THE PRISONER'S SISTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 August 1938, Page 10

THE PRISONER'S SISTER

PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT COPYRIGHT

BY

PEARL BELLAIRS

(Author of “Velvet and Steel”)

CHAPTER XVll.—Continued. Julie went back to the washbasin and was rinsing the sponge out again, when Rand came silently to her side. He pointed to the sponge, and held out his own bleeding hand. Julie looked at it in mute enquiry, astounded by his effrontery. She flashed him a scarifying glance, and said finally. “Try salt! It’s good for cuts!” “Thanks!” He withdrew the hand and thrust it into the pocket of his dressing gown. “So that’s what I ge for trying to make a man apologise to y °“You could apologise yourself!” said Julie, quietly, looking him in the eye, though something in her was suddenly stilled and frightened by the whiteness of his face. She saw Hill looking their way, and went back to the bedside. Hill, indeed, found it difficult to contain his curiosity. _ ~ Rand walked quietly out of the room without another word. “How are you feeling now? said Hill to Marsham. Marsham fingered his bruised jaw and said sullenly:

“No’ so bad!” He began to look at them out of his one eye as though he disliked their ministrations and wanted them to get out. , Hill nodded towards the door and said to Julie: “He’ll be all right!” Julie took the hint and they both departed, Hill closing the door behind them. In the passage they looked at one another, Hill trying to keep the question he was asking himself about Rand and Julie frpm showing in his face; Julie, conscious of his curiosity, but too much disturbed and too full of doubt about the justice of her treatment of Rand to care about what Hill might be thinking. “Phew!” said Hill. He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and made a wry face. “Do you think anyone heard, asked Julie. Hill glanced up and down the empty passage. “I think not and I most certainly hope not! I hope you realise, Miss Moffat, what an amount of talk there would be—! But I can rely on you, Im sure—! I suppose Marsham won’t make any trouble. I’ve never been so astounded in my life! Of course, people are unpredictable —but Rand is so selfcontrolled as a rule. One of the most level-headed men I’ve ever met. I had no idea when I told him about the trouble you had with Marsham last night that he was going to take it like that —!” t ' “Where —where has he gone now. said Julie nervously. “Oh, don’t worry—he won’t do anything else. He’s in his room, I expect. I’ll leave him alone for a while.” Hill began to breathe more easily. “There’s nothing else for me to do, I suppose, so I might as well go and have breakfast!” He nodded and walked off with his head full of surmises —Rand’s restlessness, his seeming dissatisfaction with his work —could Julie Moffat be the explanation of his unusual moodiness? But from Julie Moffat’s manner Hill gathered that she wasn’t having any! And what about Lorna Treeves? “Women!” said Hill to himself, pessimistically. At breakfast he found himself talking to the Earl of Mulhall. Over kidney and bacon the Earl tried to pump him about the condition of a shipping company in which Rand held a large block of shares. Hill blandly and respectfully evaded making any statement on the subject. But the Earl at any rate seemed quite unaware that anything unusual had happened in the hotel that morning. In the middle of breakfast it occurred to Hill that he ought to get Captain Marsham quietly off the premises before any of the other guests discovered his condition. So he gulped his coffee and hurried upstairs to see about it. CHAPTER XVIII. Meanwhile, as soon as Hill left her, Julie was stricken with remorse. Violent as Rand’s action had been she couldn’t ignore the fact that it had one motive —and that herself. It made things look different—it made her feel that whatever his inner struggle between his “ambition” and “good sense,” and his attraction towards her, the attraction couldn’t be just nothing—! She collected all her courage and went and tapped on his bedroom door. Ell came and opened it.

“Is Mr Rand about?” said Julie. “He’s in the sitting room, madam! I just daren’t go in—he’s that difficult this morning!” Ell’s voice was deeply grieved." He must be ill, madam. I’ve never seen him like it —usually so civil, he is. He won’t even tell me what suit he wants for today, so I’ve put out his blue, but goodness knows whether he’ll wear it when he does come —!” “Have you any iodine or bandages?” said Julie. “Mr Rand has hurt his hand.” “Oh dear, madam, has he?” Ell hastened to find a small case containing a first-aid outfit. “I always carry it, madam, in case he should hurt himself!” It made Julie think of a mother with her children, and she couldn’t help smiling at the way in which Rand was spoiled by all the people round him. She tapped on the sitting room door. There was no reply, and so she opened it. Rand was sitting in an armchair with his back half turned to her, still wearing his dressing gown, and smoking furiously. He didn’t look round, and evidently assumed that she was Ell, for he said: “Now look here, can’t you leave me alone for ten minutes? Do get out!” Julie came ’in and closed the door.

He turned and looked at her then, tried to conceal his surprise, and was silent. He didn’t get up. “I’ve come to see to your hand,” said Julie. “What for?” he said irascibly. “Oh well—it- might go septic, or something.” She came to his side, and as the armchair was nowhere near a table or anything else, she had to put the first-aid box on the floor. She went down on one knee to open it. He never moved in his chair. There was a look in his eye like a gleam in the eye of an infuriated dog. “I’m darned if I’ll apologise to you!” he said. “All right,” said Julie, unrolling a bandage. “What about your hand?” It was in the pocket of his dressing gown, and he kept it there. “My hand is perfectly all right!” 9 “I don’t think it is. It wasn’t when I last saw it.” “I don’t want your darned bandages!” “I won’t bandage it then, but you must have some iodine on it.” “What have you come here for?” “Well —as you can see —I came to put some iodine on your hand.” “All right then —!” He sat up suddenly, snatched the iodine bottle from her, tore the cork out, and dashed half the contents of the bottle over his cut knuckles. A good deal of iodine fell on the firstaid box, and when he had finished he shook his fingers violently, splashing the surplus right and left over the green pile carpet. He put down the iodine bottle, and Julie sat back on her heels and quietly surveyed the damage done to a carpet worth hundreds of pounds. • “Well!” she said. ■■ “So this is our walking, talking picture of a captain of industry! And all the time you really are nothing but a spoiled baby!” She looked up and stopped speaking as she saw that he had covered his face with his hands, and was sitting there with his head bent, looking the picture of misery. lodine from his stained hand ran down his wrist into his sleeve. For a moment there was silence. Half involuntarily, half in obedience to an ungovernable tender impulse Julie put up her hands and rolled down the sleeve of his dressing gown so that it would not get stained. Her hand was caught and held. His face was quite different as he looked down at her, a trifle ravaged looking, but smiling ruefully. “You little idiot!” he said. “Wanting an apology! Well one day I will give you an , apology—when I can prove that I’ve nothing to apologise for!”. He let go her hand and stood up. / When he could prove that he had nothing to apologise for!, That might mean anything, and exactly what interpretation she was supposed to put on it Julie didn’t know.

She quietly gathered the things into the first-aid box; but her heart was beating fast. When she glanced up at him she saw that he had recovered most of his usual poise and equanimity. His face wore a purposeful look, and he seemed about to speak—and then Ell tapped at the door. “Oh, darn it!” said Rand. “Come in!” Ell entered with the- desperate air of a man doing his duty in the face of fearful odds. “Pardon the liberty, but you said that you wished to be in r.', town by eleven o’clock, sir. You wished me to remind you of it. The hour is now five minutes to ten, sir—!” “All right, Ell!” Rand looked at Julie, and said, with an imperative note in his voice; “I shall be back again—a fortnight from today!” She smiled, without making any reply, gave Ell his first-aid case, and went out. She saw so little of where she was going as sho walked along the passage that she almost collided with a maid carrying a breakfast tray glittering with silver plate and emanating delicious scent of coffee, fruit and hothouse violets. “Pardon, madam!” Glancing through the door of the room into which the girl went, Julie realised that it was the one occupied by Lorna Treeves. As she passed she caught a glimpse of the luxurious hand-painted bed with its multi-col-oured, mock-Victorian spread; Lorna Treeves’ dark head on the pillow; and her elegant maid moving silently round pulling back the curtains to let in the winter light. A faint waft of perfume came from the room. Lorn Treeves at all events knew nothing of how Rand had been spending the morning. But the glimpse of Lorna’s idle, wellbred perfection pulled Julie up in her uselessly happy musings. Could any man regard her, Julie, as being more desirable than a girl with such a back-ground as Lorna had? It was this thought which occupied Julie’s mind most during that morning, when all the guests departed one by one. Rand left only half-an-hour after they had parted; Lorna Treeves and her mother went with the Mulhalls at noon. k Soon the hotel was empty, except for the staff, at ease again, clearing up at their leisure. (To be Continued).