In Spite of Evidence

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 866, 18 November 1916, Page 3

In Spite of Evidence

[All Rights Reserved.]

By LILIAS CAMPBELL DAVIDSON, [OH me Author of "The Missing Finger," "Tempted," Etc. |jj|

CHAPTER XXXVI. REWARD. Vane, as he rose from the table, was conscious of a deeper perplexity than had been his a while ago. Then it had been the problem of what was to bo done about Celia's brother. That had (solved itself, dreadfully, tragically. He need no longer ponder on the best means for getting Ceclia from Iter brother's influence—of keeping him out of the way for the future. Heaven had done that for him. She was free now, utterly, completely free. No barrier, imaginary or real, reared itself between them. But the problem that now raced him was how she was to be told. She must not know, must not hear of that dreadful affair at the station till she was strong enough to bear it. Full of that thought, he got up from the table, ami, refusing all l)r Nelson's offers of a smoke ill the lounge, went upstairs •once more to Celia's door to make inquiries about the patient. Just as he reached the corridor he was met by a seared-looking maid coming hurrying down towards him. lie recognised the chambermaid he had called first of all that afternoon to attend Celia. Ho Stopped her now. "Do you know how Miss Harcourt is j this evening?" I But she turned on him a frightened j face and tried to pass him, "I'm going to call up the doctor on j the telephone, sir. Nurse sent me. i She's had a bad turn, the young lady, j 1 never thought—how could I know, anyhow?" half defiantly. "I didn't j

i those open windows, overlooking the terrace. Flowers stood on tho table, I ami about the rooms in great bunches. , Vane, reading the paper in the sunshine, ' looked up at the sound of a step through ithe ha!!. Light heels tapped polished 1 wood. The door opened, ilis wife entered. She was changed a good deal since lie first looked-across that drawing room t at her father's house, and his gratified .glance lit on her. She had £.' own thin- ! ner, and she had not. put on all the flesh !yel lie would have liked to see on her

slender arms and nock. She looked older too, more serious, more sedate. It was no wonder, considering all that she had gone through. But her smile was sweeter even than in the o!d days, it seemed to him. She came across the room, as he lowered his paper, and held up her face for their morning kiss. Then she sat down and begun to pour out his coffe. "I had a letter this morning," she said gaily. "You won't guess whom it was from. So I'it better tell you. The Fords. You remember them, don't you? They are going to hold a performance at Mauley on the 21st, and they write to ask if we would 'ake tickets." Vane thing his paper on a chair, and

took his seat opposite her, laughing. "Who does your turn now, I wonder? Why, yes, of course, write and take all the first two rows. We can semi the servants. And they were very decent to you; can't we do something else 1 ? Would it please them.to come here and stay, do you suppose? They'd like to see the old house, perhaps, and we could run them about in the motor." She looked across at him gratefully. "1 believe you think of everything! " she said. "4ml you are so quick over it. That, would he the very thing. I puzzled ami puzzled all the time I was having my hair done, what woulc be the nicest thing to do for them. They'd enjoy that, so much! And they were so kind to me. I think they'd look on it as the time of their lives. It would be just joy to them.'' "It's a miserable kind of life, after all," said Vane, considering. "It can't bring in much of an income. I wonder if he wouldn't like to take up something better.'' "She would." Celia spoke with decision. "She loathes it, because of the neuralgia. I wish she didn't need to' perform when she "feels as if she'd rather go to bed. But he says there isn't any other way he can make any money."

mean any harm. But that nurse, she's

been slanging me as if I was a pickpocket! " "What is the matter?" Vane turned as she turned, and hurried with her to the stairs. It would take shorter time

to gx> down that way than to wait for the lift. He kept step with her flurried haste. "What's wrong? Is Miss Harcourt worse?" The girl only ran on. They reached the telephone, and he stepped inside the box and spoke to her. "I can call up quicker. Tell me what's the matter?"

Then she spoke unwillingly, under pressure.

"Please tell him to come round as quick as he can. Nurse wants him. The young lady's had a shock, and she'd like iiiin to see her." Vane spoke the message, had an answer, hung up the receiver. Then he turned on the girl

sternly. "Now tell me what did it?" he said. "What has happened?" She began to whimper. " "Tisn't my fault, sir! I couldn't help it anv more than a baby. She woke up out of her sleep, and nurse had gone down to got !;<»r supper. 1 was to sitIn' the In lv till she came back. I'd the evening paper; a lady upstairs had sent me to get it for her."

"He might, like to go out to Canada and start something there. I could thing out a billet, for him, if he liked, and help him over, anil start him." "Oh, how dear you are! You want to help everybody.'' He laughed that off. "I want to help anybody who helped you and was good to you. I can't thank these people enough for what they did, or the way they treated you. We must think it

Vane's smothered exclamation was sharp. He knew the rest without her saying it. It was the one thing he had hoped to guard against. "She heard about the accident at the station!" "I didn't know! I saw the name, and thought it was so funny, she'd take an interest in it. I read it out to her, and she just up and screams out and goes off into hysterics. I rang for nurse, and she came up. I couldn't know there was anything wrong in just telling her a bit 6f news like that. How was I to know the poor gentleman was her brother!" » It had been the thoughtless stupidity of an idle servant. It nearly cost Vane the life of the woman he loved. The shock, following on the shock of just before, threw her into so acute a state of nerves that for a week or so she was gravely ill. Then the doctor ordered her away from Brighton, away from every scene and surrounding that could still keep up the excitement. She must be taken abroad, and the nerves would recover slowly. Who was to take her? Then Vane had his chance. He told the doctor the whole story. "I am the only person to take her," he sad. "She would have been my wife for the last two years but for the act of that mad boy. I have the right to car.: for her. How can it be done? How can I marry her in her present state, i nd take her away and nurse her back o health and spirits?" Dr Hunter thought for a minute. "It is a case for a special jfnarriage license," he said. "One canlt get it granted unless under some such circumstances as the.se. They .Ton't like giving them, and they're hard to get. But this is one of the cases when it is ueeessarv. We'll see about getting that, and she can be married here in the hotel, and you can take her away at once, immediately after. Tt's the only thing. While she remains here, with everything to remind her, the nerves can't regain their tone. 'Take her to the high Alps—and keep her there." ~ So Vane's marriage, after all, was even quieter than he and Celia had planned two years ago. They got the Archbishop's license, not without much difficulty, but they obtained it. The marriage took place in Celia's sittingroom. She lay on her couch, to which she had but that day been moved, and there was no one present but Mrs Henslow and Dr Hunter as witnesses. When it was over, they went out quietly. Oelia was already dressed in an invalid gown, and they wrapped her in a fur coat and carried her down to the catthat waited at the door, with a long mattress laid in it. With her husband beside her, and her maid on the box by the chauffeur, they glided gently and quietly away from the hotel, and took.

over and find out the best way to help them. It's a dog's life, I should say, the one they lead. I can 't bear to think you were ever in it." "It wasn't nice. But it helped to buy bread and butter, and I shall be for ever grateful to them. If I hadn't been acting there with them you and I might never have met again. Oh, can you fancy that! It seems beyond all imagining! '' "We'd have met all right. Seas and worlds cottldn 't have divided us, somehow. I'd have found vou if you 'd been under the sea in a submarine, or on top of a mountain." "I wonder!" She rested her elbow on the cloth and looked across at him with pensive eyes. "I don't know! Sometimes, when I wake up, in the night, and it's dark, and the wind howls, I get a kind of panic. I think it-was all a dream your coming back and finding me—and that I am :n that room in those lodgings—and oh! " She broke off with a shudder. He got up from his own chair quickly and came round the table to her. '' But that's just what you 'ro not to do," he said peremptorily, yet suddenly. "You're not to think." You know that's forbidden!" She put up her hand and caught at his, resting on her shoulder, and she laid her head back till it rested against him. "I know! I know! You and Dr Hunter always said that. But now I feel as if I wanted to remember. It makes me now so happy, so blest, to feel what it's come after. I wan* to remember that once I hadn't you, and life was all dark—dark and horrible. Then I hug myself because it's all past and we're out in the sunshine. Don't grudge me that pleasure, dear. You can't know what it was like when I didn't have you, and I thought you hail gone from me for ever! " Don 't I know? Didn't T have it, too? Tt was worse for me. You knew, and I didn't. You'd vanished info thin air, and I couldn't know what had happen ed. I didn't know if you had gone because you couldn't bear the thought of marrving me." "How preposterous! Oh. how can you even suy such a thing like tha,t?" He pulled down her hand and pressed her fingers across his mouth, gently. "How was Ito know? I always felt as if you didn't, care for me as I cared for you. I meant to teach you." "And I learnt it all by myself. Oh, T learnt when I lost you. It was as if the stars of heaven had dropped out, somehow, when you weren't there. I knew then. But. while we live, nothing —nothing can ever come between us again; can it?" And with her head against his heart he answered: "Nothing, my darling, nothing!" | The End.]

the road to Dover. She was taken on board the Channel steamer in the same v.ny, and when they lauded their jour-

ney across the Continent was made in

th<> ear, in easy stages. Before they sighted the Alps she began to revive. When thoy lifted her front the ear at

the door of the Swiss hotel, high among the snow peaks, she was aide to walk

a step or two with help. Before n fortnight wail over she was walking in the garden with the aid of a stick and the arm of her husband.

Perhaps nothing else would so have combined for her recovery as Vane's

presence aud the change of scene. She forgot the horrors of the past—the Strain gradually passed from her. When tao day came that she could stand by her husband 's side at the top of a little prsa she had ascended with him, he looked into her face and told himself she was cured. The remedy had succeeded.

The summer sun was blazing down on the green of a lawn before an old house. The scent of flowers came in through the house windows, and the beds where the morning bees hummed made eplashea of brilliant colour. There was breakfast sot on the table inside one of