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2
XII.
"I REDMOND threw a comprehensive
t glance down the line of doors which
opened on the hall, and gave a sigh of
relief when he saw they were all shut.
Lyman Hale extended his hand.
“I am sorry, from the depths of my
heart, old fellow. Keep the truth from
_______ Miss Warrenton. Let her believe the
fake telegram as long as possible.”
Reece wrung his hand.
“Let everybody believe*it, ”he returned, “except
the clubmen who already know the truth. Go down
now, and get your share of the supper, and talk
nonesense w'ith Dorothy Fane.”
Lyman’s eyes grew moist.
‘ l l haven’t got the courage. I feel like I had been
bowled over by a cannon shot.”
“Well, follow Ross King’s lead, and keep the
evening from being a dismal failure.”
“All right,” he answered, “after I’ve called up
the clubmen, and told them that mum is the word.”
“Thank you,” Reece answered, as he opened the
door of Sylvia’s sitting room.
A silver spangled white fan lay open on the old
fashioned sofa, a shower of crimson rose petals were
massed on the center table, somebody had pulled
them off in the intensity of their excitement, and a
lace shawl trailed from the arm of a rocking chair
on to the floor. Reece took in the trivial details as
he crossed that room to the next.
As he opened the door a low moan greeted his
ears, and when he had taken in the tableau on the
floor, he knew, without being told, that Lyman
Hale’s symposium of the situation, had floated
through the transom. Mrs. Barrows, in her rich
evening dress, sat on the floor with Sylvia’s head
in her lap, wiping her face with a w 7 et cloth as the
tears streamed from her beautiful eyes.
Dr. Redmond picked up the slender figure, in the
dark blue kimona, and placed her on a couch be
tween the windows.
“Go get yourself into a house dress, Bess,” he
said to his sister.
Mrs. Barrows made a despairing gesture, with one
slender, white, jeweled hand.
“She knows,” she said, with a suppressed sob.
“So much the better,” Reece said, “since the
inevitable is unavoidable. Now she will not have
to suffer twice-told agony.”
When his sister had left the room, he took his
cousin’s hand in his, and said in a voice of deep
tenderness:
“I wish from my heart that I could take this
crucifixion for you, Sylvia. But since I cannot, I
know that you will believe me when I tell you, I
suffer with you. ’ ’
“Yes, Reece,” she said in a faint voice, “but,
oh, it is unbearable, insufferable! I feel as if I
should go mad.”
“You are all that I and Aunt Lila have, little
girl, make the fight . . . because we love you so.”
But Sylvia only gasped, sat up, and then fell
back . . unconscious.
Dr. Redmond pulled the pillows out from under
the brown head.
“If it was not a sin,” he said, as he looked down
at the white, loved face upon the couch, “I would
let you go. To see you suffer so, and not be able
to help you is the hardest blow Fate ever dealt
me.”
Mrs. Barrows slipped softly into the room.
“Bring me that wet towel, Bess,” Reece saul
gravely, “and we will bring her back to conscious
ness. It seems a cruel thing to do, but alas, it is
right I ’ ’
But Dr. Redmond had a longer conflict than he
anticipated, and there were great drops of per
spiration on his forehead, and intense anxiety in
his heart, before Sylvia opened her eyes and began
to breathe normally.
THE MISSION GIRL
By Odessa Strickland Payne,
Author of "Psyche, ” "Esther Ferrall’s Experiment, ” Etc.
“Go into the next room, Bess,” he commanded,
“and leave the door open; if I need you I will
call.”
Dr. Redmond crossed the room and threw open
the windows.
“Reece, if I could only scream,” Sylvia said
after’ awhile. “If he had been really desperately ill;
there would be some dignity in my sorrow. But to
be the victim, waiting in bridal robes for a drunken
brute, it is too much, Reece.” She sprang to her
feet, walked a few steps, wavered, and, as she fell,
Reece caught her in his arms.
“Bess,” he called, and there was real alarm in
his face when he saw that the girl he placed back
on the couch had fainted again. He applied
restoratives, Mrs. Barrows helped him deftly;
but it seemed an age to both of them before Sylvia
rallied.
“Bess,” he said as the pulse beneath his fingers
throbbed more evenly, “your brother has got the
fight of his life before him, and every moment is
bringing it on.” He paused, and then finished
calmly. “I do not want anybody downstairs to
catch on. Go into my room, close the door, and
phone to Dr. Cortelyou. Tell him that Dr. Redmond
requests him to come to the house at once. Then
call up Miss Mason at the Infirmary and tell her
to send me a trained nurse.”
“Is that all, Reece?” and Mrs. Barrows’ voice
was very grave.
“No; tell John to meet the doctor and nurse and
smuggle them up the back stairs.”
“Why, Reece, they will be offended,” she de
murred.
“No,” he said hotly, “I am not sending for a
brace of fools.”
Mrs. Barrows, once out of the room, w’rung her
delicate hands in dismay. Dr. Redmond had seen
something in Sylvia’s condition that he would not
reveal.
“He is not the sort of man to be frightened
easily. Oh, it breaks my heart to look at him!
When he is dead and in his coffin he will not look
any grander, poor boy, or sadder.”
But Mrs. Barrows sent the phone messages
clearly and swiftly; gave the commands to John,
and returned to her post in the sitting room.
“Reece,” Sylvia said, “I am slipping away . .
where they do not suffer. In California the sun
shines all the time; and there are geranium trees
and oleanders a hundred feet high, and the birds
sing, and the inhabitants never grow old.”
“Delirium,” Reece murmured, “and but for
what it may prelude, I should rejoice from the
depths of my heart, because it means unconscious
ness of her sorrow.”
The force of Leighton Barrows’ executive abil
ity was shown in many comfortable ways in the
stricken household, outside the sick room, where
Dr. Redmond’s interest was of course rightly con
centrated. Mrs. Rawson, after playing the grand
dame so successfully before the world, was dis
posed to be overwrought and hysterical over the
tragical aspects of the situation, but Leighton kept
her downstairs by a talk, that was a happy mix
ture of philosophy, and common sense. Afterward,
he sat up all night in Sylvia’s sitting room, giving
Reece a moral support of which he was unconscious,
when he came into the room to walk restlessly up
and down, now and then, while the anguish of the
hours wore on.
Dr. Cortelyou stayed the night out, and the
trained nurse, deft and tireless, sat at the foot of
Salvia’s bed. But it was quite evident that Dr.
Redmond had the burden of responsibility for the
beautiful life, for which the struggle was being
made. As the night advanced, the fever and de
lirium became more pronounced. And once as
Sylvia stretched upward her lovely arms to Dr.
Redmond, who stood by the bed, the nurse thought
that she saw the gleam of tears behind the rimless
glasses he wore, as the girl shrieked:
The Golden Age for August 6, 190§.
“I have been killed, I tell you, killed, while the
sun shone and the birds sang! Rodney Hill mur
dered me with a knife, and I heard the blood drip,
drip, ...”
Then the white robed patient caught her breath
in sobbing moans, until Dr. Cortelyou, gray-haired
and dignified, got up with a reflective frown on his
face, and walked into the sitting room.
The nurse, watching her opportunity, offered Dr.
Redmond a silver cup of iced milk, and he raised
the brown, restless head of his patient, and said,
tenderly:
“Sylvia, take this cold drink, and you will feel
better, little girl, try it.”
She drank only a part of the contents, and then
turned away, with a nervous gesture.
“Dead,” she said softly, “long dead, and the
wheels and hoofs go over my head.”
Dr. Redmond glanced at the nurse.
“You know how to fix an ice cap, do you not?”
“Certainly, shall I prepare one?”
“Yes, get it ready, while I take her temperature.”
After the application of the ice cap Sylvia fell
into a troubled sleep, and Dr. Redmond, watching
her in anxious silence, while the hours slipped away,
resigned his chair at dawn to Dr. Cortelyou. Then
he walked into the sitting room.
Leighton Barrows sat at one of the side windows,
while the light of the golden September day stole
up slowly over the world. He was a tall, good look
ing man of the brunette type, with chiseled features,
dark brown eyes and close cut hair.
“Reece,” he said, with a gleam in his philosophic
eyes, “come here. I want you to see the most
impressive spectacle in the world to me.”
Dr. Redmond came and stood by him quietly.
“What is it?” he enquired.
“It’s a sermonette,” he replied, “watch the slow
golden ascent of the sun, broadening every moment
over the earth. To me it proclaims the remorseless-'
ness of time. Every second is a vanishing tick from
the Clock of Destiny, and some of these times the
light will come up just as softly and as brilliantly,
and it will be the day for our friends to lower us
back into the earth from whence we came. ’ ’
Reece drew a long breath.
“Amen,” he said camly, “but meantime the
strenuosity of the fight engages me. Every mo
ment brings what the Germans call the next thing.”
Leighton Barrows laughed softly.
“And in your case, mon frere, I should say that
it was a bath and a business suit.”
Dr. Redmond replied from the door,
“Yes, these evening clothes are positively garish.
Keep Cortelyou on deck, until I get back, old man.”
Leighton Barrows waved his hand in assent, and
then narrowed his eyes reflectively.
“What a warrior,” he murmured, “though he
wears a white vest and patent leather shoes. On
the whole, I am rather glad we named the boy
after him.”
When Dr. Redmond re-entered the sitting room,
his sister and Reece, Jr., were there in pleasant
evidence. He took the blond haired boy, in a white
belted blouse, in his arms, and kissed him gravely.
“What’s de matter?” the little fellow enquired
solicitously, touching the young man’s face with
one small hand. Dr. Redmond placed him on the
floor.
11 Headache ?’ ’
“No,” said Dr. Redmond looking down in sur
prise at his youngest colleague.
“Heartache?”
“No,” Reece replied, but he had the grace to
blush over the impulsive falsehood as soon as he
realized it.
“Des feelin’ bum, eh?” the blue eyed tyrant
commented, as he stuck both hands in his blouse
belt and regarded Dr. Redmond with a glance of
serious dignity, from his position on the floor.
(Continued on Page 7.)
