THE DOCTOR'S PROTÉGÉE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 501, 18 September 1912, Page 2

THE DOCTOR'S PROTÉGÉE.

(All Rights Reserved.)

By ALBERT LEE, Author of " The Baronet in Corduroy," " The Key of the Holy House," King Stork of the Netherlands," " The Black Disc," &c.

Published By Special Arrangement.

CHAPTER Vlll.—{Continued^ "I will follow him up," I said to myself; and, pulling on my top-coat • —for the night was cold l —l drew the front door after me silently, hurried down to the gate on the grass of the lawn, so that there "should be no crunching on the gravel to give token of my coming, and then into the square. Daniello Tarsilla was not far ahead, . and, taking care to follow him as silently as possible, I saw that he passed' Agnes's house without so much as glancing in its direction. Knowing Italian ways, I felt that his going forward did not secure me from espionage. Possibly if I were to swing round suddenly, I should find someone following me, to see where I went, and at once Teresina's whereabouts would be known, or guessed at. Going past my sister's house, I still followed Tarsilla, revolving the question in my mind as to what I could do to confuse my possible follower. In the next road was the house of one of my patients, and as she was seriously ill, it would Be a reasonable thing to pay her a visit. I therefore knocked at the door, and with my back towards it watched whether anyone was near. Coming down the pavement, almost soundlessly, was a man who quickened his pace and passed the steps just as the house door was opened, and I entered, positively certain that the passer-by would not go far away until I came out again. Having seen my patient, I iwent downstairs, and, making some excuse to the man-servant for going elsewhere by a short cut, I was let out at the back door, walked down the narrow path between the two high walls, took a turning down a similar way, and was soon after admitted at the back door of my sister's house. Here, at least, the man on the watch had been frustrated.

"Then you will not .send the package to Andrieno Telamone?" I asked.

Telling how the letter 4 had' come, I gave it to Teresina. After she had torn the envelope open and began to read, her dark face turned pale, and her hand trembled. Presently the letter fell from her fingers and lay on her lap, while she buried her face in her hands, and exclaimed:

"Dr. Carson, I am in as great danger as before. Andrieno is back in England again. R.ead it."

I took the letter in my h and and read eagerly. It began abruptly, and there was nothing in. it from beginning to end to that it was from a husband to a wife. It ran thus:

You know what I s aid on the night when I discover ed that you were one of the hatred Sarpis. I found you at " Marly, and

meant to kill you,, but was frustrated by one • who, as you know, pursues me-: at the instance of the Fraternity. Then came that Er .glish doctor — Carson by name— -who made me swear to forego the vendetta; otherwise he wo-aid hand me to the police. You know what that would mean. I. should be extradited, carried l",ack to Italy, and executed. He ace I took the oath —took it, as " vou must know, under compulsi' on; and an oath wrung from one under such conditions cann , 0 T be field to be binding.

"No, I !*vill not break" my promise."

CHAPTER IX.

A MIDNIGHT CALL

I am re ady to forego the vendetta if V' ou will hand' to my messanger th Scarlet Cross package which I asked you to give me on the nig /it when I discovered your real ir ime. Let me have that, and y on m ay walk the streets with absolute safety. But I spea Jc plainly. If you refuse the pac' sage to me, the vendetta hoi .ds, and I shall kill you at sif/ht.. Andrieno Telamone. I put the letter on the table, and "waited for Teresina to speak. She had never mentioned the package, although i I had seen it and handled it- I h ad remarked, too, her anxiety con cerning it. But it was her concern . and not mine, and I felt that It would be an unwarrantable intrusw .m to ask her any questions conce.r ning it. "\A ? hat will you do?" I asked, seeing that she sat as if unable to speak.. '''This is what he asks for, Dr. Carsom," she said, after a somev/hat long silence; and unbuttoning" l"ier d;ress, and putting her hand into her bosom, she drew forth the small package. "Will you not give it to- him, and save 'your life?' T I said, speaking ser ou sly ; but she shook her head. "H<i asks too much. My father made me promise solemnly not to part v/ith it, nor to open it until I had r( -.ached mv twenty-filth birthday—some months- hence —and even Go die rather than part with it to my husband or to anyone, and only tc > open it xnyse.'lf on a certain dr.v—si iv birthday. 'Hfow Audricno came • to discover that I had it I cannot sav. but ho I-ppw fbnt.

me of the vendetta, but said that if I would obtain for him a. package which he knew was in the possession of my father, since he was the only remaining Sarpi of Bianco, he would forego the vendetta. I remembered iriy promise. I recalled what my fa'tfier saidj: 'Die first, Teresina, since the happiness of thousands would be jeopardised if Andrieno Telamone gained possession of the package, forego marriage vows and everything else rather than part with it. What could I say after that? What can I do in the face of an oath taken at the instance of my dying father?"

Before I left her I pointed out the danger of carrying about with her anything so precious, especially when the happiness of thousands depended on its safety. She might be robbed of Jt, or in a score of ways it migEt be lost. I told her how it had fallen from her bosom, and how I had replaced it, and she was startled.

"Take it, Dr. Carson," she exclaimed. "Place it somewhere where none can get at it." "I will take it to the bank and have it locked up there. They will give me an acknowledgment, and I will arrange that you may have it when you wish. Will that please you?" AnH when she assented I left her.

I went out by the back door, saw that the way was clear, got to my home without any locked the Scarlet-Cross package in my safe, and' .went to bed.

The morning following I heard that the house of my patient had been entered, that it had been thoroughly searched while all were asleep, save the nurse, who caused the intruders to retreat hastily, but that nothing had been taken. The police, and everyone else —myself excepted l —were greatly mystified in consequence.

One thing seemed certain during the next week or two —that neither Telamone nor Tarsilla know anything of the whereabouts of Teresina. It was clear that they had no idea of my sister living near me, so that if that secret could be kept while we made our further plans, we might frustrate them altogether in their search, and contrive to place the two men in the hands of the police, if we could not qtherwise shake them off. One other matter was impressing itself upon me —that Teresina's welfare was becoming the absorbing passion of my life. I have spoken of her beauty; but while it was such that it grew upon one, her affectionate gentleness and her fine intelligence made even this a subordinate thing. She had grown to rely upon us both, so that her confidence was complete, and she kept back nothing. . Had it not been that I knew her to be a married woman, I could not have kept back a confession of my love for her; but since that dared not be mentioned, I tried to content myself with her affectionate confidence, and place*! myself entirely at her service,

Now that I look back upon those days I am afraid that my partner s patience must have been sorely tried, for I was again and again encroaching on his good nature, getting him, on sundry pretexts, to see to patients whom I ought to have taken under my exclusive care, and putting the heaviest work of the practice upon him, But he never complained but once, when he took me to task,

"Look li&re, old fellow, I don't mind how long I work, so long as you can put Teresina into safe keeping. But don't forget that she's a married •woman, for it's plain enough that you are very much in love with her-' 1

"I, in love?" I exclaimed, incredulously ; for Carter's words took me vary much aback. "Yes, in love." "I'll own - . I'm very fond of her, and would do anything on this earth for hea* happiness." "Then k. jep it at fondness, old man,' said Carter, "and don't forget her hustiand. \ o.u can't marry her, so lc: <ve her like a sister." ' That nigh t, while I essayed to read a book, I thought the matter over when I Vlrs. Dawrcy and the others of th? household had gone to bed. I c kl not but feel that it was well Cui -tor spoke as he did, for it was impos ;ib!c not to own that I was verv rau :h in love with another mans w'ife. I had her photograph before men o\v, It was on the mantelshelf, where I could see it t-,lo *nl,r nvr- t, n-. y> . I_laolcaiL-iua-£gQaa.

chair- She was small and dainty. Her dark fringed hair fell slightly over a broad, high forehead, and beneath the firmly-formed eyebrows were dark, quick, alert eyes, which had such softness in them. But the portrait gave no idea of the softness of her voice, which often recalled to me Oliver Wendell Holmes' phrase of the "sweet-lip-ped women."

From one thing I passed to another. I had planned with Agues and Teresina that if things looked more dangerous than they were, they were to leave England, and go across the Atlantic to an old college chum of mine, who was a planter in Cabesterre. I little thought that I was sending her to as much danger as if she had remained in Bristol—for how was I to now that Andrieno Telamone held a great quantity of land in that very place, and would probably go to Cabesterre to see that his plantation was faring well? Even Teresina was ignorant of the fact. Our only thought was that Anselme in Cabesterre, was a place where they could stay in security, if needs be, under an assumed name, until I could send them word that matters were developing favorably, and that Teresina's safety was assured. If she wished it, she could ask at the bank for the Scarletcross package, and take it with her. The thought that I had so far arranged for her future contented me, and I sat on at my ease. My reverie was interrupted by thundering knock on the front door, sufficiently loud to awaken every sleeper, in the house ; and, coming as it did in the midst of the night stillness. I sprang out of my chair with an exclamation, and for a moj ment or two stood on the hearthrug absolutely bewildered. Was it a real knock, I asked myself, or only my fancy? But listening intently I heard the snorting of a horse in the road.

Tossing my book into the chair, without staying to turn down the corner of the page to mark the place where I had left off reading quite an hour before, I went to the window, and peeped through the Venetian blind. I exclaimed in surprise, for the garden was a sheet of whiteness. The corners of the window-panes were filled up with snow, and the snowflakes were falling heavily. There was a twohorse carriage at the garden gate, the roof of it white, every ledge o| the crinkled leather filled up with snow, the horses steaming with 'lie toil of travelling through the storm, and the driver a whitened monument, as he sat motionless on his box- The carriage door was open, and a man's head was thrust out, the falling snow even in those few moments, beginning to find lodgment on the cap which covered it.

"Knock again,'' he cried, and someone vwho stood within the porchway, out of sight, banged on the door more soundinglv than before. I heard some footsteps overhead, and presently Mrs. Dawnev stood in the doorway of the room in her curl-papers and night-cap, busily buttoning up her dressing-gown. U uder ordinary circumstances nei- , ther she nor Nancy would have ta-' ken any notice of a midnight sum mons, which was such a common. thing in a doctor's life. But there i was something unaccountably disturbing about this call, which not. only aroused ,the household, but 1 gave each one a sense of disquietude, and made me slower than usual to open the front door. "Who in the world can it be," asked Mrs. Dawney, her face full of wonder; but without waiting for an answer, she went to the window and peeped out, just as I had done. ''Heaven save us, 'tis a carriage and pair. What can a carriage and pair want here at such an hour and in jthe snow, too?" "Somebody's ill," I suggested. "What do people want to be ill for in the middle of the night?" she asked, unreasonably enoughSomething had made her nervous; a bad dream, perhaps, or an attack of indigestion. She was full of pluck, however, and while the man outside was in the act of knocking for a third time, she had gone to the front door, and was drawing back the bolts and dropping the safety chain. This was more than I would allow her to do alone, and having turned the key, opened the door.

The man who stood there was wrapped in a great-coat lined with fur, and so muffled about the face that it was impossible to judge as to what he was like. He spoke with a somewhat foreign accent. "Dr. Carson?"

"Yes," I replied, shivering as the bitter night wind full of snow rushed in at the open doorway. "Come in," I added; for there was no reason to distrust the man, and it was certainly no place to carry on a conversation.

{To be Continued.jj Q i P i —7.