HER DAY OF ADVERSITY

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18187, 21 June 1927, Page 15

HER DAY OF ADVERSITY

“ STAR’S ” NEW SERIAL

(By

MRS PATRICK MacGILL.)

•'lf thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small."—Proverbs.

“THE FELLOW’S DEAD.’’ Jt had all happened in the space of Falf a minute, and, when Carol recognised David Murray, her nerves, keyed to breaking point for so long, suddenly gave way. and she screamed —the wild, uncontrolled screams falling on the quiet night with ear-piercing shrillness. “ Fetch Carslake—he’s a doctor. Fun, damn you—don’t stand there like * post! Stop that confounded noise *—here, somebody clap a hand over her mouth—we’ll have the whole neighbourhood round.” Carol heard her employer’s low. but urgent, excited voice: she felt a hand -—it was Bundy’s—press so firmly against her mouth that her soft lips were bruised against her teeth, and before she finally lost consciousness she heard the somewhat foppishly affected voice of Carslake. the rising young nerve specialist, who was also an inveterate gambler, say with horrible distinctness, “ The fellow’s dead. His temple struck this piece of marble at a very nasty angle.” CHAPTER XII. (continued). Staring up at him from the front page under the heading, “City Typist’s Romance,” was Carol's wistful little face beside that of Jacob Stone, whose swarthiness seemed to be intensified by his smile of very evident delight. “Good God, it isn’t true! It can’t be! ” The words came in little spurts of half articulate sound from David Murray’s lips. He did not want to-read the base lie about Carol. Of course, she was not married to this tyke of a moneylender, this human vulture that preyed upon rich and poor alike—why, he could imagine Carol forfeiting life itself rather than become his wife. The iaccount of" Carol’s wedding, in which she was described as a charmingly pretty girl, with a simple unaffected manner, was, of course, inserted prior to the receiving of the news of her disappearance. That was noted in the “Stop Press” column and ran: “Mrs Jacob Stone disappeared mysteriously jfrom the Savoy Hotel 'during her wedding luncheon with her bridegroom, who had left her for a few minutes in order to give an interview to a journalist. Her description has been circulated amongst the police.” For a few seconds after the reading of that paragraph connected thought ■was impossible. It seemed as if a million demons were burning each wOrd into his'brain with red-hot needles. But David Murray, who had faced death in the frozen Arctic Zone as an explorer, as well as 1 on' the battlefields of Flanders as a soldier, was more accustomed to action than emotion in an emergency, and the fact tliat fe -it was Carol who was concerned, hammered home 'the need for the formation of £ome immediate plan wh&n the initial Ehock was over. He must have been standing, dazed, beneath the street lamp longer than he thought, for Stringer came downstairs to find out what had become of him. He stared a little at his master’s white but he was too worried about the voung woman in the spare room to take xnore than a passing glance at David. “Beg pardon, but it's the young Jady, sir. She seems to be downright .ill, sir, talkin’ dotty like.. I’d be glad if you d come up, sir.” “Alright, Stringer,” said David briefly, taking the stairs two at ,a time. Carol's overwrought body had at last broken down under the terriftic strain to which it had been subjected. With her pale cheeks flaming like peonies, and her eyes looking like pools of light, she was staring up at the ceiling, babbling wildly what had seemed to Stringer .like a chapter from a sensational novel but which was in reality an exact recital of the events of the last few days. “No, I don’t want to sec the poor boy’s body—and if it is to save David I’ll marry you, Mr Stone—l'd marry you if you were ten times as bad as you are if it meant saving David from such a doom. You are a cruel creature. I wonder why God lets such m.s you live?” As she spoke, her voice rising higher and higher every moment, Carol put ■up her hand to push her damp air off her hot forehead, and with a sick feeling at his heart, David noticed the bright gold wedding ring on her left hand. “My God, whit is the ghastly truth, I wonder?” he asked himself as, taking the burning little wrist between his own cool fingers, he felt the pulse racing madly beneath the soft skin. It was a case for a doctor, and at once. . David did not know what to.do. Ui course, it would be perfectly easy to telephone for a doctor, but he had already determined that Carol should not pass out Of his keeping until he had learned the truth from her own lips. Alreadv a dim. horrible consciousness of what had happened—although he did nOt guess a tenth part of the reality —assailed his heart, and increased his terror. „ . The publication of so recent a photograph of the g-irl would make any attempt to hide her very difficult—even dangerous. No doctor would. attend the case without first giving information to the police, and whatever story there might he behind Carol s marriage, i\ fact it certainly was, and it was with facts onlv that the law concerned Use].. Jacob Stone was certainly the keeper of an undesirable night club in his David's —opinion, but the shindy of the other night would put him on his „uard, and as for his moneylending business, it was registered, and therefore lawful. . , , ' And-vet —and vet—David Hurrays, every instinct was against the giving tip of Carol, and as her ravings grew worse rtbe more lie determined that he would'hide her until he could satisfy it was Stringer who met the difficult situation. THE PARIAH. IJe had been obliged to take his man into liis confidence, and he told him enough to fire him with the desire to kick Jacob Stone from Piccadilly to Newgate, to use his own expression. .. - c <rot a brother that knows a doctor who was struck off the rolls for doing something he didn t ought to—three wear's stretch he served—an' he s a, .mart as paint at his job, they say. Big nob in the West-end when he was practisin’, ” and Stringer mentioned a name which seemed vaguely familiar to V Davidi. , ” hfc isn't on the telephone now, ol course, but by brother's a waiter at the Charing Cross Hotel. I could mp across and get the address for you, offered Stringer, earnestly David thanked him briefly, but.with such warmth that, in his eagerness, the bovfwas going off at once, in' his shirtsleeves! having forgotten about his coat, which he had removed in order

(To be continued).

to fetch some coal from the downstairs cellar. David did the things that his masculine mind suggested for Carol: he loosed the high stock which bound her throat and as his fingers fumbled clumsily with the tiny fasteners they came into momentary contact with the white, burning skin, sending a thrill tingling through his body which both excited and unnerved him. She did not know’ him: for ten days she was to know nobody. But, as he looked at the fever-flushed little face, almost unearthly in its wild beautv, the longing to shield and shelter exquisite flower of childhood—for Carol scarcelv looked even her nineteen years lying there with her bright curls framing her wouthful face —became intensified into an. almost unbearable ache. Pouring some cold water into a small basin, David tenderly bathed the hot, aching head, and it was thus that the doctor found him when he arrived near l , ly an hour later with Stringer, having been brought all the way from Brixton 'David shot a quick glance at this man who had been struck off the rolls of the noblest cf all profess«„ns, and at once decided that, though he had never seen human miser)' writ so clearly on the face of a man, he could trust him. It was long since anybody had trusted the man who had once been Dr Arthur W range 1. David could see by the involuntary start of surprise that the man recognised Carol as the heroine of the “ Missing Bride ” sensation. “ Exactly,” said David. following the doctor's train of thought. “ We’ll talk about that later,” said Arthur Wrangel, bending over the patient. His professional air—of which nothing save death ever robs a doctor —brought comfort to David’s aching heart. “Is she very bad?” he asked when, fifteen minutes later, the doctor came to the sittnig-room. The attending of a “ case ” other than those occasioned by drink and quarrels seemed to have put fresh life into the ex-medico. His eye was steady, and his voice was firm and strong as in the old safe, glad days, before he had disgraced himself. 4 4 She'll need a nurse—a woman. I should like a professional, but —er—l suppose there are difficulties?” He lifted an eyebrow inquiringly. David, knew what he meant, and flushed. He loathed the necessity for secrecy when his love for Carol was so great, 'so wondrous a thing that, he waqted the- world to know it, and to rejoice with him that he had found so, mqch happiness. _ “Yes, as you say, there are difficulties. This girl loves me, Dr Wrangel, and .yet to-day she has married the big- 1 gest money-lending shark, the rottenest?;egg in London. And she hated find, feared him like poison 1” David got up and paced the room in his agitation, looked like some splendid jungle animal cheated of his prey. liis handsome young face, too deeply tanned by the sun of foreign lands ever to be pale, was so drawn that the exdoctor, who had rarely found time to heed the sorrows of others since his profession of healing had been wrested from him, suddenly found himself .pitying With all heart this young man’s misery. “ How old are you, Mr Murray?” he asked, gently. ' ! “ That's- a funny question. What’s it got to do with him?” David asked himself before he replied, curtly, “ Twenty-eight.” lie could not resist adding. “ Why?” “ When you are thirty-eight you will cease to wonder at anything a woman does, Mr Murray,” said the ex-doctor quietly. There was so much concentrated bitterness in his voice that David forebore to reply, but returned to the practical aspect of , Carol’s nurse. “ It would be unsafe to try to bribe a professional nurse, and I am afraid that Mrs —er —Jacobs —isn’t that her name?—has had too much publicity for her to pass unrecognised. Has she any women friends or relatives who are to be trusted, and who are at the same time sufficiently intelligent to carry out instructions?” asked Arthur Wrangel, with a return of his professional manner.' David shook his head, dolefully. “ The poor little creature is the loneliest, most friendless individual I have ever known,” he said, feelingly. “ Well, I don’t know anybody either, who could be trusted to be bribe-proof. All the women who might have helped in a case like this passed out of my life years ago,” remarked Arthur Wrangel, quietly. There fell a silence between the two men. who were to fight for Carol’s life and David ran over in his mind the list of his women friends, only to find that there was not one of whom he could ask so great a service.' As he thought, the seedy, down-at-heel. but for the time being resuscitated doctor watched his face with an eagerness that was keenly pathetic. The suffering girl in the next room represented his lost self-respect. If he could fight and win for her her life would feel that his lost manhood had been restored. He bitterly regretted his squandered health and strength, for he knew that, alone, he could never fight for Carol’s life; he was too flabby to be able to stand nights devoid of rest as well as days filled with anxiety, and if the young man sitting opposite to him really bore the girl such intense love, his co-operation would be worse than useless, for his own anxiety would communicate itself to his patient. At last a vision came to David—the vision of a young, impudent looking Cockney servant girl—Lottie—in a cheap black dress, standing on the Embankment, and vowing, with passionate sincerity, that she would serve him or Carol at any time if it lay in her power. “It's all right, doctor. T know the very girl for the job. She's a bit of a rough diamond on the surface, but she's the equal of any woman in the only things that matter, and as sharp as a needle into the bargain. I'll nip up to Camden Town in a taxi and bring her back with me. You’ll stay here with Carol, of course?” he said all excitement now that he had found a way out. He gave a swift glance at the tall, once spiendid, wreck of a man who was sitting in his armchair, and decided that he could not afford to stand oil ceremony.