‘MARKED DANGEROUS’

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 41, 18 February 1939, Page 13

‘MARKED DANGEROUS’

By Elizabeth York Miller

Instalment 30.

Synopsis of Preceding instalments: Anno Rayner, 19, elopes Tvith Tony Blithe. Her father insists she divorce him when he loses her £2OOO legacy in speculation. Anne, working in a London dress shop, lives with Jean Elson, photographer’s model. Jean, not knowing. of Anne’s divorce, meets Tony and is dazzled by him. When Anne pleads with him to let Jean alone he tells her of a second divorce, in America. Ho leaves an envelope uddressed “Adorable One.” Jean linds it. Jt contains his cheque for £2OOO made out to Anne. Bho tears it up saying it's worthless. Tony jokes with Jean about the cheque, then tells her Anne has convinced him he’s too dangerous for Jean. To Anne he explains he invested her legacy in oil wells near the Texas border, just beginning to produce, and that her incomo now is £IOOO a year. Jean becomes engaged to wealthy young Jinks Walpole. UnwittiugJy Ur. Douglas Tyrell takes Anne, Jean and Jinks to Uanco at the house of Rita Mallory, * ‘ the other w oman ’ ’ in Anne’s divorce. Anne leaves alone. Tom Merridew’s wife appears us he is lunching with Jean. Thinking quickly, Jean has him ’phono Jinks/ He comes but demands that Jean marry him at once or return his ring. They' marry as Auno and Tyrell becomo engaged. Jean, separated from her parents during the Russian revolution, discovers Mrs. Mallory is her mother. Rita cables her hard-drinking husband George, an engineer, in Mexico. Tony is ruined and Auno sells her stocks at a loss when the oil wells are affected by a Mexican revolution. Jinks is killed in a motor-car accident. Learning that Tony ruined himself to buy her stocks, Anne breaks her engagement to Tyrell, and takes charge of a settlement house diet kitchen. Jean and Tyrell become engaged. The voice of a man brought to the settlement house startles Anne.

Auiie’s heart begun to beat a little wildly. She stood there, clinging to the door-knob, almost afraid to let go of it.

“May I conio in?” she asked in a faint voice.

“I want my clothes and I want them at once! Who are you? Aud where am 1? What is this confounded place?” Auno opened the door aud showed herself. The man was sitting up with the bed covers drawn to his chin, so that his baro feet stuck out. He needed a shave and a hair-cut aud his eye glittered feverishly. His face was thin and sallow; there wero scarlet spots on his cheek-bones betokening a slight temperature.

Ho stared at Anno in speechless amazement, uud sho stared back at him until tears began to fill and overflow her eyes. “Tony—” sho said softly, “don’t you know mo” Ho suddenly bcoanio aware of his bare feet and drew them in, sitting ail hunched up with a corner of the sheet drawn partly over his face now, so that only his angry, feverish eyes were showing. “Go away!” ho said hoarsely. “I don’t want strange women coming into my room. Send that Irishman here. He took away my clothes and I want to get dressed.” “Tony, it’s Anne. Are you . . , pretending not to know me?” She couldn’t be sure about that. Yes, it was only pretence. Ho dropped the corner of the sheet and faced her mockingly—a traco of the old mocking Tony. “Where did you drop from, Mrs. Tyrell?” he said. “Doing a little slumming lor a change? Or did somebody have the impertinence to send for you? I don’t see how they could—or why. They don’t know who I am. I don’t believe 1 do myself—but I do know who you are. We used to be quite well acquainted at one time, 1 believe. ’' Anne went over to him; lor a breathless moment she thought he was going to strike her. Sho had to be calm and lirm aud gentle, and all the while her heart was beating so madly that sho thought it would surely burst; there was a lump in her throat. Sho caught hold of the rail of the cot. “Tony—l’m not married to Dr. Tyrell. I work down here. This is a

social settlement, and I help in the kitchens—l’m a dietitian. I didn’t know —I hadn’t the least idea in the world that you were here. The bell rang and I answered it—the orderly is out. They took your clothes away because they thought you would try to leave. They did it only to be kind. Tony, can’t you accept a little kindness from—from anybody?” He fell back on the pillow and turned his face to tho wall. “Tony ... I love you so much!” Anne said softly. “I love you more tl-an everything clso in the Tvorld put together. ’ ’ Had he heard? Did those words mean anything? They were a cry wrung from her very heart. She saw that his shoulders were shaking; her whole being melted. Sho was' not afraid of him any more. She j leaned over, put her arms around him, her face against the rough thatch of hair. “Tony, if you’ll let mo lake you homo with me—will you come home with me?” Sho could hardly bear his convulsive sobs; they were tearing her heart.. “By tho saints an’ all, what’s doing here—or is it draming I am?” Pat Mooney’s voice brought Anne back to earth. She stood up half laughing, half crying, and brushed the tears from her eyes. “Pat, >our Mr. Doe is an old friend of mine.” “Friend—is it?” Anne’s lips trembled. “More than a friend—he’s my husband.” “G’wan wid ye! ” “But it’s true. Ask him if you don’t believe me. Tony, tell him. Am I not

your wife?” Anthony Blithe recovered himself and stared at her with mournful eyes. “If you say so,” he agreed. The Settlement was used to minor scandals, but this ono involved levelheaded Miss Eayncr. Mr. Doe himself hud been conventionally polite about her assertion that she was his wife, but not at all convincing. l r et ho expressed his willingness to go with her if she insisted upon taking him away. Mr. Leader and Miss Andrews thought slio must havo suddenly gone off her head —a far worso case than ever Rosette Nathan had been. Anno brushed them all aside and rushed into tho office to scribble a hasty and incoherent note to Mrs. Bragge. Benny, tho ono-leggcd lialf-castc, was to take a taxi and deliver tho note, and then convey Mrs. Braggo in the same taxi to No. 9, Soutbside Mansions. The note told Braggey an invalid was being brought to occupy Miss Bison’s old room. ' “You’d better givo Mr. Doe a shave, Pat,” Anne told the orderly, “and then help him to dress and give him his supper. Tho tray’s all ready.” Mr. Leader caught her by the arm as she was on the point of dashing off to take Tony’s temperature. It might not be too safo to move him -to-night, which would bo a "terrible disappointment.

“Wait a minute, my dear girl. Let me look at you. I believe you've got a fever yourself. Thero’s something uncanny about that fellow'. Miss Rayner, you don’t really expect mo to believe your story, do you?” Anne’s gay laugh w'as shaky. “I hardly believe it myself, but it is true, Mr. Leader. Ho was out in Mexico . . . and I thought he was

dead. Perhaps ho isn’t legally my hus band ...”

“Ah, I thought not!” “But he was once, Mr. Leader. I mean to say, wo were separated. I think he cares a littlo for mo still, but even if ho doesn’t, I’ve alw T ays cared for him. And you’ll have to give me leave from the work down here. It’s just possible I may not be ablo to come back at all. Rosette is quite capable of carrying on without me, if you get a woman to help her. That Mrs. Murphy would do very well, and she’d be glad of it now that her youngest goes to school. ”

It was a difficult job to convince Mr, Leader that sho wasn’t insane, but finally Anne managed it.

As far as he and the {Settlement wero concerned the scandal was averted. With Mrs. Bragge it was a different matter.

Anno forgot she was going to take Tony’s temperature until after Mr. Leader aud Pat had helped him into the taxi with her. 11c had a borrow'ed overcoat and a blanket tucked around him; and ho was shaved.

When they got to Bouthsido Mansions, the taxi driver gave Tony an arm upstairs, although he said he did not need it.

Mrs. Brugge had obeyed orders blindly, but she was not only very far from guessing the identity of her young lady’s visitor; she never dreamed Miss Rayner would be bringing home a man. And of all people —Mr. Anthony Blithe! Loqking like a rag-picker, too; if not slightly w'orsc. Mrs. Bragge had never seen such clothes, although Pat Mooney had valeted them for what they wero W'orth, and lent Anthony a bed gown, dressing gown and felt slippers.

“Braggey dear, he’s been through tho most dreadful time,” Anne said, when they had got him into bed and she was in tho kitchen making him a hot drink. ‘‘ He hasn’t said anything, but I can guess a- lot of it. He worked his way back to England as a stoker Cm an oil tanker and he hasn’t a penny to his name. Absolutely nothing. He’d been robbed and was starving when one of our men found liim w r anderiug about tho docks.

Mrs. Braggo looked down her nose. “I can well ueliove it,” sho said in a flat sort of voice, “ll’ni, miss—if I’m to stop the night with you, w'here shall X sleep?” “ On, you needn’t stop the night,” Anno said airily. ‘ ‘ But you must take a taxi home aud bo very prompt in the morning. 1 shall havo to go out early myself and buy such a lot of things.” “Excuse me, miss—but do you tnmk it’s proper? I mean you alone in the flat w r iin an —cr —gentleman, as you might say?” Then Anne remembered that Mrs Braggo also would havo to be convinced that x'ony was, or had been, something more than a friend, but she was not going to bother about it to-night. “l think I will risk my reputation,” she said. Tho sleet was turning to thick wet snow and every street sound was muffled. Only ten o ’clock! Mrs. Braggo had gone—albeit w r ith grave misgivings—aud Auno moved I restlessly uuout the sitting-room. The fire leaped cosily in the grate. Anno thought: “I shall ask him to marry me again. I’ll go down on my knees if necessary.” Ho was asleep now', she supposed, but she knew that she herself would not go to bed for hours. There was so much to think about that her head whirled.

It was a heavenly feeling to know that whether Tony care for her or not, she had him in there safe and comparatively sound. The fever didn’t amount to anything and Anthony Blithe had a robust constitution.

She put on a pale blue dressinggowu—ono of her “trousseau” gowns that had never been worn—and combed out her hair, letting it fall about her shoulders iu a shower of pale gold. It was for this that she had broken

her pledge to marry Douglas Tyrell at what might be termed the eleventh

hour. It was for this that she had ( suffered loneliness aud desolation and « indescribable heart-hunger—that she j might bo privileged to prove her love s for Tony. Nothing clso mattered. It ' hardly seemed to matter whether he ] loved her or not, so long as sho could , give him everything she had to give. ] Never perhaps in all ner life had • Anne Raynor been so ecstatically happy as she was at that moment. Her lips moved in a prayer of thanksgiving and 1 she stood wrapped in quiet ecstasy, looking out at tho fast falling now. ; Like a curtain it shut her in here with Tony. Then she heard her name whispered—he was standing there lu the shabby Old rbbe Pat Mooney had lent him, looking at her with an expression that she had not seen on his face since the early days of their marriage—a long time ago now'. “Anne —” ho said. “This isn’t a dream, is it? I w'oko up—there was a fire blazing and at first I thought 1 was back on that ghastly ship. How lovely you arc! Anne —if you’re not married

to Tyrell, do you think you could possibly take me on again? I haven’t a red cent in tho worl/d —only those oil ; shares pigeon-holed at Moffatt’s office. They may turn up trumps some day. But meanw'hile I thought I might possibly get a job at tho old firm. Office boy’s wages, or something like that. If your father were alive, I know what he’d say . . . “ “Tony, do you really want me—again? ’ ’ “I’ve never left off wanting you night or day—ever since we parted.” In another moment he had her in his arms and she was laughing and crying in a breath. “Why, it’s the young Anne's como

back!” Anthony shouted. Indeed it \yas tho young Anne, with] her soft lips and glowing eyes, her hands cupping his face as she drew' him down to her. “I am so glad—T she whispered. “Tony, we’ll take care of it, now. Wo won’t over let anything happen to your love again, will we?” “You can bank on that,” said Anthony. “The soles of our shoes may be flapping, but we’ll tramp tho highroad together. I won’t let you leave me again even if it sees to bo for your own good.” “You’d have a job to get rid of me,” said Anne. THE END.

(Aerial Rope way Advocated An aerial cable leading up to the Bki- , ing grounds at the Franz Josef Glacier 1 was strongly advocated by Dr. Heinrich Schmidt, who arrived in New Zealand • | last November from Vienna, aud durJ ,ing the last two months has been at ’, Franz Josef, ski ing and assisting in guiding work. Besides his medical ] degree he holds an Austrian State ski- - 7: teacher’s diploma aud a physical training instructor’s degree of the Univer--3 sity of Vienna, iu discussing with a r i reporter of tho Christchurch Press tho advantages of such a ropeway, Dr. * Schmidt said that the difficulty ol access of the ski ing grounds was probably the main factor operating against their popularity, if such a ropeway muld be constructed it w’ould probably be used ity a great many people, nA cnly skiers, bur others wo w-lcd to gd a ' < w ot tho scenery. Tb 3 rcvelty would tl:o be a big attraction fo* many people, as it would bo the first in New Ziaiard. In this way, although the initial cost would be large, it would probably pay for itself in a few year-.