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EECE bowed. The tears in the moth
er’s eyes that were blue and brave as
the gentian flowers were reflected in his
own. Mrs. Hill felt the thrill of his
sympathy unspoken.
“He is very weak,” she explained to
the circle, “but I am sure that, if iUis
possible, he will wish to see you, Dr.
Redmond, later.”
R
Again Dr. Redmond bowed, while the blue eyes of
the great multi-millionaire beamed kindly on him.
Here, at last, in his own drawing room, was the race
that begot kings of chivalry and fire. Here was the
Southern gentleman! On his part, Reece thought
of Rodney. What little strength the millionaire’s
son had, was being reserved for the girl who had
been his bride-elect.
“Don’t arrange any interview for me,” he said,
with one of his winning smiles, “but some time,
when the night is very long, just call me up at the
Palace Hotel, and I’ll be-glad to come and sit up
with him. ’ ’
“Very kind of you, Dr. Redmond,” said Mrs
Hill, “because the night season is the time he finds
so harrowing. I’ve taken quite a fancy to you,”
said Mrs. Hill with sudden frankness, “and can’t
we have the pleasure of caring for you?”
“I will stay with Aunt Lila for the present,” re
plied Dr. Redmond. “Later on, if you like, dear
Mrs. Hill, I will let you and Mr. Hill stow me some
where. ’ ’
‘ 1 [ think, ’ ’ replied Mrs. Hill, with a swift glance
at her husband, “we might have room.”
Reece left Mr. Hill soon after the ladies had de
parted from the drawing room; but, as he took his
seat in the green and gold tonneau for the return
trip, a shadow 7 , dim, elusive, persistent, flecked the
horizon of his mental world.
“I am not superstitious,” he said, under his
breath, while the motor spun swiftly through the
December sunshine, “but something is on its way
to Sylvia, something that she has not dreamed of,
in the sheltered seclusion of the Merrill Mission.
I feel just as I did that night pefore our cyclone
experience. Pshaw! Bah! Fiddlesticks! It is the
strain of that wild flight through the desert. I be
lieve we romanced around ninety miles per hour.
When I get to the Palace, I’ll find an ordinary bed
that will hold tired me, and sleep off this tomfoolery,
remains of a nightmare, or whatever it is.”
Meanwhile, Sylvia walked up the grand stairway,
by the side of Mrs. Hill, demurely; but there Was
the surge of deep feeling and emotions in her soul.
She scarcely glanced at the superb furnishings of
the room to which the gentle lady assigned her.
She had only to remove her hat, and the long, silk
dust coat; for she had dressed for the all-important
call upon the “Halcyon.” The special had slowed
up, as they neared the end of their transcontinental
journey, and she had donned a house gown, helio
trope in color, of simplest elegance. She had cask
ets of jewels in her trunks, but she wore no orna
ment, except a bunch of violets, caught in the in
tricacies of her ribbon belt; such flowers as Reece
had bought from a vender at the ferry.
Her training as a nurse had given her a certain
disdain of bizarre effects and over-elaborate cos
tumes. Mrs. Hill, when she c me for her, smiled ap
provingly at the quiet simplicity of her attire.
“You look lovely, my dear,” she said with gra
cious intent, “but you must be sure and be very
calm. ’ ’
She opened a door on the r'ght side of the great
hall, and made Sylvia a gesture, which indicated
that there was to be no witness of the interview,
which had cost such travail of soul to so many peo
ple to procure.
♦ *♦«*♦*
Wheq Sylvia became accustomed to the darkened
atmosphere of the room she had glided into, she saw
ZZ7E MISSION GIRL
By Odessa Strickland Payne,
Author of "Psyche," "Esther TerralVs Experiment, * Etc.
The Golden Age for November 12, 1908.
the emaciated figure of a man propped up upon
many pillows. He wore a short blue velvet jacket
over a white wool shirt, whose turned-down collar
was relieved by a blue scarf tied in a soft bow. The
glow from the rose-colored silk covering was in
pleasant contrast to the other white appointments
of the bed, as well as to the pronounced pallor of
the patient’s face. The burnished, coppery hair was
like that of the Rodney she remembered, as well as
the gray, scintillating eyes, but there the likeness
ended. The prominence of the cheek bones, the
sunken mouth, which still retained something of
charm, despite the sad expression, these furnished
the unmistakable data of a long and torturing ill
ness to her trained eye.
“Sylvia,” he said, “I-have waited ages and ages
for this hour. Since the trainmaster phoned the ar
rival of the ‘Halcyon,’ I have counted the minutes,
watch in hand.”
He stretched out his long, white hands, in a help
less way toward the girl, who, in her heliotrope
dress, with the subtle perfume of violets about her,
an aroma that seemed to embody for him, at that
moment, his lifelong dream of rare and gracious
womanhood.
Sylvia stepped with swift gentleness to the low
French bed, and took his cold fingers in the warm
clasp of her own.
“Rodney,” she answered, touched by the pathetic
appeal in the burning brilliance of his eyes, “I have
literally flown over the desert to grant you this in
terview. I have come thousands of miles to see
you. ’ ’
“Yes; it was so good of you,” he said, still hold
ing her hands and speaking with something of the
magnetic charm she so well remembered. “It was
like the real Sylvia to do this. After I failed you
so miserably, so inexcusably. But it was the club
dinner, Sylvia, which made me play the part of a
fool and a-coward. I never meant it, child. I could
not wound you like that; it was the demon of drink.
It was the firewater, as the Indians used to call it.
If you can forgive me, I think that I can meet my
doom, much as I dread it, with the courage of a
Hill!”
Sylvia slipped with unconscious grace into a chair
by the side of the bed.
“I forgave you long ago, Rodney,” she said, in a
sweet, reminiscent tone, “I had to, in order to pre
serve my own soul from the destructive forces of
evil. ’ ’
“Then you, too, have had some psychic battles?
I might have known it, when I forced the issues
upon you. But it was such a beastly thing to do;
and I hope that you will believe me, when I tell you
that my remorse has been as deep as the offense.”
“I do believe you, Rodney,” Sylvia replied, her
sympathies sweeping away her bitter memories for
the moment, “but you must not talk any more now
for a while. I am sure it is not best for you.”
“Drop me out that bitter tonic, over there,
please,” he commanded, “and let me finish . . the
confessions of a mad man. I can not stop until I
get to the finale.”
Sylvia, with the quick understanding which char
acterized her adopted profession, took up the bottle
from the mahogany stand at the head of the bed,
and, after a glance at the label, she dropped the re
quired amount of medicine into two teaspoonfuls of
water within a dainty medicine glass. She admin
istered it with.a deft, swift gentleness that brought
a blur to the eyes of the patient.
“I inherited my accursed appetite for liquor from
my great-grandfather,” he went on, pausing only
long enough to grimace at the bitter dose, “and, if
I had cut out club life, altogether, I believe I might
have escaped, and lived like my father. I went
through college, with only two sprees, and that
shows I had some ability to withstand temptation.
But when I threw away my one chance at earthly
happiness, like a mad idiot, when I lost you, Sylvia,
I seemed to lose with you, everything worth while
in the world. I had no longer a grip upon myself.
I went the pace with the daring recklessness of a
man who, with nothing at stake, cares no longer for
consequences!”
Sylvia detected the vulnerable part in the story
and, if he had been himself, she would have brought
the bright blade of argument into the conversation,
but she wisely concluded that he was too weak to
distress. So she held her peace.
“But there is always one thing I want you to
remember in my favor,” Rodney said, after a time
in which he had looked long and tenderly at the
fair vision by his bedside, “and that is that —I
loved you—when I fell, Sylvia, since, now! Back
from the hideous hole of the grave, I have forced
my spirit to walk, that I might tell you this.”
She could not repress a shudder. His voice which
was still rich in some of its inflexions, sank into
into silence, and Sylvia felt the gleam of tears in
her brown eyes. She said softly, for, in spite of
his sins, he had loved her:
“Then, Rodney, you think that there is no hope?”
“None,” he said wearily. “But sometimes at
night I lie here, alone, and think of what I might
have been —of what lay so easily within my grasp
to achieve for my fellows —and it is little less than
maddening, Sylvia, maddening, the lost opportuni
ties, the ignored possibilities! lam an object lesson
of what millions will do for a young man. I am a
clubman. lam a splendid sportsman.” His mouth
was drawn into lines of sarcasm.
“Don’t spend your priceless moments, Rodney,
in vain, but think instead of the future!”
Sylvia held up her hand warningly.
“The Future?” Then, as the real meaning of her
words flashed like lightning into his consciousness,
he went on. “If there is an immortal state, Sylvia,
by every right of justice I have long since forfeit
ed the right to enter it. And yet, if you can forgive
me —I have wronged no other human being so
much —why may not the Christ?”
“The Padre says, He loves us so, ” Sylvia re
plied, very tenderly, then she quoted slowly:
“ ‘There’s a wideness in His mercy
Like the wideness of the sea,
And His love is more than liberty.’ ”
“Ah,” he said reverently, “but to offer him, at
the eleventh hour, such a wreck of manhood?
Wouldn’t it seem like the last resort of a white
livered coward?”
And Sylvia asked him:
“Is there anything in the world which your father
would refuse to do for you?” *
And Rodney answered, unhesitatingly:
“No; nothing.”
“And yet his love,” she spoke convincingly, “is
only a faint shadow of the love of God; his tender
ness cold by that of the Christ.”
Rodney closed his eyes.
“Hope,” he queried, “even for such a wretch as
I? So this is what you traveled thousands of miles
to tell me? Little girl, little girl, little girl! To
bring Hope to a heart of despair, to a man who*
has'burned the candle at both ends. Hope! I have
sinned against you, Sylvia. Why, child, Rodney
Hill, Senior, would sign away his millions, at a word,
if they could buy me ease and peace. And, if God
loves me better than Father, there is nothing left
to fear, dear —is there?”
“Nothing, Rodney, under Heaven,” Sylvia ans
wered, with the tears stealing down her cheeks, “if
you love Him.”
A strange radiance came into the handsome,
statuesque face among the myriad pillows, and he
lay quiet for a time.
“The heart stimulant, Sylvia, please. Verily,
(Continued on Page Three, Third Column.)
