Love Set Free

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1039, 1 August 1930, Page 5

Love Set Free

COPYRIGHT

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

k

L.G. MOBERLY

Author of "Cleansing Fires." "In Apple; Blossom Time," "Threads of Life," ete.

PROLOGUE H USBAND AND WIFE "For goodness sake leave me alone to do as I like! I wouldn’t ever have married you if I had known it was going to mean so much worry.” The impatient words, spoken in rather a high-pitched voice, fell into the silence of the big drawing room, and when Millicent Dashwood had fin ished speaking, only silence followed her words. "Have you been struck suddenly dumb?” she exclaimed, pettishly, look mg at the man who stood upon the hearthrug, his face turned a little away from her. “What’s the good of your standing there, gazing out of the window, ami not saying a syllable? I'm perfectly fed up with the whole thing.” The man turned slowly, and h:s glance rested upon her lovely, angry face, his own face very grave and quiet. “My dear I wish we could find a way out of the difficulty,” he said, and though his voice—a noticeably charming voice—was gentle, there was sad ness in it. "We seem to have reached a dumb alley in our lives, and we can’t find a way out.” “A way <jut," she echoed, mockingly, “you are always so lofty in your language, aud much too high-brow lor me altogether; and I’m sick to death ot healing about your researches and in Tent ions, ard of you always being too busy to do this or that, which I haivhen to want. Your wife may go to ti e devil for ali you care. I can’t imagine why you ever married me! Why didn’t you simply stick to your old research work, and live a hermit’s life? You would have been much happier, and ao should I.” The little gibe brought a flush to Francis Dai hwood’s face, but his voice was still very gentle. “1 happened to fall in love with you, my dear; and I wanted you for my w *fe. I thought you would be interest© 1 ■o my work. I fancied we could have ffl ade a bet.utiful thing of our life together.” “A beautiful thing of our life t'■ Sether?” she laughed, shrilly. “My good Francis, you may be a very jdever doctor, and I am sure you are. kom all I hear people say about you, ™t you were pretty ignorant about *omen! ” “Perhaps I was.” He sighed just i little. The scene in which ho was Playing an unwilling part was one ot ®aoy like scenes, and it seemed to that hey wore him out, body and soul. “Perhaps you were,” she mocked You make me tired! Why did you stick me tp on an impossible pedes- ***• Heavens alive! Why couldn t fou see that I wasn’t an angel 6 tratght from above?” “I believed in you,” the man sail, “imply, bu; with a note of weariness hie voit e, a. note that would have to the heart of any woman less ™fflpletely cold and self-centred than '•Ulicent. “1 loved you, too,” he added. •I Loved?” She turned on him with a ’“tie fierce gesture. “I suppose that Vv 8 ? 18 yotl don’t love me any more °u re tired of loving me, are you ? ouare like-all the rest. When you've sot the toy you struggled to get, you °"«i, wan t it any more.” ™tlly, can’t we stot> bickering ’ ’ he note of weariness in his voice “eepeued. “Can’t we at least try to ““demand each other?” Good gracious! I don’t want ■-.> other to understand you." She tossed r™ words at him vith a sort of con “I'm bored stiff with the whole thing.” “Bored stiff wiLh me? With our in , spoke gently, but there was a hint, of the stern behind the ? er,tle - or perhaps it was more as if * determined to draw from her ■|“e decisive statement of her wishes, •"““thing more than a mere flinging •“out of irresponsible word 3.

“Well, you can’t imagine I care two brass farthings about your researches. I feel like screaming when you talk about them, and you know I hate them.” “And me?” he put in quietly. She shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, you,” she said. “Well, look here, Francis, you can’t pretend that we suit each other in the least. You disapprove of me as much as I feel fed up with you. It’s about six of one and half a dozen of the other.” “I wonder why you married me?” Again came the insolent shrug of the shoulders, which gave Francis Dashwood an insane longing to shake her. “Life with Aunt Caroline lacked gaiety,” she said, with her hard laugh. “Also, we were always extremely short of cash, and you were attractively rich, Francis, as well as attractively distinguished. Both those things made an appeal to me. I like luxury, you know, and smart frocks aud good times and plenty of people about me Oh, all those pleasant things money can give. But ” "But the husband thrown in with all these things weighs the scales down too heavily in the wrong direction. is that it? If.” lie spoke slowly, his glance never leaving her face, “if by any means our marriage could be obliterated, without depriving you of all ' the fteshpots of Egypt to which you cling, you would be glad, is that it? If a convenient epidemic swept me off you would feel that Fate had been rather kind to you.” The irony in his voice passed her by, she looked at him gravely, weighing his words. “We don’t fit in with each other in the least,” she said. “It’s a great pity we can’t just separate without any fuss or scandal, and go different ways.” The coolness with which she stated her views made her husband wince. “You would really be happier with out me, and I without you.” she went on calmly, “and I should be really happier on my own.” “Good Lord!” .Francis said, under bis breath, but bis wife went on speaking without heeding his remark “Don’t make any mistake. I am not in love with anyone else. I would much rather not have any man worrying round me. I like men-friends well enough, but I don’t want to marry any of my friends. I have had quite enough of married life. The callousness of her words and manner struck a chill to Francis Dash wood’s heart. He stared at his wife almost as though she were a complete stranger. “Need we go on nagging ! she asked, when he remained silent on the hearthrug. “As we can’t make a clean cut we must put up with things as they are.” “Is there anybody else you prefer to me?” her husband demanded, his voice all at once low and hoarse. “Is that at the bottom of the whole thing? Is there another man?” She laughed, the high laugh which all at once seemed to him to have no back to it, to be as shallow as it was shrill. “Goodness no—l have just said there is not!” she answered. “Don’t get melodramatic or have any spasms of jealousy. There’s no other man. I feel sometimes as if I had no use for men, except just as convenient creatures to take one out to dinner or buy one chocolates. If you were not here, my dear Francis, T shouldn’t marry again. Pas si bete! However, what is the use of talking round and round the subject like squirrels chasing something round a cage? We get no forwarder. Besides which, I happen to be dining with Jessie Dale and Bob Travers. I can’t stop here arguing with you. She took from a chair a saxe-blue velvet coat trimmed with sable, aud flung it over her shoulders, its soft colour enhancing the silver sheen of her gown “Some people appreciate your wife if you don’t,” she added tauntingly, stepping to his side of the hearthrug to look at her own reflection In the ’mirror.

“I ' once thought you were the loveliest thing on God’s earth —the loveliest thing, body and soul,” be said, with a strange sort of breathlessness. “Now I know that your lovely body has no beautiful soul.” “La, la!” she exclaimed, “I have tic use for souls. Oh, my good Francis, do stop playing the heavy husband; I’m so sick of being found wanting at every turn.” “Does it all mean nothing to you?" he cried, with sudden passion, seizing her hands in his. “Does it mean nothing—my loVe, your wifehood, our married life’i” “You told me you had left off loving me,” she pulled her hands from his "As for wifehood and married lift — oh, I can’t work up any sentimental ity along those lines. Do let me go now. I shall keep the others waiting. We are meeting at the Meranino.” He dropjted his hands to his sides with a hopeless gesture. “I don’t believe there is anything in you to which one can appeal.” he said, all the passion aud pain gone from his voice, leaving it very cold aud quiet. "By the way, I am going away early tomorrow morning. I think I did te’.l you I have to go to Bramstone to secFisher, the man who has been doing some experiments for me there. I shall be away three or ton, days.” “I hope you’ll come jjome in a more reasonable frame of miud,” she tetorted. “At any rale, I shall have three or four days of peace!” And with these words she swept out of the room, leaving that distinguished physician, Francis Dashwood, her husband, standing on the hearthrug, cold despair gnawing at his heart. CHAPTER I. “FIRE!” “Fire! ” With devastating clearness the word rang out across the crowded theatre, and in a second the scene which had been one of well-ordered security, an audience peacefully intent upon watching a good play, became a seething pandemonium. The safety curtain was rung down. The manager appeared in front of it, appealing to the tumbling mass of human beings before him to avoid panic; to leave the building quietly. He assured them that if only they would go out with no frantic rush, they might all escape. But his words were lost in the all-prevailing din. They fell upon ears rendered deaf by ungovernable terror. The men and women, who a minute eaiflier had sal in rows, well-dressed, and apparently well-behaved folk, had been transformed with lightning rapidity into raging, terrified animals, filled wicb one thought only, self-preservation. To reach the nearest exit; that was the only idea of which their minds were capable. Already the smell of burning wood was beginning to pervade the placet! Little puffs of smoke drifted here and there above the heads of the strug gling multitude. The atmosphere had become oddly misty, and it was increasingly difficult to see even the dress circle from the stalls, the far off gallery was almost blotted out by a growing denseness. It was becoming difficult, too, to breathe in the smoke-laden air. A woman in the front row of die uppeit circle had stood up when that sharp call rang out, but, beyond standing up, she did not attempt u--leave her place. To left aud right her and behind her a confused melee of people struggled and wrestled with one another in frantic efforts to pass along the rows of seats; the more they struggled and fought, the more hopelessly intertwined the tangle of humanity seemed to become. •(To be continued tomorrow)