Show ott by MARY A ahr thrilling mystery y story about a man who lost his courage and the ROBERTS girl who helped him to find it again RINEHART F A GIRL discovered on the day of her wedding that IF 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 tha trend of odthe the story mr K X lemoyne becomes a roomer at the page homo home where sidney her mother anna and her old maid aunt harriet a dressmaker preside through glA the influence of dr max wilson a successful young surgeon sidney becomes it a probationary nurse at the hospital aunt harriet opens a fashionable shop downtown and prospers christine lorenz find and palmer howe are about to be married and they are going to take rooms ut at the pages sidney is ii loved by K by joe drummond a beau attentive from high school days and by doctor max who fascinates her at the hospital she begins to see the underside of the world she meets carlotta harrlson harrison who is very thick with doctor max mas K lemoine Is a mystery lie ile works at the gas office as a clerk but his past Is hidden and doctor max knows something about him which lie keeps s secret cral sidney goes to christides Chri stines home to prepare for the wedding and finds the brith bride to be in a queer mood CHAPTER X continued 9 she abe got up quickly and trailing her tong satin train across the floor bolted the door then from inside her corsage she brought out and held to sidney a letter special delivery read tt it was very short sidney read it at a glance ask your future husband ausband it if he knows a eirl at avenue three months before the avenue would have meant nothing to sidney now she knew christine more sophisticated had always known you seed see she said what 1 im in up against 1 4 quite suddenly sidney knew who the girl at avenue was the paper er slie she held in her hand was hospital paper with the heading torn olt off the whole sordid story lay before her grace irving nith her thin face and cropped hair and the newspaper on the floor of the ward beside her 1 she picked up lier 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 I 1 been this there Is no sense la in looking back unless it helps us to look ahead what your little girl of the ward has been Is not so important as what she is going to be E even van granting this to be true she said to christine slowly and it may only be malicious after all christine its surely over and done with 1 its not palmers halmers Pal mers past that concerns you now its his future with you it christine had finally adjusted her tell she rose and put her hands on kidneys Sid shoulders the simple truth Is she said aul Q 1 1 t 12 t sidney read it at a glance etly that I 1 might hold palm palmer r it if I 1 cared terribly I 1 dont and im afraid he knows it irs my pride hurt nothing else and thus did christine lorenz go down to her wedding sidney stood for a moment her eyes on n the letter she held already in her new philosophy she had learned many strange things one of them was this that women like grace irving did not betray their lovers that the code of the he underworld was death to the squealer that one played the game and won or lost and it if h he 0 lost took his medicine it if not grace then who somebody else in the hospital who knew her story of course but who and again why before going downstairs sidney placed me letter in a saucer and set alre to it with a match some of 0 the mi milianne liance hil had died out of her eyes to K X sitting in the back of the church between harriet and anna the wedding was sidney sidney only afterward he could not re remember member the wedding party at all the service for him was sidney rather awed and ver very v serious beside the altar it was sidney who came down the aisle to the triumphant strains of the wedding march sidney with max beside her I 1 on his right sat harriet having reached the first pinnacle of her new career the N vi edding gowns were successful cess ful 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 back in the pew with her hands folded over her prayer book she said a little prayer for her straight young daughter facing out from the altar with clear unafraid eyes As sidney and max alax 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 had not been the last supper carlotta harrlson harrison and max wilson had bad 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 I 1 he could see sidney he saw carlotta twice she had kept the affair well in hand site she was playing for high stakes she knew quite well the kind of man with whom she was dealing that he would pay as little as possible but sh she e 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 in her face was in her favor behind 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 alie little farmhouse she sat for hours inthe in the summer evenings in the square yard filled with apple trees that bordered the highway carefully posed over a book but with her keen eyes always on the road she read browning emerson once he found her with a book that she hastily concealed he insisted on seeing it and secured it it wits was a book on brain surgery confronted with it she blushed and dropped her eyes his delighted vanity found in it the most insidious stil lous of s compliments as she had bad intended 1 I feel such an idiot when I 1 am with you she said 1 I wanted to know k now a little ittle more about the things you do that put their relationship on a new and advanced basis thereafter lie occasionally talked surgery instead of sentiment ile he found her responsive int intelligent eIll gent ills his work a sealed book to his women before lay open to her now and then their professional discussions cus ended in something different the two lines of their interest converged gad lie he said one day 1 I look forward to these evenings I 1 can talk shop with you without either shocking or nauseating you you are the most intelligent woman noman I 1 know and one of the prett prettiest lesUl 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 clement she who like ac X in his little room on the street had put aside love and the things thereof found that it would not no put her aside by the end of her short vacation carlotta was wildly la ill love lov e with the younger wilson walson they continued to meet not as often as before but once a week per haps the meetings were full fall of danger now and it if tor for the girl they lost by this quality they gained attraction tor for the man she was shrewd enough to realize her own situation the thing had gone wrong she cared dad and lie 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 ills his passion for her was W as not the real tiling thing so also she realized that there was growing up in his heart something akin to the real tiling thing for sidney page suspicion became certainty after a talk they had over the file supper table at a country roadhouse the day after christides Chri stines wedding illow how was the wedding thre tiresome some thrilling theres always something thrilling to me in a man tying himself up tor for life to one woman its its so nc reckless kless it her eyes narrowed not exactly the law and the prophets Is it its the truth to think of selecting out of all the world one woman and electing to spend the rest of ones days with her although P ills eyes looked past carlotta into distance sidney page was one of the bridesmaids lie he said irrelevantly she was lovelier than the bride pretty but stupid said carlotta 1 I like her ive really tried to teach her things but you know P 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 eat cat youre jealous he said exultant exultantly li nevertheless although he might smile the image of sidney lay very close to his heart those autumn days and carlotta knew it 0 0 sidney came off night duty the middle 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 cor car kidneys Sid half days atheme at home were occasions for agonies of jealousy on car bottas 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 to a point near the end of the street after twilight fell she slowly walked the length of the street christine and palmer had not returned from their wedding journey the november evening was vas not cold sidney was not in sight or wilson but standing on the wooden doorstep of the house moyne the allan 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 ml tall figure and set face carlotta saw him too late to retreat cut 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 of many days to sidney the following day they met in the locker room in the basement where the street clothing tor for the ward patients was kept here rolled in bundles and ti ticketed side by side lay the heterogeneous garments in which the patients had met accident or illness rags and tidiness filth and cleanliness lay almost touching far away on the other side oi of the whitewashed basement men were un loading gleaming cans of milk floods of sunlight came down donn the touching their white costs corts and turning the cans ia to silver E everywhere very where was the religion of the hospital which ls 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 bow we thought she could not live its a triumph icv it are those her clothes sidney examined with some dismay the elaborate negligee garments in her hand she cant go out in those I 1 shall hat have a to lend her something A little of the light died out of her face ashes had a hard fight and Is she he has won 0 she said cut but when I 1 think of what ashes s probably going back to carlotta shrugged her shoulders its all in the days work she observed se arved indifferently you can tako take them bliem up into the kit kitchen chen and give them steady work paring potatoes or put them in the laundry ironing in the end its the same thing they ull all go anek 1 I she turned on her way out of the locker room and shot a quick glance at sidney 1 I happened to be on your street the other night she said you live across the street from wilsons Wil sons dont you yes 1 I thought so I 1 had heard you speak of 0 the house your your brother was standing on the steps sidney laughed 1 I have no brother a roomer a mr le moyne it really right to call him a roomer hes one ot of the family now 11 le moyne I 1 ile he had even taken another name it had hit him hard for sure K s name had struck an always responsive spon sive chord in sidney the two girls went toward the elevator to I 1 N pretty but stupid said carlotta gether with a very little encouragement sidney talked of K X she was waa pleased at miss harrisons Harrl sons friendly tone glad that things were all right between them again at her floor she put a timid hand on the girls arm 1 I was afraid I 1 had offended you or displeased you she said im so BO glad it so carlotta shivered under her hand 4 4 4 0 0 0 things were not going any too well with K X true he had received his hl promotion at the office and with this athla present affluence of 22 a week he was waa able to do several things mrs rosenfeld 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 ot of failure waa max wilsons Wil sons attitude it was as not unfriendly it was indeed consistently respectful almost reverential but he clearly considered le position absurd there was no true comradeship between the two men but there was beginning to be constant asso association clation and lately a certain amount of friction they thought differently about almost everything willoa began to bring all his problems to le moyne there were long consultations consultation i in that small ipei u room perhaps more than one man or 01 woman who did not know of K s existence owed his life to him thai that fall under ILs K s direction max did marvels cases began to come in to him from the surrounding towns to hla his own daring was added a new and remarkable technique but le moyne who had found resignation it not content wits was once again in touch with the work he loved there were times when having thrashed a c case a s e ou out t together tos and outlined the n nest e at d days ay s work for max mas he would walk tor for hours into the night out over the hills fighting ills his battle the longing was on hi him to be in the thick of things a again ln the thought of the gas office and its deadly round sickened him what more do you thin think k chris tine has learned about her new husband did she do wrong to go through the marriage TO BE CONTINUED |