LOVE SET FREE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1048, 12 August 1930, Page 5

LOVE SET FREE

COPYRIGHT

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

bY

L.G.MOBERLY.

Auiftnt of 'Cluufuic Fir**, - ' "In Apple Binanom Time,’ "Threndn of Lit*. «tt

CHAPTER XII.— (Continued)

Oh, no, I can’t do that,” she exclaimed aloud. “I have no claim, I coaidn't.” And at that moment, in “flash, came another remembrance — ™°J Derwent. What about Alison, ho had answered her letter in terms t such cordial friendship? Who had wJ'. te v ll * r to tea? Alison had ala >s been one of the helpers of this

world. Would she help her old friend now ?

“There’s a lady to see you, Nuss.” The clock upon Alison's mantelpiece pointed to seven o'clock, and she had just put her kettle upon the gas ring of her stove, when her landlady made this announcement. “A lady? Ask her to come up. Where is she?’’

“Well, dearie, she said she’d wait downstairs till I was sure you was in —see? She seemed dreadful put about when I said I wasn’t sure if you was in or not. And she says, all in a worrit-like, ‘Oh, dear me, I hope she’s there,’ she says, just like that.” “Ask her to come up directly,” was the brief response, and during the next minute or so Alison wondered who her visitor could be, the visitor who was in a worrit lest she should be out.

At sight of the. figure which a moment later stood in the doorway, she uttered an exclamation. “Judith—you? But how delightful. What a surprise! But—why, what is wrong?” she added abruptly, as her visitor came more fully into the light, and she saw the tired whiteness of her face, the signs of disturbance which could not be hidden. “Sit straight down there, and don’t say a word till you feel like it,” Alison went on, pushing Judith gently into an armchair. and surveying her with a critical glance. “Rest first, and then tell me what you have been doing to your-

self, or what has somebody done to you?” “This seems a perfect haven of peace,” Judith said, looking round the ordinary little room, which nevertheless held the atmosphere that belonged to its owner. “I’ve been having a nasty time. I’ve been dismissed at a moment’s notice, and I felt stranded. So I put my luggage into the cloakroom at Liverpool Street station and found my way to you, to ask your advice and help.” “Dismissed at a moment’s notice? You?” Alison stared. “My dear, was your employer a raving lunatic?” ‘“Very nearly,” Judith’s smile was rather wan. “She raved at me like a perfect maniac, and I was thankful to be out of her house. It all arose out of a nasty incident.’ Then and there Judith told the story of Robertson’s visit, told it with something between a laugh and a sob. while Alison listened in silent wrath, which finally bubbled over into anger. “The unutterable cad.” was her comment at the end. “The unspeakable cad! But put the horrible man out of your mind. Don’t worry about

him. He is not worth thinking about.” "Not in himself,” Judith answered feverishly, “of course not, in himself. He is beneath contempt, just a worm. But, Alison, he threatened to make public some story about my father, something about business, something which may injure Dad’s memory,” her voice shook. "He said he would let the world know that truth about Dad, unless I agreed to marry him.” Alison realised that the events of the day had broken down her friend's customary reticence, and her own voice was very gentle. “I should be inclined to think the creature was only bluffing,” she said. "He is evidently not above that sort of thing—simply a low-down beast, who would stick at nothing.” Judith laughed shakily. "It is very satisfying to hear you use strong language about him,” she said. “And, look here, my dear,” Alison went on with firmness, "whatever he threatens, you can’t marry him. That is one of the certainties of this life. You could not stoop so low as to shut his mouth by agreeing to marry him.

Now put him out of your mind for a little while. We are going to have supper and talk things over. I may get a brain wave. By the way—l wonder ” she broke off suddenly. “Could you put up with a rather second-rate, but very over-worked little woman, just temporarily, and help her with her family? The job is no sinecure. It is completely unsuited to you, and you to it,” she went on whimsically, “but only this morning Mrs. Hornby made a piteous appeal to me to find her somebody, and now you come along, -wanting work. It seems like a planned coincidence. Only, remember, the work is not your kind for keeps, only in a very temporary way.” “My dear, I’ll take any work that’s possible. I have no false pride. At the moment I have no money beyond the two pounds Mrs. Dashwood owed me. I took them reluctantly, but I can’t afford to ride high horses. Now tell me about Mrs. Hornby.” “She is the wife of a local doctor, a little, hard-working G.P. They have a hard struggle, small house and four children. She wants what is called a mother’s help. Oh, no, Judith, I was a

donkey to think of your undertaking the work.” She looked into Judith’s refined face and soft eyes. “You can’t do it.”

“Can’t I?” Judith sprang to her feet. “I’m not made of sugar. I am a perfectly strong and capable young woman: and quite fit to be a mother’s help. Give me Mrs. Hornby's address and I will go and see her at once.” “I wish I had never mentioned her,” Alison said slowly. “The words came out. almost unawares.”

“Then they were providential. This is meant to be,” was the prompt reply. ‘!Let us go and interview the lady and if she can take me, so much the better! Will you give me a reference? Mrs. Dashwood won’t.”

“Mrs. Dashwood!” Alison’s eyes blazed. “I should like five minutes with that lady,” she said grimly, “only five minutes, just to have the supreme satisfaction of reducing her to powder.”

CHAPTER XIII. IN THE EAST END. ‘A particularly unpleasant person

came to see me about him.” It was Dr. John Smith who spoke. He leant against the mantelpiece In his surger;.. looking at Nurse Alison, who stood before him, notebook in hand, waiting his instructions about the patients she visited for him.

During the past few weeks, doctor and nurse had frequently been thrown together. It had come about almost imperceptibly, and with no conscious coalition on either side. And now Alison’s daiy visit to the surgery for orders from the doctor concerning his cases in the district had become a recognised thing. To work with a man who, as she had at once realised, was a physician of outstanding ability, was in itself a sheer delight to a woman like Alison, whose profession was in her eyes veritably a sacred calling. Whim Dr. John found in this blue-eyed woman, not only a nurse of rare quality but a gracious lady, whose very presence w*as a rest and refreshmen . (To be continued tomorrow.)