THE SILENT WIFE!

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 32, 22 October 1920, Page 2

THE SILENT WIFE!

By MARK ENGLISH.

Remark&Me Dr&ma of M&rried_ £i/g.

THE FIRST PART. Doris Thobury, the sister of the cliildrens's ward, was telling the little ones stories, wheu the door opened and the matron and Dr Weston came in. Doris's cheekg took a deep tint, for she loved the kindly, grave-faced young doetor deeply. As the doctor went his rounds, she held each little patient's hand, for tlne pain never seemed so bad when Sister Doris was near, and when all the patients had been examined her duty for the day was over. , As she was going out of the Cottage Hospital gate, Paul Weston overtook her. "May I aceompany you?" he aslced, and she smiled and nodded. Tliey spoke of many things, and at last when they had reached a more secluded spot the doctor seized her hand. "Miss Thobury," he said, "I love you — I love you with all my heart and soui. Will you be my wife?" She looked at nim steadfastly as she answered "Yes." lt was some time later when they parted, and when they did so Doris was the happiest girl in the world. The next morning she received a telegram : "Come liome immediately," it- ran. "You are wanted at once." And a little later she was speeding towards her home. At the very moment she was answering Paul Weston on the previous night, an interview was going on which was to alter her whole life. j "Those are my terms ; take them or leave them. Accept them and I pull you ; through; refuse and you are ruined!" j The speaker, Roger, Armer, was a Mrong, ! hard man ; he was Walter Thobury's manager, and the man he faced as he uttered those words was Walter Thobury himself. Doris's father was a failure ; he was weak and lazy, and as he faced his manager he looked frightened. His uncle had died and left him the huge business of Thobury and Co. But he did not trouble | himself about the business; he left it all in the hands of Roger Armer. And now he found that he was on the brink of j ruin, and only Armer could pull him through, and that he would only do so on . one eondition, and that was that ho , sliould marry Doris. And in his weak- | ness and fear of ruin the crushed man | agreed — actually agreed to sacfmce his daughter to save himself. When he told Doris she was horrified. "Father," she cried, "you are not in ' earnest. Marry Mr Armer? I couldn't. | You can't mean it." At last she cast aside all her hopes for the future and promised. That evening she wrote a short note to Paul Weston telling him she had changed her mind and could never be his wife. Her engagement to Armer was announced, and eventually Doris Thobury beeame Doris Armer. CHAPTER VIII. "HE TOLD YOU A LIE." The honeymoon month had passed monotonously for Doris Armer. Roger had been unable to take a holiday and so the four endless weeks — to Mrs Armer — had been spent at her new home at Westways Court. To the man the days had flown by, for Roger Armer was now partner, instead of manager, and under his firm if somewhat hard, rule Thobury and Armer prospered excee.din.gly. His father-in-law purred with satisfaction. He could be as lazy as he liked, fre,e to do what he liked with his income. "Armer was one of the best," he declared. "He had saved the .business from ruin, had taken Doris without a dowry, given her a splendid home, loaded her with costly presents. On her birthday he had given her a diamond tiara. 8he was the envy of the neighbourhood ; she had nothing to complain of. So he argued in smug satisfaction, givfng no heed to the sufferings of the girl who had paid the price of his selfish'ness and folly. And Doris herself ? What were Her ideas on the subject? She could not help feeling grateful at linies to her husband for saving her weak father from ruin. Anyhow, Roger had

kept hi3 part of the contract. All was well in the city. "But," she thought, during one wet afternoon, as she sat in the window of her heautiful room looking out on the sodden gardens and the misty park beyond, "liow much more grateful she would have been if Roger had not set the price of herself as his reward for doing what Ira had done! He -called it love, told herself drearily, "but it was only to show his power. Ile is hard ; a vein of cruelty runs through him. To gain the mastery over creatures more helpless than himself he would do anything." And then, as though to prove her words true, the sound of thundering hoofs struck upon her ears. She opened the window and stepped out on to the covered terrace. Beyond the garden, in the meadow, Roger was scolding a young liorse. He was a superb and fearless ridcr, and looked his hest — and this was saving a good deal, for Roger Armer was a very handsome man: The chestnut, a heautiful creature, flung up his head and refused again and again, and again and again Armer struck it. Then, seeing that, for some reason or other, the horse still refused the jump, its rider dug his spurs savagely into it, until a sma-11 stream of blood flowed slowly down its glossy coat. For several minutes the girl watched the unequal contest— for from the first she had no doubt as to who the victor would be1 — and the.u, unable to bear the ; sight any longer, she ran down the garden J and called to her husband over the fence. j "Oh, how ean you be so cruel, so brutal!" Her voice choked with pity, in which a note of contempt ran. "You know he's frightened. You will not ~reak his spirit by fesr. Be gentle with him. Try love." He backed the quivering asimal beneath the sunk fence and looked up at her. His eyes were blazing, his mouth set in a hard line. "I tried love once, and it failed!" he said coldly. "I will be obeyed at all cost!" "Oh!" she cried bitterly. "Don't I know that — I, the being you promised to love and cherish, know of what you are capable ! But you will never conquer me ae you have that poor dumb brutel" A cold smile flickered on the man's handsome face, but he gave no sign of his feelings — unless the fact- that he dug his spurs into the horse's quivering fiank could he taken as such. "Had you not better go in, Doris?" he said quietly. "You are getting wet. I do not intend to leave the meadow until I have made the Demon take his jump. If you do not care for my particular. method of making an obstinate animal obey me, why not go to a room that looks out another way? There are plenty, surely." He set the horse once more at the obstacle. Doris, fascinated by this struggle of wills, passively hoping that the Demon would prove the victor, returned to the terrace. Needless to say who won. With a snort of rage and despair, the Demon at last gave in. He rose high and leaped tho fence. Many a rider would have been unseated. Roger sat like a rock, and. as he turned to the stables, he patted the vanquished animal kindly on its flecked neck. "Why coudn't you have given in sooner, old bpy ? You'd have saved yourself a lot of misery." He dropped from the saddle and fiung the reins to a groom. "Give the Demon a warm ma-sh," he said. "He was a bit obstinate, but Fve • mastered him." I' "Ay, sir, that you have." The groom looked after the tall, fine figure. "Ay, he's a man, every inch o' him? A bit hard, maybe, but just. Mr Armer 's a master worth having." Had Doris seen Roger pet and encourage the horse — who, to show he bore his master no malice, rubbed his velvet muzzle against his coat-sleve — she might have thought of him more kindly. But she did not, and the canker in her mind grew more deadly. "Please, madauq can I have a word with you?" Doris, stepping hack through ihe window, turned startled eyes on the gaunt figure of a man who had suddenly appeared from behind a clump of evergreen®,

"You're Mrs Armer, aren't you? Miss Doris Thobury that was? If you'll be so very good as to spare me five minutes, madam, I '11 tell you something you ought to know." Doris hesitated and looked more closeiy at the man. His face seemed familiar, but for the moment she could not recollect where she had seen him. He was smartly dressed in a morning coat and it was quite cvident that he bad held a good position. "I waited for him to go." He pointed in the direction of the stables. "What I have to tell you is for your ears only, Mrs Armer." "Come this way. I ean't recall who you are, but I will hear what you have to say." Doris guessed instinctively that the stranger's communication concerned her husband, and anything that bad to uo with the man to whom her life was linked fascinated her. She led him to her own sitting-room and bade him be seabed. "Your name and business?" she said, rather coldly. For she felt that she was acting rashly. The man might be a burglar ! There was a desperate expression on the sallow face, as though he had tasted the very dregs of life. And this was, fndeed, the case. Henry Barlow, had reached th*e limit of endurance. His last chance lay in enlisting the sympathy of the girl before him. "My name is Barlow, Mrs Armer. For years I was confidential clerk to Thobury and Armer, as it is now." Doris experienced a sensation of relief. She knew now why the man's face was familiar. One day, when calling at the office for her father, she ha-d spoken to Henry Barlow. "Have you left them?" she asked, in surprise. "Why?" "Because," he said bitterly, "I was sacked by Mr Armer." "But — why ?" The man came closer. "Because, madam," he said hoarsely, "I kr.ew too much." Now, indeed, was Doris astonished. "Please explain what you mean, Mr Barlow. How could you know too much ? I thought it was your business to know everything connected with the firm." "Ah!" said Barlow. "But this was private business. It had nothing t0 do with finance. And vet it had,*"he added, as an afterthought. "Mr Barlow," Doris said firmly, "you have some information for me. What is it?" For a few seconds the ex-clerk hesitated. Then he said : "Mr Armer sacked me as he was afraid I d tell you liow he got you to many him." A dull flush stained Doris's cheek. "Does everyone know the reason?" "It's pretty commoc knowledge, Mrs Armer, that you would never have broken off with your sweetheart and married Mr Armer unless he had — well, forced your hand, Mrg Armer— told you the business was on the verge of ruin, and that unless you accepted his offer he would let it go. To save Mr Thobury, you- consented. Isn*'t that the case, madam? But there, I know it is, and so I won't press for an answer. What Tve come to tell you is that what Roger Armer told your father and you was a lie . "A lie! Then — then the business " The words stuck in Doris's throat. "Was absolutely solvent ! There was no truth — not a particle of truth — in .ur Armer's statement of ruin. Never had Thobury and Co. been in so prosperous a eondition. Roger Armer won you by a trick !" Won by a trick ! Then all her sacrifice, ; all her misery was for nothing! A fierce hatred for Roger Armer swept through her and her eyes Tblazed with the tumult of her anger. Half afraid that her anger was diverted against himself, Barlow was seized with panic. "But you will help me, please. Remember my wife, my children, my !" : It was then that the door opened and j Roger himself strode in! "I ABSOLUTELY REFUSE." Doris looked at her husband, bitter con. tempt expressed on every delicate feature. Yet never, in the days Roger Armer had known this girl, had she looked so desir-

ahle in his eyes. It- is not exaggerating to say that he would have given half the fortune he had a.massed to gain one glance of love from those heautiful, contemptuous eyes. But Armer was no fool. He knew this to be utierly impossible ; and so there was but one thing to be done— rule her by fear ! But Doris did not look c5g though that I would be an easy matter. There was something dauntless in her attitude that gave A^mer qualms about the matter, and he waited as calmly as he could for her to speak. _ She turned first to Barlow with, "Will you please leave me and wait in the hall ?" and then waited as calmSy as she could until the door closed behind. him. Then she turned to Roger. "You coward! you cad !" she rapped out so vehemently that Roger was startled from his iron coolness. "What is it now?" he asked, although from ihe minute he saw Barlow he knew full well what was coming. "Stand there! Don't come near me, for you are foul and unclean! I knew you for a cruel, merciless brute — now I know you for an unscrupulous, lying cheat. That man lias told me all. My father was never bankrupt — and X, a weak, helpless girl, have been made to pay a price that was never on my head. Where is your honour, Roger Armer?" "Do you want me to defend myself?" was the reply. "Then my defence is that I wanted you. All's fair in love and war. You made it war — not I." "Love!" Doris' lip curled. "Don't desecrate a word of which you don't know the meaning. You gained me by a deliberate lie ! I thought I was doing a noble thing to sacrifice myself for my father, and, after all, I have suffered and paid in vain." The agony in the low, sweet voice cut Roger Armer to the heart; but, though inwardly he wineed, he made no visible sign. "And — my father," continued the young wife, "did he know? Was he in this horrible conspiracy to deeeive me, or was Ee a victim as well as me?" Armer shrugged his shoulders. "If you like to put it so', he was." "Oh, you coward!" The words came from between her clenched teeth. "Men and women are nothing to you. You crush hearts as though they were no more than st-ones. First my father, then m,e ; and now you have brought an innocent man who found out your lie to destitution. What aTe you going to do for Henry Barlow ?" "Nothing." "You are going to let him and his sick wife and ailing children starve?" "No man with a brain need starve," Armer said coldly. He was very angry with Barlow, and even more angry with himself — because, j by reason of his hard dcaliug with his exi clerk, he had placed himself in.the man's power. But then, he reasoned, his harshness was not altogether due to the fear that Doris should discover the secret he had so successfully concealed from his indolent partner, Thobury ; who had not even brain or courage enough to investigate the truth of his assertion of impending ruin. .Henry Barlow had one terrible fault. His downfall was due to drink. Armer, who liked the man, had spoken to him kindly though firmly — begging him, for the sake of his wife and family, to give up a vice which was bound in the end to ruin him. Barlow had promised to do this, but failed to keep his word; and at length Armer had been obliged to threaten summary dismissal. It was then that Henry Barlow, casting about for some means of preventing this, had diseovered the reason why heautiful Doris had thrown over her fiance to marry a man she evidently loathed. Armed writh this information, he had gone to Armer and dared Tiim to dismiss him. "I will let her know — she and her father, too," he said. For answer, Roger Armer had ordered him out of the office there and then. "Repeat your threat," he said, "and I will proseeute you for blackmail. Here is your week's salary." Now, in the face of tbis fresh develop-

ment in their unhappy married life, he wondered if he had been wise. Afteir all he might have retained Barlow in the fircn, for he considered the man a valuable servanfc. It was Henry Barlow 's ihreat that had sefc hia back up, as opposition of every description invariably did, Had Doris pleaded to him, begged him to give her time to get over her disappointment and distress, all might have been well. But she had dared him — aa his horse had done — and the penalty must be paid. "Then you refuse to undo the wrong you have done?" She still stood before him, looking exquisitely lovely. She wa$ wearing a simple gown of some pale-green'Tabric, which threw up the creamy pallor of her face, and brought out the tints of her russetbrown hair. Yes — she was a wife to be proud of ! All the county had congratulated Armer on possessing such a beautiful wife. But did he possesa her? Might not Dorig 1 soon find life insupportable and leave him to live her own life as best she coiw: The fear this thought engendered sent the blood ebbing from his handsdme face. But it did not alter his determination. "Yes, I absolutely refuse!" And then sonxething urged him to extenuate his harsh conduct, to set himself in a better light before his young wife. "Believe me, Doris— there were very good reasoiis for my dismissal of Henry Barlow." Her short upper lip curled. "Ah! as if I didn't know that, You were afraid of Barlow ! ' ' Without another word she turned and left him. In her sitting-room she found Henry Barlow standing, staring out of the window. Had she entered her room a few minutes sooner, she would have found him busily engaged in turning over the contents of her bureau, which stood open between the long French windows. There was a queer, furtive expression on the ex-clerk's face, and in his hand he clutched a treasury note, which he had abstracted from a packet Roger had given Doris for current expenses. Doris could not but own her husband was generous in money matters. Ti*ue, she had not her own banking account, 01* even a settled allowance. Only in case of his death could she count on any settled sum yearly ; then she would he a rich woman. In the meantime she was obliged to come to him for every penny. Roger had the old-fashioned idea that married women should be dependent upon their husbands in all things. Another sign of tyranny in Doris' eyes! "Mr Armer," said Doris, "absolutely refuses to help you, Mr Barlow, Fut I will do so. I cannot allow — my— Mr Armer's injustices to injure all your prospects." "God bless you !" Henry Barlow fur^ tively slipped the note into Bls pocket, "You are one the best. And your father was an open-handed gentleman if ever there was one, A bit careless in his busi. ness ; but there — he never thought what Mr Armer was up to — never dreamed he'd lie as he did." Doris suddenly stiffened. Somehow she did not care to hear her own opinion thus tcrudely expressed hy this gauntlooking man, with the furtive expression and shifty eyes, "That will do, Mr Barlow. Mr Armer's reason for not assisting you is not quite what you seem to believe it to be. He hinted that he had 'other reasons for — all he did." "Ah, madam — he would do that! A man doesn't Iike " "Here," said Doris hurriedly, "are three pounds. Let me know how you get on. Leave me your address. I might call and sea your wife when I am in London." But, as this would by no means have suited Barlow, he got out of it by hinting that they had been sold up, and were on the point of changing their abode. A certain f ealing of loyalty to her husband gripped Doris.. "I should prefer you not telling Mr Thobury what you have' told me," she said. "If it is necessary for him to know — it may not be — I will myself tell him." And, as this exactly suited Henry Barlow, he eagerly acquiseced in Mrs Armer's decision. And as he quietly left, Barlow congratulated himself on hi3 afternoon's work. "I almost wish I had not pinched that note. Had I known she would have turned up trumps. I wouldn't have run the risk. Never mihd — I'll keep my eyes open, and spy on 'em both. Mrs Armer isn't likely to put up much longer with

Armer's ways. There's money to be made out of one of them — maybe out of both." AN UNNECESSARY SACRIFICE. After the last encounter of wills between tlie ill-matched couple, a wordless truce was declared. Husband and wife met as seldom as possible, but they had to meet. The county, in spite of that unpleasant scene at Mrs Armer's wedding, were determined to taka up the bride of the wealthy financier. Doris got bewildered by the number of her callers whom it> seemed impossible to escape. Most frequent among them was Isobel Vane, who was always agreeable, and tactful in ignoring the strained sit-uation she was far too sharp not to notice. . Towards Armer's bride she left a bitter animosity. Years ago she expected to marry Armer and to occupy the position held now by Doris. But for some reason she could not fathom, Roger cooled off, and the proposal Isobel had longed for and expected was never uttered. The reason for this was locked in Roger's heart. Isobel had run after him too palpaply. He was a born hunter was Roger Armer. A woman who showed as plainly as Isobel Vane did how madly in love she was with him lost all vaiue in his eyes. It was Doris' coldness, and, lafer on, her definite distaste for his society, that drew him to her by, chains well nigh unbreakable, and had led him to do the one thfng of which, in his inmost heart, he was ashamed. He knew that, had he not acted the lie that gave her to him eventually, he would never have won Doris Thobury's consent to be his wife. Isobel, reading her old lover as a hook, but reading him too late, determined to pay Roger out by doing all she could to worn herself into the confidence of both, gainthesecrets of their hearts, and use her knowledge to part them. She did not show her hand. at first She made herself upseful to Doris, by acting as the third person present, and so relieved the strain a tete a tete brought to husband and wife. Already Doris began to regret having cliampioned Henry Barlow's cause so resolutely. For his demands upon her purse became more and more insistent, and once or twice there was a covert insolence in his manner that she quickly resented. Walking one day in the woods, Isobel caught sight of Dori8 in earnest conversation with a queer, shady-looking man. Quickly she drew her own conclusions, as she saw Doris hand the man an envelope. "She is hidin'g some secret from Roger," she told herself. "I wonder what it is? I shall have to find out. Either the man is some blackmailer of whom she is afraid or he is the means of ^communication between her and aomeone whom Rcger does not like. I wonder if it is "Paul Weston?" By now Miss Vane had discovered that Doctor Weston's name was Paul. "If it ia — let her look out! My chance will have come, and when the right hour arrives I shall not fail to make use of it.' "I cannot afford to keep on giving you money," Doris told Barlow finally. "Should my husband discover that I have assisted- you against his wishes, he would be, naturally, terribly angry." "I don't think you'd mind much incurring Mr Armer's anger." He saw the flush on her face, and hastened to corroct his error. He fell to whining, and the girl relented. It was very hard to be poor, with an ailing family. She gave him money, and told him tc be careful-of it, for it might happen she would not have so much at her disposal. "Roger is getting mean," she told herself, "or else suspicious. He now overlooks my accounts — a thing he never did before." Then other matters claimed her attention, and she forgot Barlow and his inereasing demands. Had. she known that gambling was now added to Henry Barlow's vices, she would never Eave rohbed her dress allowance to provide for her husband 's victim, for in such light Doris persisted in regarding the blackmailer. (To be Continued).