IN THE BALANCE

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 14398, 5 January 1911, Page 5

IN THE BALANCE

By L. G. MOBERLY, Author of “Dan and Another,” “A Tangled \Veb,” “Sin of Alison Goring,” etc., etc. CHAPTER XlX.—Continued. Dorothy and Clare had reached the fence that divided park and garden, and Dorothy’s hand was already on the latch. But she dropped it and turned to face her friend with a look of amazement. The hospital sister’s generally quiet face was quivering with emotion, in her eves gleamed an angry light, her voice snook. “Why, Clare,” Dorothy exclaimed, “Clare dear, do you think I would ever willingly hurt anybody—much less— Oliver,” she said the name under her breath; “what happened was inevitable.”

“Inevitable?” A little laugh broke from Clare’s lips. “I can’t understand anyone so strong as you are talking in that way. No woman need marry a man unless she wishes to marry him. You can’t pretend you were forced to—do what you did.' Dorothy rested her hand on the top of the gale and looked wistfully at Clare. Her face was very pale, hut the setting sun, shining full upon it. showed the nobility of its expression, the generous sweep of the brow, the strengui < f ‘he well-cut lips, the steadfastness of the grey eves. “’Oliver and I—understood each other.” .she .said after a pause; ' perhaps 1 made a misiaae. H ls easy to make mistakes when there seem to be divided duties, and I—did what seemed at Hie time to be most right. Some day”—she shivered a little as though the rising evening breeze were chilling her -“some clay I think you will understand it all, and understand why it— wa.s--inevitable*.” The wistfulness in Dorothy s the* sadness of her voice, softened Clare;* heart; she laid her hand on her friend s arm. “1 can’t believe yon would ever have done anything but what win* right and true,” idm exclaimed: “even h you made a mistake, you must have' done it because yon thought iMwis right. “f did think so -I did—l did indeed.” Dorothy cried; “now 1 am sometimes almost sure I was wrong. 1 believe I did evil that g.<>d might come of it, and good has not come-only harm, only harm,” she repented drearily, lifting the latch of the gate and passing into tho path beyond. A long pergola of roses covered in tin* pai'i whose gravel was strewn with petals—red and vellow. white and orange---a carpet of’ dainty colouring and daintier fragrance. But neither woman was in the mood to noth'*'* the rosestrewn mith they trod. Clan' was bewildered l.v IWolhv’s words; Dorothy herself, as'she walked on quieklv. was mentallv repeating her own dreary words “I have onlv done harm. “I should like to"tell you how it all came about,” she said presently, stopping again and putting her hands lightly on Clare’s shoulders, “and some dav ” she looked round with that little shiver, “some day--1 think I shad tell you. Not now. Trust mo now, ('lan*. 1 did what seemed best at the moment, and if I did wrong 1 am paying for “Von pour dear, indeed you are. mid I had no business to rake up the past and make you more unhappy than i. ■iminiMiinwj. arc making you. Iliu Mr. Dynrr'oiirt is a friend limit’, ami —it ina<ii' mo sorry Unit —' ■ I am .so ;’lii(i ilmt lie Ims snrli a ooml ami loyal friend. He needs a friend like von to help him. In spito of all hia strength, ho warns a woman's he 11,.” . “But not mine, Clare answered, a touch of bitterness in her accents,

“nien don't need mi! except m a suit of Urn camaradc kiml of way. 1 am not a woman who appeal to a man iina woman.” “I am not so sure of that. Dorothy’s eyes looked sea tellingly into Clare’s troubled face, used to be more than hall a boy, Clare. But lately 1 have noticed that another side ol you is getting tho upper hand; you are'less ut a buv, and more of a woman, dear. Ami if men were not very ulmcl and very silly, they would have seen the beautiful woman nature in you lone ago, and made something inure (h you than a bon earnarade and friend. Clare flushed ami shook her head. ‘•Su man will ea r do that,” she said, “I'm not the kind of woman to attract them. .Meanwhile—” “Meanwhile, Clare, if you get an opportunitv of beimt a good mend to Oliver livneoourt, use the opportunity. Jle is--not happy." CUtd’k onlv reply was to lean forward and kiss Dorothy, and perhaps the two friends were nearer together at that moment than they had been since their hospital (lays. lint tho serene peace ol the summer evening would have lost all its serenity for thorn both could they have looked at that moment into the study of the man who occupied their thoughts, lor there was neither peace nor serenity in Oliver Dynecourt’s hearing as lie paced the little room like a restless beast. Upon his table littered with manuscripts and letters lay an article duo ill an editorial office on tho following morning, hut as yet scarcely begun. A pllo of notrs was slacked at ono suie of tho inkstand, notes that were all unanswered, and tho demonstration ho was preparing for his hospital students was still far from complete, ills own appearance tallied with tho neglect and untidiness of tho table. His hair was dishevelled and fell over his forehead in disorder. His face, as Hetty had observed that very afternoon, was very drawn and haggard; the lips had a puckered look that made him seem ton years older than his age, and in his eyes was a furtive expression and a certain odd nervousness of glance. Ho paced tho room ceaselessly, his hands behind his hack his head bent in thought, and when occasionally ho lifted it, it was only to look around him with a quick glance that might have appeared to an observer to bo a glance of fear. Presently his restless pacing came to an end, and ho sat down to tho table ami drew his writing towards him, making what was plainly a stupendous effort to rivet his attention on his work. But after writing a few lines his pen droped from his hands, and ho sat staring straight in front of him, until some sound in tho street ontsido roused him from his lethargy, and ho once more took up his pen and wrote feverishly. But it seemed an impossible effort to him to concentrate his mind on ono particular thing. Ho wroto a few lines of his article, next a noto, then a word or two of his domonstration for tho hospital, hut that his real thoughts wore m none of tho things ho wroto was perfectly obvious. With the same lack of interest ho a to his dinner in tho dismal room next to ins consulting-room, and tho hurried meal over, ho returned to his writingtable and wroto on in tho same jerky, discontented way as before, until, late in tho evening, ho flung down his peu with something very liko a groan,

exclaiming—“My God! X can’t mako my thoughts think of anything but that girl’s face, and what she said, and the whole awful business. XVhat did she mean by a clue? And—what—is—that?” CHAPTER XX. The street was very still, and in the house the silence was almost tangible. The ticking of the clock in the hall sounded obtrusively aggressive, and the occasional far-off clatter of hoofs and hansom bells was a relief to the all-surrounding stillness. But the sound that had interrupted the current of Dynecourt’s thoughts was none of these, and lie paused to listen for it again with an odd sense of uneasiness. Even the tick of the hall clock no longer obtruded itself upon him—ho heard only one tiling, a soft scratching sound, that presently involved itselr into a very decided tapping on the window. The window looked into a narrow hack street, into which the hack door of the house also opened. This street was, as a rule, completely deserted at night, and Dynecourt had heard no sound of footsteps, so that the low tapping struck upon his cars with startling emphasis. “Some wretched beggar,” lie muttered half aloud, as though reassuring himself; “he sees the light and thinks there's somebody still no who can help him. Confound this window so near the street.” As lie spoke lie stood still in the middle of the room, looking towards ilie window, and in the silence following his words the low tapping wjvs repeated, more insistently though not more loudly than before, “Confound the fellow,” Dynecourt in uttered again, “as if there wasn't enough to worry one without having midnight prowlers at the window. Thank heaven, I shall lie out of these detestable rooms some day.” That had h-cn his frequent thought of late. As the passing months brought nearer the day of Miles Hernesley’s doom, Oliver had allowed himself to think more ami more of the future l , and. of all it held for him. The weakening of Ins moral fibre, which had begun when he allowed Dorothy for his sake to enter into this strange agreement with Miles, had been increased by his bargain with Soann*s; and that general slackening of a man’s whole moral nature, which mn.st Inevitably follow any such weakness, had come to him now. (To ho continued.)