HER MARRIAGE EVE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 143, 18 June 1926, Page 3

HER MARRIAGE EVE.

(SHORT STORY.)

» (By ROWAN GLEN.) They thought it was the last occasion on which they would meet before their marriage on the morrow, and in the smart West End restaurant they had lunched expensively. Paul Humphries had seen to that, not because he was in any way reckless with money, but because twenty-four hours must elapse before Barbara Carruthers would be definitely his. Till then, he must not neglect even one small point that might demonstrate his devotion and desire to please. Kather listlessly, Barbara had acI cepted the luxuries which, as a bride-to? be, she should have accepted with delight. The trouble was that she did not love tbe man whose wife she had promised to be. In some ways she admired him; she was grateful to him. But she loved a man—or, more correctly, the memory of a man—who, nearly three years previously, and with almost dramatic suddenness,, and disappeared from her little world. He had been a junior assistant in the big shipping company's office where her father— dead these three months—had been a senior. On the drabbest and most wretched day of her life, a letter had come from James O'Eooke, explaining that at a moment's notice he had been sent to Australia in the company's interests, and might be gone quite a long time. But—"he would never cease to love Barbara, would be heartened by the belief that she would wait for him, and would return to retell his love and to marry her—if she still loved him." He had not returned. No word had come from him, and even his father, | whom Barbara adored only a little less ! than she adored James O'Rooke, had ! grown gloomy and, shaking his head, had talked about a steamer trading to the South Sea Islands which had been lost with all hands, and on which, almost certainly, O'Eooke had been a passenger. It was about a good-looking and happy-hearted O'Eooke that Barbara thought when she and Humphries went from the restaurant and to the waiting car. Humphries, who was fifty-two and I had very bright, quickly-moving brown eyes, opened the car door before his : chauffeur could do so. | "Au revoir, then, till to-morrow at j two," he said. "I'm going on to the club, but Petrie will take you to your rooms. You'll pass the office on your way, so you can take a look at it and cheer yourself with the thought that you'll never work there again, and that you'll never visit it—unless you care to come along and see your husband making money for you." He stood on the pavement looking after her. Ever since the day that her name had first been entered on his pay-roll he had coveted her.. It had been a long and difficult battle, but he had used all his skill, and at last the prize w-as his—or almost so." Petrie, the chauffeur, permitted himself a speedburst of sorts when he was near his employer's office. Suddenly an agitated voice came through the speaking-tube. "Stop! Stop, Petrie! I want to get .out—at once." Her face was pale; her beautiful eyes were lighted by excitement; one slim hand was pressed against lips that twitched nervously. "Thanks," she said. "Wait here, please. I won't be more than half a minute. I've seen someone—whom I haven't seen for years. . . . Someone I thought was dead." She disappeared in the crowd on the pavement, and, when she did come back, offered no explanation. She was still pale, still greatly agitated, and there was misery in her grey eyes. "Go on, please," she said. "I didn't find him." An hour or two later she was in Humphries' flat, a resolution strong within her. Humphries listened patiently enough while she told him that she "had seen James O'Rooke, and that, knowing him to be alive, she had come to beg that even at this late hour she should be freed from her promise to marry. Watching her with bird-like" eyes, Humphries said:— "What's come to you, m'dear? I'd grant you any request in reason, but this isn't reasonable. A nice sort of fool I'd look if there was any breakdown in our plans now. But I'm not goin«to think about it." ° ° "I beg of you," Barbara said. "-Till to-day I didn't realise clearly just how wrong—how wicked almost—it would be to marry a man out of gratitude and because I'd begun to fear the future, and not because I cared for him. Paul! Be kind. I gave you my word, but-= " - Leaning forward, he tightly gripped one of her wrists. "I hold you to that promise," he said. "To-morrow you're to become my wife. What does it matter to mc if this fellow O'Eooke is alive instead of bein"- dead? He never deserved you,, and it seems that he deserted you. I could tell you " He broke off. His man servant had opened the door, and was saying:— "Excuse mc, sir, but a Mr. O'Rooke has called and wishes to see you. ... I showed him into the smoking-room." Humphries snapped a finger and thumb softly, and frowned a warning at the ' suddenly trembling girl.

"O'Rooke, clip he repeated. "Did you tell him that Hiss Carruthcrs was with me?*' ''No, sir. I thought " "All right. Go to Mr. O'Rooke in two minutes from now and bring him here. Don't say a word about Miss Carruthers. If I find that you've done that, you'll lose your job." When the servant had gone, Humphries rose. "You've got to prepare yourself for what may be an ordeal," he said. "I want to talk to O'Eooke while you're i listening, but you'll hurt him badly if you lose your head." Barbara, too, had risen. "No, no, no I" she begged. "Not now —not before you. I'll go. I can come i back later on " She broke off, afraid that she was going to faint. A pulse in her head ' was- beating painfully; her mouth and lips were dry, and acute nervousness had set her head aching. When O'Rooke came into the room, he did not see her at first. He nodded to Humphries and his face was set and grim. "I've come here," he started, stiltedly, as though he had rehearsed the words, "to find out the truth about you and Barbara Carruthers. I've been away from London for a long while, and the first thing I did, on getting back an hour or so ago, was to go to her old home." Before Humphries could speak, Barbara had gone to O'Rooke, hand outstretched. She was pale and quivering. "Jim," she whispered, and he, taking ■ her hands like a dreaming man, said:— "Heavens! .. . Barbara! Barbara, and —here." For a second or two they looked at each other. Then Humphries took control, and his voice, rather than his hands, separated them. "Let's keep calm," he said. "Explanations to begin with—-then, perhaps, a little sentimentality. You first, O'Rooke. ' You were shipwrecked, weren't you— when you went to Australia? We all thought that you were dead." O'Rooke glanced at Barbara, tender love in his eyes. "Yes," ho said. "That's right." Then he told, for her sako, a lying story—explained why he had never written to her, and how he had been out of the world since being tossed up on j ■ an island in the Arraver Group. He told too, how he had lost his memory; how he had worked his way back to England. Failing to find Barbara at the house where she had lived, he ha! gone to I Humphries' offices, where a charwoman ha.l _iven him not ct ly Humphries' , private address, but the news of Barbara and Humphries being married on the morrow. "But you're not going to," he ended. "I'm in time, thank Heaven. And thank . Heaven., too, she loves mc as I love her. . . . It's true, isn't it, Barbara?" She nodded. "Yes." ; "A moment," Humphries -aid. "To begin with, you're a liar, O'Rooke. You've never been to Australia. During those ■ three years you've been in prison for ■ embezzlement. You're a crook, my friend. i Is that true?" "It's true," O'Rooke said, "that I've ' :vcr been to Australia, affd that I've • been i - prison. But I'm no crook. You ' know that." "Am I to know, too," Humphries asked, - "that y_u propose to ruin the happiness of this girl you say you love? . . Listen, before you peak! By this time to-morrow Barbara will be my wife. If your friend--3 -ship for her is genuine, you'll oe glad. 1 to hear that, for I can giv& her pretty k well anything that money can buy. Be reasonable! Ycu admit that you've been > in prison, you jf.gglo with certain J: of Smeaton and Oliver's accounts?" O'Rooke hesitated for a moment and Barbara went to him. "I don't care if you did," she said. J "I'm sorry, Paul, but it's got to be 5 Jim —I mean it." "You'll give yourself to a gaol-bird?" • Humphries asked. "Yes." "You will? Then—be quiet, O'Rooke! ; —let mc tell you that tin real gaol-bird was your father. This fool here chose to 1 suffer for him. Now how do you feel? ' Your father—you were so proud of him, weren't ycu? —stole. o'R~cke took his ' place as the thief and went to prison. I 1 knew the truth all along." 1 There was silence for five or six ' seconds. ! Then: — "I've got a job again with Smeaton ' and Oliver," O'Rooke said. "I told them to-day what this rctter has told you. [ W'.ll you come with mc, Barbara?" ; "Yes," she said, and went to him from c the flat. ' , A minute or so later Humphries rang ' the bell for his man-servant. "Bring in the whisky and soda," he said. "And by the way I shan't be getting married to-morrow. I've changed my ' mind." i :