined the next day's work for Max, he would walk for hours into the night out over the hills, fighting fight-ing his battle. The longing was on him to be in the thick of things again. The thought of the gas ollice and its deadly round sickened him. T 1 What more do you think Christine Chris-tine has learned about her new husband? Did she do wrong to go through the marriage? (TO BE CONTINUED.) |
