LOVE Set Free

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1056, 21 August 1930, Page 5

LOVE Set Free

COPYRIGHT

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

L.G. MOBIRLY

Author ot “Clssming Fir«i." “In Apple Blonom Tim*," "Threads o! Life,'* etc.

CHAPTER XXII (Continued) “I am her husband,” Francis broke in curtly, "and I am also a doctor. If it would not disturb her I should like to see her at once. I conclude that, as her husband, I shall be allowed to see her?” ‘‘Oh yes, you will be allowed to see her, but I am afraid,” the Sister hesitated, “I am afraid you must be prepared to find she is practically unconscious: nothing is likely to disturb her much. As a doctor yourself, you will understand.” She gave him the injuries in technical language. “You see there is very little hope.” “I will go to her at once,” Francis said, qiuetly. “I quite understand the position: it sounds very hopeless. Will your medical officer be here tonight? Does he sleep in the hospital?” “Not as a rule, but his home is close by. However, tonight he is actually in the hospital and will not leave it. Mis. Dashwood is so ill. He wished to be within easy call. He is probably in the ward now.”

As she spoke, she led the way along a corridor into a dimly-lighted ward, where, at the end, Dashwood caught sight of screens round a bed. On each side of him patients slumbered, quietly or restlessly, as the case might be. But in the bed behind the screens the patient was not asleep. A nurse stood on one side of the bed, a doctor on the other side, with his hand on the sick woman’s pulse. He glanced quickly at Dashwood and made a sign at him, nodding toward the woman who lay so very still. Millicent’s face was nearly as white as the pillow on which it lay and, though her eyes were open she did not appear to see anything about her. The doctor left the bedside and came to Dashwood’s side.

“She mustn’t see me: it might startle her,” Dashwood whispered this, drawing him out of sight of the bed behind the screens. “She does not even know I am alive, much less here.” "Not know you are alive?” the medical officer, a young, keen-faced man, looked curiously at the visitor. "I don’t know whether you are a relation or a friend of Mrs. Dashwood.” “I am her husband, but we have not met for some time,” Dashwood was answering the look of surprise on the other man s face. “By a curious chain of circumstances, into which I need not enter, my wife supposed me to be dead. It might give her a great shock if she saw me suddenly.” “She thought you were dead?” The words broke involuntarily from the younger doctor. “Yes, by a mistake, a not altogether out-of-the-way mistake of identity my death was announced, and ”

“And you did not set the mistake right?” the words slipped out, again involuntarily, and the medical officer’s keen face instantly flushed, “i beg your pardon,” he exclaimed, “I had no right to say such a thing. It was abominably impertinent. The matter is not one which concerns me at all. Please forgive me. But as to my patient here suffering from shock at the sight of you, I am afraid she is beyond being shocked, or even seriously startled. She has been absolutely unconscious. This apparent awakening is only a flicker before the end. Nothing will shock her now. If you speak to her it can’t hurt her. You may like—she may w’ish ” He did not end his sentence, but Francis after a moment ol’ thought nodded his head gravely and moved round the screens to the bedside. The injured woman’s eyes were once more closed, but her hand plucked restlessly at the sheet, and Dashwood took that restlessly-moving hand into his. His touch roused her from the semi-consciousness into which she had sunk: her eyes looked with puzzled bewilderment into his face.

“My dear,” he said very softly, and at his voice she stirred a little and looked at him more closely, recollection slowly creeping into her eyes. "Why—Francis,” she said, "1 thought—what did I think?—somebody told me something about you, but I can’t remember what it was they said. My head feels all tired and funny, and I can’t put things together clearly.” “Never mind. Don’t try to think, and don’t worry about anything. You —are not very well, and I have come to see you.” “Not very well?” She spoke in low, disjointed accents, drawing her brows together in the effort to clear her thoughts, “I feel—funny. I can’t make out why I’m here—why you’re here.” “I came to see your because you are not very well,” he repeated, his hand still resting on her hand. “You are in a very nice, comfortable place, where you are being taken care of and nursed.”

“Nursed? Why am I nursed? I’m not really ill—only my head feels funny, as if it wasn’t my head at all,” she laughed a little cackling laugh. “Where’s Horace?” Her glance left her husband's face, and roved round the narrow space between the screens. “Where’s Horace? Just now he was sitting close to me, laughing and talking. He kissed me just at the bend of the road.” She laughed again, the mockery of a laugh. “He’s nice and big—though he's a brute, of course, a brute, but fascinating. He and I—a good time,” she muttered vaguely. "I can’t remember what he said, good times he and I—pull together. It’s a good thing you died,”

she looked at Dashwood again. “We didn’t get on, you and i. did we. I’m really glad you died. It was the best thing you could do. Now I’m going to marry Horace Robertson, at least I think so. He's more my sort. He’s a brute, but I like brutes. You were too good for me. You,” she laughed weakly again, “ought to have beaten me. You treated me too kindly. Why have you got that beard? You look queer with a beard.” There was silence for a long minute before her voice rambled on again. "I was happier without a husband: I didn’t really want another. I could do what I lilted when I was alone—nobody to worry me. I could go my own way. I don’t know if Horace will keep his word. He said I should do as I liked. Oh, I’m tired—tired—you needn’t stop ” something of her old fretfulness showed in her voice, she spoke almost louder. "I—don’t really want you any more. I never wanted you much. I can’t think why you are here now. It was a good thing you died. Now Horace and I—why are you there? I don’t want—want ” Her voice was still; quite suddenly still. Her ruling passion of selfishness was strong, even in death. With feeble fingers she pushed away her husband’s hand; an expression of annoy ance crossed her white face. With a gesture of impatience she turned away her eyes.

A chill sense of baffled pain, of bewildered surprise, was Dashwood’s predominate feeling when a little later he followed the medical officer into his room to hear the account of the accident, and of the injuries that had caused his wife’s death.

“There was never an instant’s hope,” the young doctor said kindly. "She was literally smashed up, just as the cap was. The man who drove must have driven like a fiend. We did all that could be done, but from the first her cure was hopeless.” “Yes, I know. I saw. I quite understood,” Dashwood said gently, feeling like someone in a dueam. Still like someone dreaming he made all the necessary arrangements; sleeping that night in the small local hotel, and returning to town next day, to take up what he felt to be the strange burden of life of one who has risen from the dead.

With a grim setting of the lips he reappeared among his fellows, explaining as little as might be of the months just passed; accepting comment and amazement as part of the penalty he must pay for what he had done; doggedly a day at a time; enduring quietly all the unpleasantness that fell to his lot; doing all the necessary business to the best of his ability. Derek Stanesley was his chief prop and support during those days. Derek, who seemed to understand; who did not blame but only sympathised and helped; who was always ready with a word of cheer, and courage.

“And when you feel like it come down to the Manor and see Judith, and let us give you a peaceful time,” Derek said over and over again to his friend. “I want you to make friends with Judith. You will like her, and she will understand.” “Some day I should like to go and see her,” was. Dashwood’s answer,

“but —just for a bit—l want to be alone. As soon as I’ve settled up everything I want to be alone.” Gradually the nine days’ wonder of his reappearance died down, and some other wonder took its place. And although for a time all the world to which the Dashwoods belonged had talked hard and fast of his extraor-

dinary behaviour, of his meteoric disappearance, and equally meteoric reappearance, the talk soon fizzled out, the excitement faded away. By the time people had finished wagging their heads and wondering how . so clever a consultant could have thrown up such a practice, to bury himself no one knew where, the clever consultant had once more vanished beyond their narrow little pale. Before the spring was well advanced those talkers found to their surprise that the Dashwoods’ Cavendish Square house had been emptied of furniture, and the lease disposed of; before, so to speak, they could turn round again, the man, who had made a nine days’ wonder, had once more gone from among them! Nobody could tell anyone else where Francis Dashwood had gone, or when he had gone. He had merely gone—and left no sign. CHAPTER XXIII. “I WANT YOU NOW!” The day was a day in May, one of those radiant days which seem to shout aloud of coming summer, a dav which , can make May seem one of the best months! In country woodland and meadows, and in London parks, the chestnuts showed spikes of flow-

er; lilacs were in bloom; hawthorns filled the air with sweetness, and here and there a laburnum shook out golden tassels in the sunshine But the glory of May had not con fined itself to the countryside and tiie parks. Nature is lavish to every corner which will give her even the ghost of a chance to sow a seed, and in that corner of the great city, that far eastern corner where the forest of masts cut across the sky. and the river flowed between miles of grey houses and interminable docks, even there came some of the glory of the spring. Hidden away among the grey houses, still within reach of the distant murmur of traffic, was a disused churchyard, which wise men had transformed into a recration ground Over this, too. May had flung a garment scarcely less lovely than tbit with which she had draped the countryside. There were lilacs which made a brave show and sent out puffs of sweetness from their spikes of purple blossom; lime trees unfolded infinitesimal leaves of unbelievable green, against a background of sky almost unbelievably blue: and upon a hawthorn tree white with bloom, a hawthorn that stood against the churchyard wall, a thrush sang his song of summer and of gladness. (To be continued Tomorrow.)