SHORT STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12856, 3 May 1905, Page 2 (Supplement)

SHORT STORY.

LOVE CALLED HIM BACK.

Dick Tr.KVon was noaring home. After five years of hardship and the frozen wildern««9 lie was journeying back to civilisation, and comfort. •' I've had enough of it," he reflected. ''Even gold, more gold than a fellow can . count, doesn't pay him for such a. life." And so ha was hastening home, to the mother who had fretted and yearned for him, ' and to the fiancee, for whose sake he hid striven and foiled so unceasingly to accumulate the golden hoard. ... At the thought of Ida Carling a troubled look settled upon his bronzed and roughened features. More than once it had occurred hi him that his betrothal promises had boon too hasty and unconsidered. Did she really care for him at all? Did he care for her as he ought to care for the woman he meant tu wed? i "-ertainly it was not the memory of Id* „ Carling which had cheered him and lent 1 him courage to labour and endure during those weary years in the lonely northland. Another face was ever before his mental vision, and another voice was sounding its music in his ears. " But Betty was too young to care about love or lovers," Trevor pondered. Still it was the chilr' Betty who had haunted his dreams during those long northern nights; it was the memory of her pure eyes and tender, trusting facts which had kept his life clean, and which had inspired him to nobler endeavour. "I can picture Ida's scornful disapprobation if I wore coming back as impecunious an individual as 1 was when 1 went away," lie thought, with a grim smile. But such a, thing would never disturb Betty; the child liked mo for myself, not for the pile of yellow nuggets I. might bring back." A whimsical conceit occurred to his mind, and his musing face became stern. "By .lingo, I'll do it!" he exclaimed. Nothing requires me to disclose the state of my finances; I'll pose for a while as a victim of hard luck, I reckon. I resemblesomething of the sort in these ancient garments, with the tan and callous, and some additional items; there's no doubt about that."

But Dick Trevor was destined to enact a more tragical role than anything he had contemplated. It was til© second day after his arrival in, the city before he presented himself at the old familial- home. The weather was unseasonably warm, and sultry to an oppressive degree; the previous evening he had been dined and wined by an. old chum he happened to meet as he alighted from the train. The banquet and the weather wore almost certain to' afreet unpleasantly any person who had lived a strictly abstemious life for years in the cold and invigorating climate of Alaska. Trevor felt rather indisposed as he started for his mother's house. As he crossed the threshold he suddenly became aware of a strange sensation, and the next instant he pitched, head foremost, to the floor, where lie lay like one dead. How long he lay there he did not know. But after a while he became conscious that he was stretched upon a bed, and that he wat unable to stir hand or foot, or even to lift an eyelash. He retained the senses of hearing, of feeling, and thinking; but in all else* lie was helpless. "He is dead. Evidently he has suffered from disease of the heart for (I long time," a physician was saying. Trevor tried to speak, to protest that he still lived; but his tongue was powerless to move, to show by some gesture or expression thai he was alive, but the struggle iru in vain.

The various sounds told him that the medical man had departed. He could hear the members of the little household as they moved here and there; he could hear his mother grieving for him; and then later he heard the undertaker's arrival. : But the horror of it all had become too poignant for endurance, and for a while everything was a blank to him. But that merciful oblivion was not of long duration. When it ended he knew that his limbs had been straightened, his hands folded ou his breast, that he had been robed for burial, and placed in his coffin. For some reason, luckily, the cover had - not been placed over him, and he was not deprived of air. ■• ' ' . ' ---*--.- ...-,' Homebody had put a sheaf of tuberoses across his folded hands; and, as he smelled the sickly sweet odour of the flowers he seemed to realise more acutely the horror of his plight. He knew that people had been pronounced dead by their physicians while they were merely lying in a cataleptic trance; and that : they had been buried alive, to recover the use of their faculties in the grave, where they had finally perished in the agonies of suffocation. Trevor felt that, their doom must be hi* own. What could save him now unless a miracle intervened? ..j,'^ Several persons had been passing in and out of the room, but he had not heeded them particularly. But presently he heard the once familiar tones of Ida Calling. She. was standing not far away, while she talked flippantly with a person whom Trevor had known as a rich contractor, elderly, and a widower, with a | number of children. r ~'.'' Dick Trevor bragged enough about the riches he intended to fetch home," Ida was saying, with a sneer in her thin, sharp, flip-' pant tones; "and he returned without a dollar. But I had all idea that he would never distinguish himself much; lie wasn't my style of man at all." '-,t ~ "I thought that yon were engaged to him once?" her elderly escort remarked, anxious•y- . ■ ;?

■.Oh, there was a foolish girl and bov flirtation, don't yon know? But I never cared' for him. Hal." .she declared, in differently. "Have 1 always been first in your affec* ttons.pet?" the elderly lover asked. "Silly boy! How can you doubt it?" she answered. "Oh. Hal, don't let us stay hero any longer, Ths sight of dead people is so unpleasant, and always upsets my nerves. Pn> my veil, won't yon, Hal?" The door closed then upon Ida Carling and tier silly boy" of sixty odd years and a halfmillion of money. In the hush which succeeded Trevor heard a soft rustle of skirts, and knew,that a girl had bent over him. He felt hei tears dropping warm upon his cold face, and then her lips were touched timidly to his own. "You know the truth now, Dick," she murmured: "you know I loved you even when I was hardly more than a child. .Were you sorry, Dick, because you couldn't gain the wealth you wanted? I would have comforted you, dear, if you could have lived; I would have loved vou more, Dick, in your failure and trouble. Oh, Dick!—oh, my dear, my dear The. tender whisper ended in an anguished sob.

The sweet mourner was Betty. Her caresses those endearing whispers, stirred his Wood like Mine. With all his crippled power lift strove to rend the shackles which held hi? body benumbed and inactive. He struggled desperately to cry, to arise; he prayed to heaven for pity and aid. * Was it Love Love, the divine—which dissolved the fatal spell? j : _ For all at, once something seemed to snap in his brain ; living fire seemed to dart along .his muscles; and then, with an agonising pain in every nerve, ho onened his eyes and sat upright in his coffin. " " My dear little love, you have called EM back to you and life," he said faintly. r ' But he was weakened by the strain of that frightful ordeal, and lie dropped back, barely conscious, upon the coffin pillow. Betty was a sensible girl, and she wasted no time in idiotic shrinks and hysterical antics. # She dispatched a messenger for a physician, and summoned help in fewer moments than ate needed to record it. )--i Later she nursed him back to life and love. For was he not her own her treasure trove, cast into her arms by the billows of the Dark River? When Ida Calling learned that Trevor was. one of the richest gold.seekers who over brought treasure out of the Klondike she behaved much as any other mercenary woman' behaves on a similar occasion. And, <>' course, she blamed Betty for all her grievances.