THE PRISONER'S SISTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 August 1938, Page 10

THE PRISONER'S SISTER

PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT COPYRIGHT

BY

PEARL BELLAIRS

(Author of “Velvet and Steel”)

CHAPTER XXVl—Continued. ' They were almost at the entrance of the building in which Rand had his flat. Rand’s car was standing at the kerb with Kelcher waiting at the wheel. “We’ll go up and tell him now.” “I won’t! Stuart, I tell you I will not!” There was a sob in Julie’s voice and a light of desperation in her eye. The time when she had first come here, when she had come down from her stormy interview with Rand, ragged, hungry, and almost broken in spirit, was suddenly fresh in her mind. Those few minutes in the hotel parlour yesterday seemed remote, unbelievable. “Well, what are z you going to do?” said Stuart. • “You can’t let him go away not knowing—!” “Yes I can! I have nothing to tell him!” said Julie. “I tell you I’m not going to let you down. I mean it. I won’t —” “That’s absurd!” said Stuart, very white in the face. “Come along up to the flat.” “I mean it!” said Julie. “I’ll show you I mean it! Let him go! I won’t see him!” ■ | And hardly looking to see whether it was clear of traffic, she darted away from Stuart, across the road. She dodged a car and got to the other side, with only one idea —that of getting away from this awful dilemma. Once Rand was gone Stuart must believe her —he must believe her! Her last glimpse of Stuart showed him standing across the street, irresolute, not knowing whether to follow her.

She hurried through the crowd, and down a side street. Round the next corner she felt safe, but she still hurried desperately, blindly on. Half-an-hour later found her standing on the Embankment below St Thomas’s Hospital; she 1 leaned on the parapet, motionless, with her eyes fixed on the clock across the river. By now Rand must have left for Croydon. Stuart, perhaps was looking for her; but he wouldn’t find her —until Tomorrow, and then things might be put right between them. Minutes passed. Julie still waited. At five o’clock Rand’s plane was due to' leave Croydon. Julie watched the hands creep to the hour and moistened her dry lips, with her tongue. The hymn-notes of the chime sounded over the river; and then each booming stroke, reverberating through the City, set every nerve in her body quivering and was like a buffet to her aching soul. . . Five o’clock. Rand had gone! She turned and began to walk towards Charing Cross. At first there was nothing in her but her numb, unutterable grief. Then this slipped away, and a sort of lethargic peace came over her, as she looked down at the river and the tugs and barges. She had done the right thing. She didn’t love Rand; Not really. She felt so strange about him. But it was Stuart whom she truly loved—he was so kind, so very dear, and she was going to marry him. ■ ■. She caught a train for Hazelmere and sat gazing out of the carriage window at the summer evening. Her face was quiet and still. Somewhere a ’plane was winging away into the East, drawing further and further away; and it was quite right that.it should be so. After she had waited for the ’bus at Hazelmere it was nearly dark when she got back to Lime Grove. There was the remains of a red sunset behind the dark pines. Shq went in to the foyer; dinner was over, and everything seemed quiet; Harbin was in charge in her absence, and she knew there was nothing to worry about; so she went out again, to her room over the garages. By now the children would be in bed and asleep. She wanted to be quiet, to rest and be alone. Her feeling of peace had become a numb soulweariness. She climbed the steps to her room. There was a light in the window. She opened the door. Her only armchair was turned with its back to the door, the top of a dark head showed over the back of it —a spiral of smoke rose from its occupant’s cigarette.

Julie started, stared — Rand rose out of the chair and turned to face her dark, very much alive, and looking, as always,-a little enigmatic with his air of reserved power. “Haven’t you gone?” said Julie stupefied. “I seem to be here still.” She was dumb. Had Stuart told him? He closed the door slowly, and managed to ask: “Did Stuart—?” “Tell me? Yes, he told me some odd sort of story. I didn’t quite believe it. I stayed to find out if it was true.” Julie felt suddenly weak and warm; she leaned against the door, incapable of protest. Rand’s expression was determined; but he seemed to have made up his mind to proceed cautiously. “I couldn’t quite make out what you had said to him.” “I didn’t say much.” There was a pause. “The suggestion is that you don’t dislike me as much as you’re supposed to.” When she didn’t reply he went on with growing dryness: “You once told me that you ‘hoped your conscience would make you always dislike me as you should.’ Stuart seems to have some idea that your conscience has failed you!" He tried to catch her eye, but Julie looked down at the floor. She wanted to speak; but at her failure his face grew less hopeful. “If Stuart is wrong then tell me, and I’ll go out of this room and that will be the last you’ll ever hear of it,” he said. Moving towards her, he stood close to her, looking down at her passive face, and equivocally lowered eyelids. “You want me to go then?” Still she made no sign. “Very well,” said Rand. He put out his hand to turn the handle of the door, and his action roused her to life at once —her own hand was there before his, guarding the handle from him. “No!” “No? I see!” She heard the world of relief and triumph in his voice. He drew his hand back but stood so near to her that he almost touched her. “Very well, then. Say: ‘I love you, Ferris.’ ” Julie opened her eyes and saw the room and the lamp-light through dreamily, narrowed lids. His figure loomed against it. “I’m terrified of you,” she said. “Say: ‘I love you, Ferris’.” “I’m frightened- to death of you.”

“Say: ‘I love you, Ferris.’ ” “I love you, Ferris.” She looked up and for an instant they saw in each other’s eyes all that lovers implore of one another, and then sight and sound was blotted out in an enraptured ecstasy as he took her in his arms. THE END.