Newspaper Page Text
2
XIII.
R. REDMOND will answer that,”
Leighton Barrow's said with a flash in
his brown eyes. “It is addressed to
Sylvia, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I want Dr. Redmond to give
that brace of cousins what the French
call, a bad quarter of an hour. This
family has had enough of the Hills to
- i
last them a lifetime.”
“I certainly think so,” Mrs. Barrows said with
disdain. “I would not go through with what I did
last night, for all the multi-millionaires in the
world! ’ ’
Reece came back into the room just then, and his
sister handed him the telegram without a word of
comment. Dr. Redmond frowned heavily as he
finished reading it.
. “Just wire Mr. Lawton Hill, will you, Leighton,
that the future movements of Mr. Rodney Hill do
not concern Miss Warrenton in the least; as the
circumstances under which he left the city, are
duly known to her, and to her family. Sign my
name to it.”
Leighton Barrows got to his feet with alacrity.
“Thank you, Reece, for the privilege,” he re
plied with the smile of a man who has congenial
work before him.
Mrs. Rawson, in a black and white morning dress,
entered the room, as Leighton Barrow's made his
exit. Her gray hair was carefully arranged, and
she looked the part of the attractive old woman as
usual. But she did not feel it. She sank down in
the nearest chair, with a sigh of weariness.
“What a travesty on life!” she said, after a
prolonged pause. “Yesterday, at this hour, Sylvia
Warrenton might have been numbered among the
most fortunate girls in the world. Today she lies
unconscious on the border land, without either lover
or fortune.”
“Just what do you mean, Aunt Lila?” Mrs.
Barrows enquired. “I understand about Rodiiey
Hill, but what do you mean about Sylvia’s money?”
“Evidently, my dear, you have not read the morn
ing papers, ’ ’ said Mrs. Rawson, with gentle
sarcasm; “Sylvia’s fortune was invested in Mexican
Mining Stock, M. M. S., and it is announced in
glaring head lines, that the safe old company it
was so considered —has been beaten by the ‘Sys
tem,’ and that liabilities and* assets, red tape and
fiddle strings, one side of the balance sheet, and the
other side, won’t agree. There!”
Mrs. Barrows made a helpless gesture with her
jeweled hands.
“Poor Sylvia, what will become of her?”
“The best woman I ever knew 7 ,” commented Mrs.
Rawson, “used to exclaim in the face of every
calamity: Count your blessings!”
“She has her breath left,” said Mrs. Barrows
with grim humor.
“While Reece and I live, my dear,” continued
the stately old woman, ‘ ‘ Sylvia need never bother
about financial questions. That will not be her
problem ... if she lives.
“Then what will be, pray?” said Mrs. Barrows.
“Her own independence of spirit, my dear! But
listen!” the older woman continued, as the cries
of delirium from the next room fell upon their
ears. “The probabilities are that she will never know
anything about it. Those whom the gods love die
young. ’ ’
“I am thankful that the gods do not love me,
Leighton,” Mrs. Barrows said to her husband, who
had returned to the room, after phoning Dr. Red
mond’s message to the telegraph office.
“Children,” Mrs. Rawson exclaimed, with a
deprecatory gesture, “how can you jest? After
the bitter humiliation of last evening, which I feel
it will take an aeon to recover from, and Sylvia
so low, it is not only bad form, but shocking.”
TZZZ MISSION GIRL
By Odessa Strickland Payne,
Author of "Psyche, ” "Esther Eerrall’s Experiment, ” Etc,
She shook her gray head as she rose to leave the
room, but her niece glided up to her and slipped
her arm lovingly around her.
“Forgive me, Aunt Lila,” she said penitently,
“we did not mean it. It is the modern way, you
know, to smile on the edge of a precipice, and jest
while the heart breaks. Nevertheless, Leighton sat
up all night and I cried myself to sleep over the
family tragedy.” The clear notes of the Chinese
gong sounded just then for breakfast, and, as tlm.'
all w’alked out into the upper hall, Mrs. Rawson
said in a mollified tone:
“Leighton, I feel as though we were living in a
tropical jungle. If you would have all this lavish
decoration removed before noon, I would great!v
appreciate it.”
“Certainly, Aunt Lila,” he answered kindly, as
they went down the stairs, “can you think of any
other way I can serve you?”
“Why, yes, if you do not mind,” she answered,
restored to good humor. “I would like for you t)
see that John packs all that gold-lined silver plate,
which came from Mr. Hill’s parents, and start it
on the long return journey. I do not want anything
associated with him, left in the house.”
“All right, Aunt Lila,” he replied as Mrs. Raw
son walked wearily on into the dining room.
“She is clearing the deck for the white plumed
Knight!” his wife whispered with a mischievous
smile.
“Meaning?” Mr. Barrows queried.
“Her idol, Reece,” she explained in a low voice,
“you know' she thinks that he worships the ground
Sylvia walks on.”
Mr. Barrows frowned.
“I don’t believe it,” he said in a decisive voice,
“it is nothing but the sentimental conviction of an
old romantic woman. I do not think that there is
a scintilla of truth in it! Reece looked as radiant
as Sylvia, until that telegram arrived. If he had
wanted her, he could have married her, long before
Rodney Hill appeared upon the scene. Isn’t that
your opinion, highness?”
“Possibly, my lord,” his wife answered, as she
lifted her winsome face for his morning kiss, in
the midst of Aunt Lila’s tropical jungle.
The family had grown quite accustomed as the
weeks flew by, to Dr. Cortelyou’s presence in the
home, and the trained nurse seemed a part of the
household life. Also Sylvia’s beautiful voice ring
ing out at all hours, sweet and appealing, be fol
lowed by the long silences of unconsciousness.
But, after all, the crisis came suddenly. Dr. Red
mond, realizing that the conflict was on, and the
issue either for life or death was to be decided in a
few 7 hours, stayed up all night. Sometimes he sat
by Sylvia’s bed, looking down at the loveliness that
suffering and the flight of time had converted into a
transparent fragility that was alarming to his
trained eye; sometimes he walked nervously through
the sitting room whose every appointment dumbly
suggested the charm of his cousin’s personality.
Then he would wander up and down the upper ball,
with his long, aristocratic hands clasped lightly be
hind him and his eyes narrowed in a reflective way,
which, with him, always denoted the profoundest
meditation.
Mrs. Rawson and Mrs. Barrows sat in the back
parlor, in silent suspense, both keeping their eyes
turned resolutely away from the portrait of the
Violin Lady over the mantel, whose radiant beauty
the gas light seemed to accentuate.
“Listen,” Mrs. Barrows exclaimed, in an awed
tone, “that is Reece. Every step sounds like the
note of a funeral march.”
Mrs. Rawson held up her hand.
“Please don’t, Bess. What else could you expect?
Sylvia is dearer to him than anybody else in the
world.” She adjusted a light gray wrap nervously
about her shoulders.
Mrs. Barrows shook her blonde head.
The Golden Age for August 13, 1908.
“ I do not believe it. lam willing to admit that
lie loves her as a cousin, and that he finds her case
interesting and baffling.”
“And desperate,” Mrs. Rawson added with a
sigh, as she closed her eyes and leaned her gray
head wearily against the cushioned back of her
chair.
Suddenly Dr. Redmond went into his own room
and shut the door. He knew that he had reached
the limit of physical resource. He and Cortelyou
had clone their best—and failed. Sylvia was barely
alive, and slipping slowly into that dark current
whose harbor bar is the grave. Reece went straight
to the phone, which hung at the side of his desk
in his private sitting room, and asked in a quiet
voice for Dr. Merrill’s number.
“Hello! Is that you, Padre?”
“Yes; what is it?”
“You will remember, Dr. Merrill, that I told
you of the case of my cousin, Miss Warrenton, the
last time I was at the Infirmary, do you not?”
“Perfectly, Reece. I have been interested since.
How is she?”
“The crisis in her case has been reached. I have
come to the limit of my professional skill. She has
no perceptible pulse. The extremities are growing
cold. ”
“You have tried everything?”
“Yes; Dr. Cortelyou and I. He is at her bedside
now. If the Inner Circle, Padre, can’t help us, the
issue will be closed before morning.”
“Oh, my son, my son!” The great heart at the
other end of the wire vibrated with quick sym
pathy, but the next second brought the reaction of
courage.
“I’ll call them all up, Reece, and stress the case
because of my affection for you. Don’t lose heart!
Don’t! As long as there is a spark of life! As long
as there is life there is hope! Exercise your
own faith with us, and the morning may tell a dif
ferent story.”
“If I could only think so!” said Dr. Redmond.
“You must! I will not close my eyes tonight.
I want you to remember that I am with you, for all
that I am worth, until the conflict is over.”
“Thank you, Padre. I knew that you would be.
Good-night.”
“Hold on, Reece.” The voice of his friend was
imperative.
“Yes.”
“Whatever comes to you to do, try it, even if it
should strike you as unusual or unique. Do you un
derstand ? ’ ’
“Yes, all right, Padre. I’ll not forget. Good
bye.”
“God help you, son.”
And Dr. Redmond, the high-bred and self-con
trolled, put his handsome head down on his arm,
upon the mahogany desk, and sat without movement
for a long time. Whether he wept, or prayed, no
body could tell, when he arose at last and went back
to his post of duty.
Reece sat down by Sylvia’s bedside, in a different
mental attitude. The thrill of his friend’s faith
had inspired him with a degree of hope, for the time
being. He picked up one of the little, cold, white
hands which lay outside the snowy coverlet, and be
gan to chafe it gently.
“Any change?” he enquired of Dr. Cortelyou, who
sat like a gray-haired Sphinx, with an inscrutable
expression in his dark eyes, on the opposite side of
the patient.
“Not the slightest,” Dr. Cortelyou answered
gravely.
Reece sighed. After a time he placed the hand of
his cousin back under the coverlet. Then he turned
to the trained nurse.
“Miss Moore, have you any suggestions?” he
quizzed. “Sometimes the intuitions of a woman
leap ahead of the logic of men.”
(Continued on Page G.)
