FOR LOVE OF BETTY

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 74, 28 March 1922, Page 10

FOR LOVE OF BETTY

BY MAY CHRISTIE

XCL—THE DELAYED LOVE LETTER. Life for Betty Gordon had been very difficult these days. For of all human "vroee, suspense i≤ the hardest to bear wMh equinamity. And suspense had been her portion, ever since that enchanting evening by the stile when Jack and she had looked into each other's eyes, and found life's meaning. Their happiness had been summarily cut *ho~t. She had tried so hard to forget him— even to hate him. But now her fingere f trembled with excitement as she read and reread the "delayed" love-letter which had come to her as a message out of the past, and which Charlie Davon, actuated by many complicated motives, had seen fit to po3t her at the eleventh hour. Before her was Trevor's handwriting, cramped and email, but full of character. It was such a eimple letter—but sincerity was in every line of it. Tears sprang to Betty's eyes, so that the words eeemed blurred and misty. "Whatever happens, remember you're the only girl 1 ever cared for, sweetheart!" Ah, but so niuth had happened since he wrote that letter! if oniy she could believe those glowing words of leve. And yet —why had he never written again? The letter she herself had written him —it had been misdirected. It had gone to the Bachelors' Club, and never reached him. Was it annoyance over the nonarrival of the letter that had started all the trouble? AVae it disappointment that had driven him back to April Moore? Ah! but if he'd been anything of a man, nothing could have lured him back to April. Those revelations Davon had made— they were perplexing! He had spoken positively ot seeing Trevor at the club at the precise hour in which the same young man had been —presumably—in April s flat. The scene Betty had witnessed —was there any chance that it had been specially "atage-managed" by that consummate actress, April Moore? "It was probably oniy one of April's little games!" Davon had sneered. It was curious, too, how April had tome that very night to Betty, imploring her not to let Trevor know" about hevisit. And now the arrival of this belated love-letter only added fuel to the fires of interrogation that were alight ir , Betty's heart. How had it been delayed, in the first instance? It bore the New York postmark —and Trevor '■was lying, dangerously ill, in Maine! The letter itself was dated some time back. It -wae all extraordinarily perplexing. There had been interference som*Betty was sure of that. "If I could only ccc Jack face to face, and tell him how much I care, I could surely win him back to mc!" Betty wiped a wandering little tear away. Then ehe~ gave a rueful emile. "Love seems to have taken every scrap of pride put of mc," she added wistfully. But what was pride l —compared to hapy piness? Pride and a broken heart—<were they not miserable life-companions? Yet it. seemed to her there was no adequate way of putting things right again. "April Moore is with him —has been "with him for some time. If ehe weren't the girl he is engaged to, she couldn't possibly have stayed! Thus .did simplehearted Betty view the situation, fail ing signally to understand the boldness of April's moves. "And Jack wouldn't have let her etay, in the face of all the gossips, unless he intended to make her hie wife!" she toli fcerself, trying desperately to face the truth, and thereby giving an added twist to the knife in her own sensitive, lovinjr hearfi She locked the one loye-letter she had received from him in a little rosewood cabinet—and with it faded many girleh dreams. On a long lounge-chair of the hospital balcony lay Jack Trevor, now ,well on the toilsome road to complete recovery. But he looked thin and delicate, and the bronze of his' cheeks had- altered to the pallor of an invalid. The expression of his face had altered, too. The change was indefinable—but anyone who knew him intimately would have noticed it. Beside him, a picture of domesticated virtue, sat April Moore, some sewing on her lap. The victory was here—she had "talked him round"—Jack wasn't goin" to give her little game away! Her-tears and her entreaties had effectively done the deed—as April had surmised they wouM. He had been difficult at first, of course. His Indignation at her impersonation of Betty Gordon had been very real. "You can't go on deceiving everyone around the hospital," he had said, and in his eyea was a look that was almost contemptuous. "You'd better tell them who you really are —or, if you don't 1 shall." But April had tactfully pointed out the extraordinary embarrassments which euch a revelation would create. "Think what they'd say of mc!" ehe had implored. Trevor 'had given in. He was still weak and unstrung after hie accident, and long periods of depression often seized him.. ■ He would sit for hours without uttering a single word—and no effort on April's part had power to cheer him. "About as cheerful ac his own funeral!" she had said once to Mice Crowell, in a moment of exasperation. The latter had looked at April curiously, and under her gaze the girl had grown uncomfortable. "I wonder if she guesses anything?" she had reflected worriedly. She could not know that the nurse had overheard every word of the conversation between Jack and -herself, when April had confessed that ehe had been posing as another girl, and had thrown herself upon the young man's chivalryj Pegging Mm not to reveal the truth. EMBARRASSING i QUESTION. , Jack had only had one moment of apparent anger, and that was when April had gone a shade too far. "You'd better call roe 'Betty' around ■ the hospital," she had said with a light laugh, secure in the conviction that Jack would now be as clay in her i sands. ■'" ■

Amthor of "TU Marriage of Anne," "B«im*» MmrUd Mfc," em* -At Ompid , * CmXL-

The look in Jack's eyes, and the j curious dark flush that momentarily drove bhe pallor from his face, might have warned her to desist. But she did not see the danger signals. "Xot that I look the least like Betty," she went on coolly, '"but since I've been forced into practising a little deception, we may as well keep it vp —" Trevor had turned on her abruptly. "Nothing in the world would ever make mc call you Betty," he had interrupted. "You're as different from her as—" He ibroke off, tears of weakness and anger in his dark eyes. 'April had been silenced. In that moment she somehow guessed that his affection for the little country girl was much deeper than she had ever, credited to him. So she must adopt a different role, if the laurels of victory were to be really hers. ''I've put my foot in it this time — and I'm sorry, Jack!" she had said at once, with charming frankness. "And 1 take iback what 1 said aibout your having to .marry me —my reputation doe'sirt matter in the least —let the "whole world Isay what it pleases—" She paused, as though the weight of the sacrifice she was making overwhelmed her. "I did a foolish thing in rushing up here to you," she went on—and the unsteady note in her voice would have deceived an even more penetrating soul than Trevor into 'believing it real emotion. "I know I did a foolish, unconventional thing—and I'll 'bear the brunt of it alone." Again she paused. Trevor looked half—compassionately at her. His dislike of April at that moment melted into a sort of wondering pity. "'What made you come?" he asked. "Old memories—of what we used to 'be. to each other," rejoined the girl unevenly, "Ibefore a third person came Ibetween us!" She cast a side-long glance at Trevor, to see if this arrow drawn at a venture had gone home. had quite a different effect upon him from the one she had anticipated. For Trevor frowned as he replied:— "I suppose you're referring to Davon as the 'third person?'" It was with difficulty that April suppressed a shaTp retort. Jack was so horribly disconcerting, so unexpectedly shrewd. But she managed to answer, with an emotional quiver in her voice: ''I was thinking—of the 'other' girl." Trevor looked curiously at her. To a nature as frank as his, it was sheer amazement that April, who herself had terminated their engagement, could pretend to regrets and sighs. April caught the look, and guessed its meaning. Jack saw through her —it tfas maddening knowledge. A little flame of anger Imrnt within her, which : generated a desire to hurt him. No scorn of hers could hurt him —she knew that. He had no love for her — so her opinions didn't matter. She could only wound him through his feelings—and towaid her they were apparently invulnerable. l And so she seized upon the only weapon that her anger could supply. "It'e curious to think that the 'other' girl really didn't care'for you, Jack," she cooed, "for you're so attractive. And for a girl like Betty Gordon, you really were a catch you ""know —she couldn't have had many chances buried in the country!" Trevor stirred uneasily. April's shot had told. "She alwaye had a soft spot in her heart for Charlie Davon," went on tJie sweet, soft voice beside him. "You should just have seen her at the curates' picnic. They wandered off'ogether, and someone saw them billing and cooing together in the woods—" Trevor's natural inclination was to turn on April and denounce her there and then as lying, spiteful, wholly untruthful. But the recollection of the little photograph which Betty herself had sent him—the incriminating picnic snapshot—-was ' burning in his ibrain, a&A giving actual substance to April's gossip. Davon and Betty—in each other's arms! "I think I'll go now, dear," murmured Miss April, well pleased with the effect her ingenuity had created. "Au revoir —and pleasant dreams!" She drifted off, smiling. "I've got i a little of my own back, anyhow," she told herself. Her complacency, however, was shortlived. For suddenly she came face to face w'rth Mies' Crowell and the latter motioned her into another room with a curiously commanding gesture. "I'd like a woTd alone with you," the nurse said gravely. "There's something needs explaining!" April felt a little thrill of fear, although she stared impertinently at the older woman. What could the latter have discovered? What accusations were now to be brought against her? *, Her.- tforst fears were confirmed when , Miss Crowell sharply demanded: "What have you done witih Mr. Trevor's will—and with the hundred dollars that you stole from him ?" (To be continued daily.)