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Show A , . 4 j 66TTF99 j By"-- Mary Roberts Rinehart 1 1 1 If; O-oi.yilKJa, hy Md.iuro i'uau all'Hi-i. Inc.) j Le Moyne Is Found Out and 1 1 the Big Part of Our Story I Begins to Unfold. 9 SYNOPSIS K. I.cMoyno, a 5 young riian, heroines u roonu-r H lit tin! Page home, where Slilii'-y, i her mother, Anna, itnil her ol-l maid aunt, Harriet, a liressinnk- (r preside. Through tliu Inllti-onre Inllti-onre of Dr. Max Wilson, a successful suc-cessful young surgeon, Klli?y become a probationary nurso at the hospllul. Aunt Harriet o'ii.s a fashionable shop downtown. down-town. Christine Lorenz and Palmer Pal-mer Howe uro about to be married mar-ried und tliey will take rooms at the I'nge.s'. Hlilney Is loved by K., by Joe Driinimond, a high-sChool high-sChool beau, and by Dr. Max, who fascinates her. At the hospital hos-pital she begins to see the underside un-derside of the world. She meets Chnrlottn Harrison, who has been very "thick" with Dr. Max. K. LeMoyne is a mystery. He works at the gas olllce ns a clerk, but his past Is hidden, and he fears to meet strangers I why? As this Installment opens. Doctor Max is coming across the street from his home to call on Sidney. K. shrinks from the Introduction In-troduction but sees no way of escape. CHAPTER IX Continued. 8 "Sidney?" "Here I Right back here!" Thero was vibrant gladness In her tone. He came slowly toward them. "My brother is not at home, so I came over. How select you are, with your balcony 1" "Can you see the step?" "Coming, with bells on." K. had risen and pushed back his "chair. Ills mind was working quickly. Here In the darkness he could hold the situation for a moment. If he could get Sidney into the house, the rest would not matter. Luckily, the balcony was very dark. "Is anyone III?" "Mother is not well. This is Mr. Le ' Moyne, and be knows who you are "'very well, indeed." The two men shook hands. "I've heard n lot of Mr. Le Moyne. You're the most popular man on the v Street." "I've always heard that about you. Sidney, if Doctor "Wilson is here to see your mother " "Going," . said Sidney. "And Dr. Wilson is a very great person, K., so be polite to him." Max had aroused at tho sound of Le Moyne's voice, not to suspicion, of course, but to memory. Without any apparent reason, he was back in Ber-' Ber-' lin. tramping the country roads, and beside him "Wonderful night ! Will you have a cigarette?" "Thanks; I have my pipe here." K. struck a match with his steady hands. Xow that the tiling had come, lie was glad to face it. In the flare, his quiet profile glowed against the night. Then he Hung the match over the rail. Max stared ; then he rose. Klackness had descended on them tignin, except for the dull glow of. K.'s old pipe. "For Cod's sake!" "Sh I The neighbors next door have n bad habit of sitting just inside the curtains." "1'ut you '." "Sit down. Sidney will be back in n 'moment. I'll talk to you, if you'll sit still. Can you hear me plainly?" After a moment "Yes." "I've been here in the city, I mean for a year. Name's Le Moyne. Don't forget it Le Moyne. I've got a position in the gas oiHee, clerical." Wilson stirred, but he found no adequate ade-quate words. Only a part of what K. said got to him. For a moment he was back in a famous clinic, and this man across from him it was not believable be-lievable ! "It's not hard work, and it's safe. If I make a mistake there's no life lianging on it." Wilson's voice showed that he was more than incredulous; he was pro-. Connelly movied. "'We thought you were dead. There were all sorts of stories. When a year went by the Titanic had gone down, and nobody knew but what you were on it we gave up. I in June we put up a tablet for you at the college. I went down fo: the for the Services." "Let it stay," said K. quietly. "I'm dead as far as the college goes, anyhow. any-how. I'll never go back. I'm Le Moyne oow. And, for heaven's sake, don't be sorry for me. I'm more contented than Tve been for a long time." The wonder in Wilson's voice was giving way to irritation. "Ev.t when you had everything! Why, god heavens, man, I did your operation today, and I've been blowing aboot It ever since." "All a man in our profession has Is a certain method, knowledge cull It what you like and faitli la himself. I lost rny self-confidence; that's all. Certain Cer-tain things happened ; kept on happening. happen-ing. So I gave it up." "If every surgeon gave i:p because he l,,st :: ;. s I've ju-t t..M you I did your operation today. There uas Jut u chance tor the i:;a:i, and I took my courage In my hands and tried It. The poor devil's dead." K. rose rather wearily and emptied his pipe river the balcony rail. "That's not the name. That's the chance In; and you to,.!:. What happened hap-pened to me was dilTereiit." I'lpe In hand, h" s!ood staring out at tin; iiilaiithm tree wilh Its crown of stars. Instead of tin; Street with Its quiet houses, he saw the men lie had known and worked with und taught, his friends wiio spoke his language, who had loved him, many of them, gathered about a bror.ze tablet set in a wall of the old college'; be saw their earnest faces and gruve eyes. He heard He hoard the soft rustle of Sidney's dress as she came into the little room behind them. CHAPTER X. A few days after Wilson's recognition recogni-tion of K., two most exciting things happened to Sidney. One was that Christine asked her to be maid of honor at her wedding. The other was more wonderful. She was accepted, and given her cap. Because she could not get home that night, and because the little house had no telephone, she wrote the news to her mother and sent a note to Le Moyne. K. found the note on the hall table when he got home that night, and carried car-ried it upstairs to read. Whatever faint hope lie might have had that her youth would prevent her acceptance he knew now was over. With the letter let-ter in his hand, he sat by his table and looked ahead into the empty years. Not quite empty, of course. She would be coming home. But more and more the life of the hospital would engross her. He surmised, sur-mised, too, very shrewdly, thnt, had he ever had a hope that she might come to care for him, his very presence in the little house militated against him. There was none of the illusion of separation: sep-aration: he was alwavs there, like Ka- I'd 8S' J r rff lb p K. Struck a Match With His Steady Hand. tie. When she opened the door, she called "Mother" from the hall. If Anna did not answer, she called him, in much the same voice. Sidney's letter was not the only one he received that day. When, in response re-sponse to Katie's summons, he rose heavily and prepared for dinner, he found an unopened envelope on the table. It was from Max Wilson : Dear Le Moyne I have a feeling o? delicacy deli-cacy about trying to s?e you again so soon. I'm bound to respect your seclusion. seclu-sion. But there are some tiling that have got to be discussed. It takes courage to step down from the pinnacle you stood on. So it's not cowardice cow-ardice that has se.t you down here. It's wronir conception. And I've thought of two tilings. Tho first, and best, is for you to go back. No one has taken your place, because no one could do the work. But if that's out of the question and only you know that, for only you know the facts tho next best thing is this, and in all humanity hu-manity I mako the suggestion. Take the Slate exams under your present pres-ent name, and when you've got your cor-, titlcate, come in with me. This isn't magnanimity. mag-nanimity. I'll be getting much more than I give. Think it over, old man. M. W. It is a curious fact that a man who is absolutely untrustworthy about women is often the soul of honor to other men. The younger Wilson, taking tak-ing his pleasures lightly and not too discriminatingly, was making an offer that meant his ultimate eclipse, and doing it cheerfully, with his eyes open. K. was moved. It was like Max to make such an offer, like him to do it ns if he were asking a favor and not conferring one. But the offer left him untempted. He had weighed himself in the balance, and found himself wanting. IN'o tablet on the college wall could change that. And when, late that night, Wilson found him on the balcony and added appeal to argument, argu-ment, the situation remained unchanged. un-changed. He realized its hopelessness when K. lapsed into whimsical humor. 'Tin not absolutely us. less where I am, you know. Max," he said. "I've ral.-ed three tomato (!iiit4 and a family fam-ily of kittens this summer, helped to plan a trousseau, assisted in selecting wallpaper for the room just in-Mi did you notice it? und developed a , boy pitcher with a ball that twists around the bat like a Colics fracture around a splint 1" Wil.son ro-e and flung his cigarette into the grass. "I wish I understood you!" he said irritably. K. rose with him, snd all the suppressed sup-pressed feeling of the interview was crowded into his last words. "I'm not as ungrateful as you think, Max," he said. "I you've helped a lot. Don't worry about me. I'm as well oil as I deserve to be, and better. Cood night." ' "flood night." Wilson's unexpected magnanimity put K. in a curious position left him, as it were, with a divided allegiance. alle-giance. Sidney's frank infatuation for the young surgeon was growing. He was quick to see it. And w here before he might have felt justilied in going to the length of warning her, now his hands were tied. Sidney went on night duty shortly after her acceptance. She tumbled Into her low bed at nine o'clock in the morning, those days, with her splendid splen-did hair neatly braided down her back and her prayers said, and immediately her active young mind filled with images Christine's wedding, Doctor Max passing the door of the old ward and she not there, Joe and she puzzled puz-zled over Grace and her kind. On her first night on duty a girl had been brought In from the Avenue. She had taken poison nobody knew Just what. When the internes had tried to find out, she had only said: "What's the use?" And she had died. Sidney kept asking herself,' "Why?" those mornings when she could not get to sleep. People were kind men were kind, really and yet, for some reason or other, those things had to be. Why? Carlotta Harrison went on night duty at the same time her last night service, as it was Sidney's first. She accepted it stoically. She had charge of the three wards on the floor just below Sidney, and of the ward into which all emergency cases were taken. It was a difficult service, perhaps the most difficult in the house. Carlotta merely shrugged her shoulders. "I've always had things pretty hard here," she commented briefly. "When I go out, I'll either be competent i enough to run a whole hospital single- handed, or I'll be carried out feet first." Sidney was glad to have her so near. She knew her better than she knew the other nurses. Small emergencies were constantly arising and finding her at a loss. Once at least every night Miss Harrison would hear a soft hiss from the back staircase that connected connect-ed the two floors, and, going but, would see Sidney's flushed face and slightly crooked cap bending over the stair rail. "I'm dreadfully sorry to bother you," she would say, "but So-and-So won't have n fever bath ;" or, "I've a woman here who refuses her medicine." Then would follow rapid questions and equally rapid answers. Much as Carlotta' Car-lotta' disliked and feared the girl overhead, over-head, it never occurred to her to refuse re-fuse her assistance. Perhaps the angels an-gels who keep the great record will put that to her credit. Sidney saw her first death shortly after she went on night duty. It was the most terrible experience of all lfor life it seemed to her that she could not stand it. Added to all her other new problems of living was this one of dying. She made mistakes, of course, which the kindly nurses forgot to report basins left about, errors on her records. rec-ords. She rinsed her thermometer in hot water one night, and startled an interne by sending him word that Mary McGuire's temperature was 110 degrees. de-grees. She let a delirious patient escape from the ward another night and go airily down the fire escape before she discovered what had happened I Then she distinguished herself by flying down the iron staircase and bringing the runaway back single-handed. . For Christine's wedding the Street threw off its drab attire and assumed a wedding-garment. In the beginning it was incredulous about some of the details The wedding was to be at five o'clock. This, in itself, defied all traditions of the Street, which was either married in the very early morning morn-ing at the Catholic church or at eight o'clock in the evening at the Presbyterian. Presbyte-rian. There was something reckless about five o'clock. The Street felt the dash of it. It had a queer feeling that perhaps such a marriage' was not quite legal. The younger Wilson was to be one of the ushers. When the newspapers came oat with the published list and this was discovered, as well as that Sidney was the maid of honor, there was a distinct quiver through the hos-' pital training school. A probationer was authorized to find out particulars. It was the day of the wedding then, and Sidney, who had not been to bed at all, was sitting in a sunny window iu the dormitory annex, drying her hair. The probationer was distinctly uneasy. un-easy. "I I just wonder," she said, "if you would let some of the girls come" in to see you when you're dressed?" "Why, of course I will." "It's awfully thrilling, isn't it? And isn't Doctor Wilson going to be an usher?" Sidney colored. "I believe m. The probationer had been "-r to rind out o.her things ; so she et to, work with a fan at Sidneys b ' "You've known Doctor Wilson a Ion, time, haven't you?" "He's" awfully good-looking, isn't "Sidney considered. She was not ignorant ig-norant 'of the methods of the school. If this girl was pumping her "I'll have to think that over." she said, with a glint of mischief in her eves "When you know a person terribly ter-ribly well, you hardly know whether he's good-looking or not." suppose," said the probationer, running the long strands of Sidney s hair through her fingers, "that when you are at home you see him often. Sidney got off the window sill, and, taking the probationer smilingly by the shoulders, faced her toward the door. "You go back to the girls," she said, "and tell them to come in and see me when I am dressed, and tell them this: I don't know whether I am to walk down the aisle with Doctor Wilson, but I hope I am. I see him very often. I like him very much. I hope he likes me. And I think he's handsome." She shoved the probationer out into the hall and locked the door behind That message in its entirety reached Carlotta Harrison. Her smoldering eyes flamed. The audacity of it star tied her. Sidney must be very sure of herself. When the probationer who had brought her the report had gone out, she lay in her long, white nightgown, night-gown, hands clasped under her head, and stared at the vaultlike ceiling of her little room. She saw there Sidney In her white dress going down the aisle of the church ; she saw the group around the altar; and, as surely as she lay there, she knew that Max: Wilson's eyes would be, not on the bride, but on the girl who stood beside her. The curious thing was that Carlotta felt that she could stop the wedding if she wanted to. She'd happened on a bit of information many a wedding had been stopped for less. It rather obsessed her to think of stopping the wedding, so "that Sidney and Max would not walk down the aisle together. to-gether. There came, at last, an hour before the wedding, a lull in the feverish activities of the previous month. Everything Ev-erything was ready. In the attic, in the center of a sheet, before a toilet table which had been carried upstairs for her benefit, sat, on this her day of days, the bride. All the second story had been prepared for guests and presents. Christine sat alone in the center of her sheet. The bridesmaids brides-maids had been sternly forbidden to come Into her room. "I haven't had a chance to think for a month," she said. "And I've got some things I've got to think out." But, when Sidney came, she sent for her. Sidney found her sit.ting on a stiff chair, in her wedding gown, with her veil spread out on a small stand. "Close the door," said Christine. And, after Sidney had kissed her: "I've a good mind not to do it." "You're tired and nervous, that's all." "I am, of course. Bat that isn't what's wrong with me. Throw that veil some place and sit dxwn." Christine was undoubtedly rouged, a very delicate touch. Sianey thought brides should be rather pale. But under her eyes were lines that Sidney had never seen there before. "I'm not going to be foojish, Sidney. I'll go through with it, oi course. II would put mamma in her grave if J made a scene now." She suddenly turned on Sidney. "Palmer gave his bacheloj' dinner at the Country club last nig They all drank more than they saould. Somebody Some-body called father up, today and said that Palmer had emptied a bottle of wine into the piano. He hasn't been here today." "He'll be along. And as for the dideit"PerhaPS " WaSD,t Pa'mer whc "That's not It, Sidney. I'm fright ened. b Three months before, perhaps, Sid ney could not have comforted her - but three months had made a change in Sidney. The complacent sophlstrle" of her girlhood no longer answered fo ruth. She put her arms around Chris tine's shoulr'.ers. "ris- "A man who drinks is a broken reed," said Christine. "That's wW I'm going to marry and lean" on est of my life-a broken reed a" d that isn't all !" "Q Would yoTermit your daughT ter or s.ster to marry a younn man who is a rakeya by"" reed?" Would Christine d right to refuse to marry, even at h late hour? - at th,s. CTO Bi, CONTINUED.) "" |