"FREEDOM FOR TWO"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 May 1940, Page 10

"FREEDOM FOR TWO"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

MARGARET WATSON.

CHAPTER XIV, (Continued).

The loneliness of being without himself breathed so deep in every line of her gallant lies that she knew there was, there could be, no other man in her life.

Erica was lonely; Erica was alone. He could not understand; he could only feel. Every word of every letter he read, with painful care; and then he raised his head, looked at three people who loved Erica very nearly as much as he did, and said: “Now I’ll tell the truth.”

He told it; the whole sordid story; told it very badly, too, with frequent difficulty, and a tendency to take the the entire blame upon himself. Forgetful of the presence of Michael, who had no claim to share these intimacies, he told the story. It was like cutting out his own heart for them, but he did it, struggling valiantly to ignore, as he talked, the horror in their faces. Michael had made an effort to withdraw as soon as the situation became embarrassing; but no one had noticed him, and now he could not bear to go away and not hear what had happened to Erica. He stood there in the background, patiently listening, seeing her brown head reared against the window, hearing her laugh again at the stuffy old fogies who made Brandford what it was.

“I thought you would know what had happened,” said Martin, breathing heavily, as if he had run a long way. “I took it for granted that she would tell you all about it. As a matter of fact, I came here just to —to find out if —to be sure that she was happy ” He looked down at the bundle of letters crushed in. his hand. She was not happy. No one could have written those brave, happy, letters, lying to shield him, while a single second of real happiness remained in their lives. And perhaps Jon had merely been the kind person who had helped her to get away from her unsatisfactory husband. A nice thought, that! Comforting! Then why hadn’t he been more of a man, and less of a demi-god on a pedestal, and demanded an explanation? Oh, the lucky, happy people who have more temper than dignity, and can burn out their grudges in one flare, and be done with them. But what was he to do? There was nothing in their stricken faces, nothing in their silence, to suggest a way out for him. He had met her; he had given her an opportunity to explain everything to him, and to knit up the cords that had been broken. He had done everything he could, left her money, waited for the words of dismissal from her own lips—yes, and got them, too. He had Michael Dunn said, in a terrible throaty voice: “Do you mean to say that you really met that girl in th.e street —met her face to face —and didn’t trouble yourself to hold on to her like — grim death? Do you mean to sit there and tell me that you believed Erica —Erica —-had deceived you —and you waited for an explanation? You waited! So nice of you! So restrained! So gentlemanly! You ” He broke off. upon a hissing breath. “I should like to kill you.” Martin was beyond resentment. It was a bit of a shock, certainly, to have the. flaws in his behaviour pointed out so tartly and so truly by Michael; but looking back now upon his actions, he saw them as anything but glorious. It did not matter that she had deliberately sent him away. He should have picked her up and carried her home in his arms. He should have hugged her, and kissed the fear out of her face. He should But it was too late to think of what he should have done then. The thing was to make no such mistake now.

He stood up. He had wasted time enough. While he had toyed with the idea of salvage expeditions, she, for all he knew, might have been struggling for a living in Stockholm. Martin reached for his hat.

“I don’t blame you,” he said, looking Michael Dunn squarely in the eyes. “I should like to kill myself." The next day he sailed for Gothenberg. CHAPTER XV. With something definite to do, and a comparatively brief time in which to do it, he was a very different person from the Martin Hirst who had ambled listlessly round the Continent for the better part of six months, and finally wandered away to the Pacific in search of distraction. The change was not in his circumstances, but in himself. He knew what he was going to do; he had a definite, probably a difficult, task before him; and all his doubts were gone.

He was going to find Erica, if he had to pull Stockholm stone from stone to do it; and once he had her safely he was never going to let her go again, for all the Jons, for all the misunderstanding. for all the hurt pride in the world.

Scraps of her letters haunted him as he was borne swiftly out of Gothenburg along the all too long journey to Stockholm. “We are both very fit. and very happy.” She had written that into almost every one, with only the slightest variation in the wording. “We are both very fit, and very happy.” So they should have been al this very moment. So they should be, if his luck favoured him enough to let him find her again. He stared unseeingly at the countryside through which he was carried, and reasoned out a hundred and one ways of organising his search for her; none of which, of course, would be used when it came to, the point. All he knew was that he 1 would win her back somehow.

A large blonde woman strolled along

“I did it. too. but —I wish I'd never had anything to do with the wretched business. She was very suspicious; closed up on me all that day and — well, when I came back, she'd gone. (To be concluded.)

the corridor, and happening to glance in through the window, saw him hunched in his corner, and knew him at once, though only a narrow profile was turned towards her. She came rushing in in a tornado of furs and perfume, and flung herself upon him. “Martin! Martin Hirst!”

Martin, confused, took a few seconds to realise that she was an old friend. He blinked up dazedly into a round, smiling face, with a bush of yellow hair framing its pink and white. “Eulalia! What one earth are you doing here?” “Aren’t you pleased to see me?”

“Of course, but I wasn't expecting you. Are you on holiday again? Olis it business? You look the fittest of the fit, anyhow. It’s nice to see you again.

“I’m on my way to Stockholm to star in an ice-ballet, as a matter of fact.” She looked round and asked, in the most natural way in the world: “Where’s Erica?”

“In Stockholm. I'm going to her.” It did not, for some reason, occur to him to add deliberate lies this time. There was something monumentally comfortable and sane about Eulalia which made deception unnecessary. She was wise, too; for though he had given her no clue that there was anything wrong in his relations with his wife, she watched him with eyes suddenly alert and shrewd as she settled her ample person in the corner opposite him. “Nothing wrong, Martin?” “Why on earth should there be?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. There’s just a look in your eye—or rather, there isn’t a certain look in your eye—and the old brows wears a suspicion of a frown.” She laughed frankly. “Go on, say it. Tell me I am a suspicious old woman, an international busybody. Go on, you know me well enough to tell me to mind my own business, I hope, without expecting me to go off in a huff.”

Martin was a person of very few confidences, but if Eulalia was going to perform in Stockholm, there was just a chance that she might help him, as he knew she would be glad to do. He sat forward in his seat.

“Listen, Lallie! Will you do something for me?” “Anything you like; and you know it very well.” “Yes, I do know it. You’re a brick, and always have been; and I believe you like Erica, too, don’t you? Now, listen to me; and afterwards you can call me whatever you like, for you can’t beat some of the things I’ve called myself. I —well, I don’t know quite how it happened, but Erica —I suppose I neglected her. Anyhow, she went away and left me.” “And you let her?” said Eulalia, staring. “It wasn't like that. I was away, and she bolted; left the hotel while I was out of the way, and went off with another man. He—well, he was charming. and he’d been good to her. and I suppose I'd—well, failed. Anyhow, she went I think she must have been very much in love with him at the time.” He stopped. Having to analyse his feeling in the matter, even with a good end in view, hurt considerably. Eulalia said, in a dry tone: “You must be mad, dear man. She loved you far too much to have any room in her mind for anyone else. In fact, I thought at the time that she loved you almost too much for happiness.” “I wish I could think you were right. But why should she go away with him. then?” ■ “How should I know? The time to find that out was then. My poor, stupid Martin, why did you marry so lovely a wife, if you weren’t prepared to study her complexities? There was a reason; there must have been a reason; but it wasn't that she preferred him to you. And you should have known it.”

Martin looked into his cupped hands, and said slowly: “Go on. Haul me over the coals, I deserve it.” “What’s the use? You can’t help being stupid, can you?” He smiled. “It wasn’t so simple. Look here, Lallie, you’re the best keeper of secrets I ever struck. Will you keep one for me? If I could have told it to Erica at the time, it would have saved us both; but I was sworn to secrecy even from her. It's all over now, and it doesn’t matter so much, though it’s a secret still from everyone else in the world. It’s like this. I have friends in the police, and they offered to let me in on a big job they were going to clean up. There was a raid planned on the house of one of Sweden's richest men—fellow named Bjornson. lives on one of the islands, in a white marble palace—horrid affair at close quarters. “Anyhow, they had wind of it, and were taking a motor boat out to rope in the gang: and one of my pals wangled me a place in the boat. He came hotfoot to meet me in the street and break the glad news. Erica was with me. Well. of course, it would have meant trouble for all the officers on the case if ever it had leaked out that they took an unofficial party with them; so I was made to swear to keep it dark —even from Erica.