KIDNAPPED BY BETTINA

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXV, Issue 25, 23 December 1905, Page 6

KIDNAPPED BY BETTINA

By

Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd

w « ILLOI (IHBY PEYTON stood 11/ outside the ferry-house watch- ■ ing tlie Saturday afternoon f y crowd pouring from all directions, seething around the mouth of the narrow channel to which the swinging doors gave entranee, and disappearing in the rapids rushing madly toward the boats. For ten years he had lived in a land where the streams of human activity were sluggish, tranquil, given to broadening into quiet pools whose outlets were hidden, and this tempestuous current fascinated him, though he set his feet widely apait and stood with a stubborn tranquillity that was a mute protest against the prevailing strenuousuess. In course of time, Dick Martin would appear upou the scene. Probably he would be late, like all the lest of these frenzied atomies, and in quite as great a hurry. \V hy couldn c they all start earlier or let things at the other end of the journey wan instead of engaging in a deatn grapple with time ? Diek had said it would take twenty minutes to go from the Holland House to the ferry in a eab. Willoughby Peyton had allowed forty minutes and had told the cabman not to hurry. Io be sure, he had some idle time on his hands, but he rather laucied idle time and he hated scramblings. It his old friend intended taking him out to his country place for the week-end, why couldn’t lie come along and no it in decent, leisurely fashion? Of couise if a fellow had to hustle, why he just settled down and hustled like the devil; but how many of these people were absolutely in the grip of circumstance? How much of the hurly-burly was nabit —a broad national habit? The critic settled himself mo.e solidly, more imperturbably upon his sturny legs and smelled the carnal ion in his buttonhole appreciatively. As a usual thing, he didn’t wear boutonnieres with his tweeds, but the little girl in the florist’s shop was uncommonly jolly, and, after all, it was good to stand in the sunshine and smell a spicy carnation, whiie all the rest of the world was tumbling over itself before him. He lifted his handsome pharisaieal head from the earnation to take another look at the commuters, and, as he did so, a girl in a blue frock stepped hurriedly from the platform of a trolley-car and east a swift, anxious glance around her. Willoughby drew a breath of satisfaction, even deeper than that he had accorded to the scent of the carnation. She was lovely undeniably lovely —and a sigh fo.lowed on the heels of the realisation that she, too, was of the strenuous ones. A tine leisure should go with such a girl, though even a snapshot impression of her had its eharm. After all, there were no women like the American women. When it came to marrying, a fellow Just here he received a shock that disturbed his smug placidity. The roving brown eyes met his and the anxious wrinkle between the girl’s brows disappeared in a swift smile of relief and recognition. A daintily gloved hand was waved at the amazed young man and the pretty head gave a nod of gay understanding. Peyton involuntarily raised his hat. Then he looked over his shoulder to see for whom the greeting was actually intended. There was no one behind him, no one near him. Evidently a mistake —but a delectable sort of mistake. He wondered who she was, where she was going, for whom she had taken him. Well, there was no harm done. Yet, even as he consoled himself with this thought, a whimsical uncertainty regarding its accuracy made a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. An unfulfilled desire was harm enough, and he wanted to know this girl in blue. She was so extraordinarily good to look at and the greeting had been so frank, the brown eyes so full of po-sibilities. It was a pity their acquaintance must begin and end with a wave of the hand and a smile. Dick might have known her if he had been on hand. There

ought to be some way of finding out who she was.

Peyton’s eyes, searching her in the crowd, found her again at the ticketolfiee window, and, without definite purpose, but impelled by a mighty longing to see her smile at him once moie, he moved through the door, to a vantage point where she would be obliged to pass him on her way to the boat. There was a Hush on his face, and an odd tension of his nerves which would have surprised him if he had had time for selfanalysis; but the slender figure in blue paused only for an instant at the ticketwindow. Then it turned, and once more Peyton saw the swift, searching glance, it passed over the hurrying folk, lested for- a fraction of a second upon the few waiting figures, then found Peyton’s face. There was a repetition of the earlier phenomena that had fascinated him, only this time there was no uncertainty in the girl’s face. She was quite sure of finding him and serene in an already established recognition. She smiled confidently, and, as the bewildered young man stood hypnotised by the smile, she came directly toward him, with a haste that was in tune with the scene about her. Peyton watched her coming. There were only a few rods between them, and, before he had really grasped the situation, she was at his side, still smiling frankly at him. The flush on his face deepened, bis hand wandered mechanically to his hat brim. Dense confusion and helpless rapture warred in his face, but the girl was too preoccupied to notice his embarrassment. “So glad not to miss you,” she said breathlessly. “Come on. We’ll have to hurry if we catch our boat. I have the I ickets.” She laid her hand lightly on his arm and moved toward the wicket. Peyton went as if in a trance. He knew it was all wrong. He must assert himself, must explain, must set things right—but the touch on his arm was a compelling one, and the wave of commuters bore him onward. Once past the ticket-chop-per he would call a halt and do the decent thing; but as uniformed official returned the fifty-trip ticket, and Peython attempted to draw his companion aside from the crowd, there was a sound of a sliding door, and the mob of commuters stampeded. “Run!” exclaimed the girl. “He’s closing the door! We’ve got to make

that boat! There isn’t another train in time for dinner. Do run!”

She set him an example, and even in his stupefaction he noticed with keen satisfaction that she ran like a young Diana instead of adopting the sidewheeler motion of the other running women—and he followed her, sprinting as nobly as in the old Yale days when the ball was in his arms, the goal before him and the field behind him.

Together they squeezed through a narrow opening. The door clanged behind them, they raced down the dock and stood breathless but triumphant upon

the deck of the ferry-boat as it moved out into the river.

“We eaught it!” announced Peyton, a foolish exultation in his voice that had nothing whatever to do with the boat. His arm tingled where her hand had lain and there was a reckless exhilaration in his face. He had been abducted —forcibly abducted, and he was g.ad of it. Things had been taken out of his hands. He had tried to explain, but rush hour at a North River ferry is a masterful thing. So is a little gloved hand when that hand is associated with a face like the face of the girl in blue. Any fellow would have run at her invitation, provided always that he weren’t asked to run away from her. Pty ton was a gentleman as gentlemen go, but at the moment he was shameless. Of course he was behaving badly, but she had said “come.” It was all quite simple. With a queer little thrill he realised that it would be the same whenever she might say “come.” He smiled whimsically in self wonder, and the girl, who had been fanning herself with an absurdly small square of kerchief, met his smile and answered it.

“Ridiculous introduction, wasn’t it?” she said, straightening her hat and brushing back an unruly lock of redbrown hair. “The ways of the commuters are fearsome; but you obeyed orders like a soldier. Now, some men would have asked questions and insisted upon conventionality, and then we’d have missed the boat and dinner would have been spoiled.” Peyton had no desire to ask questions. Questions would mean answers, and answers would mean—he hugged the good moment fast and postponed the inevitable crash that would knock his newfound world into bits. “Too bad Tom had to stay- late to-night, of all nights,’’ the clear, low voice went on blithely. “Molly and I have always had our suspicions about these engagements with business men from the West. There are so many of them, and we can’t see why men from the West have such a deeprooted aversion to doing business during regular office hours. It always takes Tom until the midnight train at least to do justice to a business man from the West. But this thing is downright re assuring. He wouldn’t have missed

coming out with you if he could possibly have escaped. I know.” Peyton was mute, but flatteringly attentive, and conversation lapsed for a moment while the girl looked down the river toward the sunset. “I love it,” she said softly, with a little inclusive gesture that embraced river and -sky and receding shore and far-off harbour. “I wonder whether any other folk love their town as New Yorkers do theirs.”

Peyton smiled grimly. He had crossed from Southampton with a man from Chicago.

The girl resented the smile. “Oh, yes, I suppose we are conceited about it! You probably think Boston's much better; but other men only brag about their towns and admire their towns. The New York man loves New -r>,„ jsn’t 8O ] )eau . tiful, but the big, beating heart of it is > so wonderful, and then there are the rivers and the harbour. You don’t look like a Boston man!” Beneath its European lacquer. Peyton’s New York soul gave a throb of gratitude, but a chill ran down his spinal column. The abstract conversation about cities had seemed, so safe and pleasant, but this rapid veering to personalities was dangerous. He must speak now while he could do it voluntarily—not allow confession to be dragged out of him. She’d be tremendously angry. Of course, she would. It was quite right, that she should be angry, for he had behaved like a cad and she’d never understand the provocation. Some girls would forgive such a thing. There were even girls who would be flattered by it, but she —no, her eyes were too uncompromisingly honest and there was stubbornness in that dainty chin. She wouldn’t be egotistical enough to understand nor tolerant enough to forgive what, she couldn’t understand. She’d snub him royally, and he deserved it. He might as well get it over. He braced himself, opened his mouth to speak—and was reprieved. For the girl, who had been calmly studying him since her remark exonerating him from Bostonian • traits, took up the conversation where she had dropped it. “No, you really don’t look like *ho Boston men I’ve known, and you aren’t exactly New York either. I wouldn’t know where to place you if I hadn’t heard all about you. I know you the minute I saw you. It was awfully elever of Tom and you to arrange about the carnation. I’d have known you from Tom’s description even if you hadn't worn the flower; but it would be embarrassing for a woman to take the chances of picking out the wrong man, so I was glad when I saw the earnation. I suppose Tom had told you a good deal about me. Perhaps you saw my picture. He had some at college, but they were taken when I was twelve, and I’ve changed a lot. Would you have known me?” Here was an opportunity for truth-tell-ing—and Peyton told the truth —though not the truth that should have been

told. Would he have known her? Didn’t he know her for the lady of his heart the moment his eyes met hers! Could he have made a mistake when she was she and he was he!

“Oh, yes, I’d have known you anywhere,” he said with enthusiastic conviction. The psychological moment was past. How could he explain things now? The boat was feeling its way into the slip and there was a restless stir in the crowd. After all, it would be awkward to make a scene on this crowded deck. Somebody would be sure to overhear, and, if she showed her surprise and resentment, as she probably would, it would excite curiosity. The waitingroom of the station would be a much better place for the awful confession. So many- folk would be saying good-bye there that an abrupt and stormy parting would have a fair chance of passing unnoticed. So Peyton temporised and put off the evil moment, while the girl chatted cheerfully about Tom and Tom’s wife and Tom’s small boy. There had been a ghastly moment when it had occurred to Peyton that the absent Tom might be the husband of his envoy extraordinary, but the fear had passed. Tom belonged to Molly, and the girl in blue was Tom’s sister. Bo much was clear, but beyond all was fog. On the way to the waiting room Pevton’s heart sank steadily lower and lower. His face took on a hang-dog expression. When they should reach the waiting room he would tell her, and then—well, at any rate, he would have had his fifteen minutes with her. That would be something to remember, even though the fifteen minutes wound up in self-abasement and righteous, unsparing punishment.

They entered the waiting room, and Peyton cleared his throat vehemently. The reprieve was over. He mint hang. Hard on a fellow to tie the noose himself.

The girl looked at him questioningly. He had halted at. some distance from the crowd collected before the closed doors leading to the platform, and he was evidently swelling with some important announcement. “Well?” she said, with a little laugh. He was phenomenally serious, this quiet friend of Tom’s, but she liked big, quiet men with strong chins and grave, grey eyes. Just at present the eyes were more than grave. They' were positively tragic. Probably the poor fellow had forgotten his razors. Tom always forgot to pack his razors. “Well?” she tepeated mockingly.

Peyton cleared his throat again and found his voice—or, at least, a queer, choken remnant of his voice.

“I should have——” he began; but, before he could get further, three women kissed the girl in blue, four men shook hands with her, and a chorus of voices chanted: “Why, Bettina!” Peyton pulled himself up will a jerk. The attacking party' had fallen upon them from the rear, and the suddenness with which he was snatched from the verge of selfdestruction left him gasping. The girl was introducing him. “Edith, this is Toni's college friend, Mr Watson —Mrs Carpenter, Mrs Pembroke, Mr Watson. Miss Benton. Mr Watson. Mr Carpenter, Mr Pembroke, Mr Curtis. Mr Alling—Mr Watson.” Willoughby groaned inwardly. The plot was thickening in appalling fashion.

Bo he was Watson, of Boston, Toni’s college friend I And who was she? Betlinal He might have known her name was Bcttina. It suited her down to the ground, with its frank melody, its everyday sweetness and its touch of Womanly dignity. But Bettina what? Verily he was paying dearly for his moment of weakness. If he had but told her at the start that he was not the man she took him for!—and yet, even now he had hardly the grace to regret his surrender.

He couldn’t own up now, before all these friends of hers. It would put her in a wretchedly embarrassing position. There was nothing for it but to invoke the protection of his patron saint and bluff the thing through until they were all on the train. Then he would tell her, and he'd get off at the first station. Heaven grant that he eould trump up some excuse for the abrupt departure that would plausible to these folks. “Mr Watson is going out for the weekend.” Bettina’s voice penetrated to his bewildered brain. “Tom was detained, ■but will be out after dinner.” How in thunder could he cut loose on the road when they all knew he was going home with her? Forgotten business—important telegram unanswered—luggage unchecked—would be out on the next train. All these excuses sounded flimsy, but one of them would have to do.

Meanwhile Mrs Carpenter was asking him if he knew the Jersey country, and he heard himself answering in his normal voice and with his normal manner, but his heart sent up a prayer that the vivacious little woman might not prove one of the interrogatory sort, and he vowed an offering to mercury, god of lies, by way of provision for probable emergencies.

A train was called and the group Started toward the platform, bearing Peyton with them. He was talking Cheerfully about country life —a safe, Impersonal topic—but in his head the list of towns called off by the official ■with the stentorian voice sang itself Over and over, and he wondered vaguely for which one of the towns he would make his exit. The girl was walking down the platform before him, with a man on each side of her, and as she swung herself lightly to the car steps, leyton had a glimpse of a foot and ankle that made him wander into heresy on the subject of formal gardens — a theme which appeared to be of absorbing Interest to Mrs Carpenter. "Wo hired landscape gardeners of the very best reputation and they’ve made the place exactly like a toy Noah’s Ark. Even the animals are beginning to look positively wooden just from natural adaptation to their environment, and I’m watching Mr Carpenter anxiously.

When he begins to develop angles and stiffen, we’ll fly. Bettina must bring you over to sit under our prim little trees and look at our prim hedges and flower-beds and walk on our priin terraces. Formal? Why it’s so formal it doesn’t even speak to us. That’s what comes of going to Europe and leaving your new country place to artists.” At least, she didn’t ask questions. Peyton looked down at the plump, jolly woman so gratefully that a glow of self-satisfaction warmed her. Devotion to Howard Carpenter had never interfered with her enjoyment of admiration from other men, and this friend of Bettina’s seemed appreciative. On the train, Peyton’s hostess graciously waved him to the seat beside her, but his joy at her nearness was chilled by the thought that he must take advantage of that nearness to make his miserable explanations before the train could reach its first stopping-place. There were strangers in the seats immediately behind them and in front of them. There would be no excuse for his not getting the confession off his conscience this time, and in spite of his dread, he would be glad to have the thing done. He had played the fool, and circumstances had swelled his folly to proportions positively criminal. He was in the position of an unmitigated cad, and he writhed under the ignominy of appearing in such a role before the girl. The horsy young man who had been introduced as Alling came down the aisle, accompanied by Mrs Carpenter, and held out his hand cordially to the man who occupied the seat in front of the criminal and his prospective judge and executioner.

“Hello, Johnson! I wonder if you’d mind exchanging seats with us? We want to sit here where we can talk to Miss Morton and Mr Watson. Mrs Carpenter, you know Johnson.”

Mrs Carpenter did. Mr Johnson arose amiably and turned for a moment to speak to the girl, who introduced him to Peyton, then he meandered down the aisle.

Young Alling turned the seat over and he and his companion sat down facing a smiling girl and a sulky-eyed young man. All chance of private conversation was gone. Confession was postponed indefinitely. Peyton drew a long breath and then laughed helplessly. The thing was on the knees of the gods—and the gods were humorists. While he lived he would live-. During the next half-hour he justified his reputation in certain European circles as an excellent dinnerman. He talked gaily, delightfully, he told good stories, he treated Mrs Carpenter to adroit flatterly. To Miss Morton he was deferential, but only his eyes spoke compliment to her. She was rather quiet, listening with a. smile to the conversation, but turning a look of surprised query upon Peyton now and then. Why had the silent man suddenly wakened to hilarity? She could not read his recklessness, so she credited the transformation to Mrs Carpenter. Men always liked Edith. Evidently she had bored Tom’s friend while he was alone with her. He had hardly spoken to her. A throb of resentment stirred her and there was a flash of anger in the eyes she turned to him, but he was looking at her, and she surprised in his face a something which made her turn to the window. She was still resentful, but the resentment had changed its character.

On the whole she didn’t believe she had bored him—but she had a distinct suspicion that Tom’s friend was a flirt, and she detested a man who attempted to flirt with every woman he met. Edith was quite welcome to Mr Watson. The landscape outside the window absorbed her. Peyton shot furtive glances at her, while he talked nonsense with her friend. A waving mass of red-brown hair with golden lights in it; a dainty little ear, set close to the well-shaped head; a soft line of cheek and chin. So much he eould watch and be thankful for, but he wished hungrily that she would turn her face toward him again and let him see the frank brown eyes and the lips with sweetness lurking in their clearcut lines.

Her name was Morton—Bettina Morton. He said it over and hover again to himself while ho listened with apparent rapt attention to Mrs Carpenter’s opinion on cross-country riding. Knowing her name he could surely find out something about her — but what good would that do, sinee she would bo mortally prejudiced against him and would

undoubtedly refuse to have anything to do with him even if he should obtain a well-authenticated introduction?

“Y?a I’ve ridden to most of the English packs,” he said in answer to Mrs Carpenter’s question. "Everybody rides over there. They’d think a fellow an awful duffer if he didn’t, so, of course, I had to go in for it.”

Miss Morton turned abruptly from the window.

‘‘Why, Mr Watson, I didn’t know you had ever spent any time in England!” A flood of scarlet rolled over Peyton’s face. He had blundered, and his expression was one of conscious guilt. "Oh—oh—yes! That is, I’ve been there, you know,” he stammered, inwardly cursing himself, and Watson of Boston, and the humorous gods, the while.

She looked at him intently, and a touch of scorn curled the corners of her lips. Peyton read it clearly. She though he was lying, boasting of English experiences he had never had, in order to impress strangers. Probably Watson had never strayed out of sight of Bunker Hill Monument, and she knew it. He stared savagely at the car-door, but Mrs Carpenter, who had missed the by play, laughed as she rose to her erfeet.

“Well, our paper-chases at Larchdale, then, would seem rather infantile to you. 1 must get my packages. They are in the other seat and the next station is ours.”

She went, followed by the devoted Alling, and Peyton realized that his moment had come. He turned abruptly to Miss Morton, who was still smiling that scornful little smile, and gripping his. courage he made the plunge. “Miss Morton,” he said, “I’ve a wretched confession to make to you. You’ll never forgive me. I wish you’d understand how I was tempted, but you won’t. I nwant to tell you on the ferry, but I waited, and then there wasn’t any chanee. I suppose you don’t believe in falling in love at first sight?”

She had been listening with a puzzled look in her eyes. Now the look deepened to a frown, but Peyton rushed on. "Nobody need know, but it can’t go any further. You’ll think I’m a bounder, but I’ve got to tell you. I’m not ” There was a deafening crash, a splintering of glass, a sudden blow and darkness.

The Gods were still in merry mood, and consideration for Billy Peyton did not enter into their jesting. 11. Newspaper men who reported the head-on collision between the local express and a way freight, near Larchdale, considered the accident a dull and uninteresting affair. Not even an engineer was killed, and the serious injuries were few. If a large number of socially prominent suburbanites had not been more or less shaken up and received a miscellaneous assortment of cuts and scratches, the story would hardly have been worth a place on the first page. To be sure, one man—a Mr Everett Watson, of Boston—was badly hurt and was removed, in a critical condition, to the home of his friend and host, Mr Thomas C. Morton, of Larchdale; but, though the newspaper accounts did not say this, Mr Everett Watson, of Boston, was not of sufficient importance to justify scare-heads or much space in a New York paper. At Larchdale, however, Mr Watson’s condition had caused tremendous excitement. When Bettina Morton, dazed

and frightened, regained consciousneM after the accident, she found herself wedged securely under a car-seat, withi her heels in an undignified attitude above her head. Slowly, cautiously she extricated her head and shoulders and sat upon a window-shutter of the car, which was, as she gradually perceived, on its side in a diteb. There was considerable hysteria in the air, and, as she rubbed the rapidly swelling lump on her forehead, which seemed to be her only injury, she wondered dully whether any one was seriously hurt.

Around her all was confusion —• wrenched and broken scats, shattered glass, strewn hand-luggage and packages, scrambling men and women. Near her, a man down whose face the blood was running was trying to lift a fainting woman through the window above him. There was shouting, screaming, hopeless disorder. No one paid the slightest attention to the quiet girl sitting motionless in the shadow between two seats, and she made no effort to move. She was not hurt, and, after a while, the excitement would be over and help would come. As her brain cleared, she remembered Tom’s friend. He was trying to tell her something when the collision came. She had been provoked with him, but she couldn’t remember why.

Where in the world was the man! Surely he hadn’t escaped without a thought of her! She tried to turn so that she might look about her, and, as she did so, she was conscious of a heavy weight lying across her feet. She looked down and in the semi-darkness saw the body of a man, face downward among the debris. Across the back of his head was a great gash from which the blood was streaming, and one leg was qucerly doubled under him.

The girl bent forward over the limp figure, controlling with an effort her sickening horror at sight of the blood. She recognised the grey tweed suit and the broad shoulders, though the face was hidden, and a quick fear clutched at her heart. If he were dead—! No; that would be too horrible. He couldn’t be dead, this friend of Tom’s with the boyish voice and the insistent gray eyes. Slowly, carefully, she drew her numbed feet from under the heavy body, rose to her knees, and tried to staunch the blood flowing from the wound in the back of the blond head. Her ridiculous wisp of kerchief was of no use, and she pulled the linen scarf from about her neck tfnd folded it over the wound. Then she looked about her helplessly, in search of aid for the man who lay so still, so horribly, terrifyingly still.

“Miss Morton! Oh, Miss Morton!” Her heart gave a throb of relief as she heard her name called, and, looking up, saw Charlie Alling’s head peering anxiously through a broken window.

“I’m here, Charlie! No, I’m not hurt, but Mr Watson is. Some one must see to him quickly.” The boy lowered himself through the window and a brakeman followed him. Both looked white and shaken.

“Nobody really hurt so far. Thank God, you’re ail right, Bettina! We thought you two would get out with tho rest, and then, when things quieted a bit, I missed you —and Good heavens! He does look well done up, doesn’t he?” The brakeman had pried the broken, seat away from Peyton’s leg, and together the two men lifted the limp figure through the window to the trainmen waiting above.

“No, he isn’t dead,” young Alling said encouragingly in answer to the question

i* the girl’s eyes. "He’s sure to pull out all right when we get a doctor. Come on, we’ll have to take you out the same way. Edith and the rest will be wild until they see you. The women were halving hypteri.es when I (l|eft them.” Once out of the wreck and its bewildering chaos, Bettina Morton's nerves steadied and her cool common sense Came back to her with a rush.

“Our carriage must be at the station. Charlie, bring it down here. Tell everybody I’m all right, but too busy io be wept over.” With the carriage came a doctor—the first upon the scene. He looked Peyton over and shook his head with professional solemnity as he bandaged the unconscious man’s hurts. “Compound fracture in the right leg and a nasty head. Can’t tell just how bad -the trouble with the head is until we have a thorough examination.”

Miss Morton listened with grave solemnity, though her lips were still white and the haunting fear lingered in her eyes. “Thank you, doctor—we’ll be glad to have you consult with our family physician, if a consultation proves necessary. Will some of you men lift him into the carriage? Charlie, you'll come, won’t -you? Hold him so—there; I’ll drive. Simpson, find Doctor Dawson and tell him we need him at once without a moment’s delay.” She touched the restless horses with the whip and they- dashed down the village street and out along the country road until they turned in at a vine-cov-ered gateway and were drawn up before « rambling white house. A pretty, baby-faved woman rose from a lounging chair on the verandah and camo forward lazily to greet the arrivals, but screamed as she saw the helpless figure in Alling’s arms. “Now, Molly, there’s no time for fainting! Ring for some one to take the horses. I left Simpson at the station. The south room’s ready, isn’t it?” Mrs Morton stood mute, her big, childish, blue eyes wide with wonder and horror, fixed upon the blood-stained handages about the stranger’s head.

Her sister-in-law turned from her with an impatient gesture. “Wake up, Molly! It was a railway jaocident. He isn’t dead. 'Run up and— Oh, no, here’s Hannah! Hannah. run up and open the bed in the south room, and do what you can to help Mr Alling, will you? John, you can help to carry Mr Watson up to his room. I’ll hold the horses until you come down. Molly, come out of your trance and telephone Tom at the club. He was to meet a man there at fivethirty and dine with him. Tell him there’has been a wreck, and Mr Watson is badly hurt, and that he must come at once and bring a nurse with him.” She sat holding the horses in the most approved fasnion, shoulders square, whip at the proper angle, reins held according to the immutable laws of horsemanship. Her hat had been left behind in the wreck, her hair, loosened from its coil, had fallen in a thick, gleaming rope that shone red gold in the sunset light. Her throat was bare; there was a ragged rent in the shoulder of her shirtwaist; but in spite of the dishevelment, a certain unconscious dignity clung to the girl, and she held her nerves as firmly as she held the fretting team.

When Wilson, the stableman, came down and stepped to the horses’ heads, she climbed down from her high seat, walked steadily into the house and up to her room, closed the door behind her, and fainted quietly on her own bed. She was very feminine, this sister of Tom’s, but there was a time and a place for all things. Even now the collapse lasted but a moment, and before the doctor arrived she was up, dressed in crisp, fresh linen, cool and calm as the May evening, and waiting in the big, cheerful room where Charlie Alling, with the assistance of Hannah, the small Tom’s elderly nurse, had put the sick man to bed, Peyton’s eyes were open, but they stared without seeing and his lips muttered incoherentlv.

“Clean dotty,” explained Alling with a sympathy of voice that gave the lie to the slangy flippancy of the words. She nodded. Dilirium was bad, but not so bad as that hideous stillness. At

least, while one muttered one must be alive.

There was a brisk step on the stairs and a round, rosy little man, with keen eyes that gleamed oddly in his cherubic face, came into the room, patted Bettina on the shoulder with friendly informality, and went straight to the bedside. “Um-m-in.”

The eyes were keener than ever as the doctor turned from his first swift survey and reached for the surgical case he had dropped upon a chair near the bed.

“Bettina, wc don’t need you. Send Hannah with some warm water and ice, and tell somebody to boil these instruments a few minutes and bring them up in Hie pan they are boiled in. Then you take half a glass of whisky and walk up and down the terrace hard for 20 minutes. You look knocked out, but there’s no use telling you to go to bed —you woudn’t do it. I’ll fix this young man up temporarily, but we’ll get Remington out from the city to patch up the head. Alling, go telephone for him. Tell him I want him by the first train, and if he baulks tell him from me to go to hell. He’ll come, but he always kicks. Going to die? Bless you, no! What are we doctors for?”

The girl obeyed orders. Doctor Dawson was generally obeyed in spite, of his jolly face and genial voice. As she passed through the hall Mrs Morton came toward lier on tiptoe.

“Does the doctor think he’ll die!” she asked, big-eyed, frightened as a child, child.

Margaret shook her head. '“He says no —but he has sent for Doctor Remington.”

“The big surgeon? Then he must* be dreadfully hurt! Oh, dear. I wish Tom would come!”

The little woman’s one idea of present help in time of trouble was her big, cheerful husband. If somebody was going to die in their house she wanted Tom there to help her bear it—but then, of course, Tom wouldn't let the man die. Doctor Remington might be a provisional aid, but in her heart she was sure that Tom could fix things if he would only come.

“Was he nice, Bettina?” The question sounded trivial, but Bettina was used to her sister-in-law. '“Yes. I suppose so,” she said judicially. “Did you like him?” To the girl’s own amazement the query brought a hot flush to her cheeks and an odd thrill to her hs'.ut; and with the flush and the thrill mine the memory of a look she had su: prised in certain grey eyes. “Why. yes—yes, of course I liked him,” she said in impressively matter-of-fact tones; and, catchin ; up a scarf from the hall-table, she escaped into the out-of-door world. There was a chill in the air, and, though wanned by the doctor’s prescription, she drew the scarf closely about her and walked swiftly up and down the paved terrace the view from which was the pride and glory of Hilldale. Below in the valley dark shadows were gathering, but the terrace was slill flooded with the red glow from the sun, setting in splendour of rose and gold behind the far-off line of crouching purple hills. All the western side of the house, too, was bathed in rosecolour, but the girl pacing the terrace did not thrill to the sunset glow, had never a glance for the hills she loved. Under her calm exterior, her nerves were badly shaken; and, in every shadow across her path, she saw a huddled, helpless figure lying with hidden face, and a stream of blood dripping from a fair head and widening into a dark spot on the ground.

Never before, in her 22 years, had she come closer to tragedy. Life had been kind to her. Death had held aloof from her, had laid his hand on no one near to her, and now that she suddenly faced the grim realities her shuddering recoil brought actual physical distre-s. Over and over she reminded herself that the man who lay in the south room was a mere stranger, but the assurance brought no relief to the aching tightness in her throat, the shrinking horror in her heart. He had been so big and strong and full of life. It was horrible to think that he might die—that death might come like that in an instant, blotting out the good work, laying a cold

hand on a warm heart, stilling a gay voice.

He had had a nice voice, this man who might die to-night. tShe had liked it the moment he first spoke to her, had noticed the musical, vibrant quality in the tone. It was a voice to remember, a voice in which an impulsive urgency was oddly met with a lazy nonchalance. To be sure, he had not talked much to her, but she had listened while he talked to Edith. It had occurred to her that his voice was like his eyes. The boy and the man of the world were in both.

There had been something singularly boyish about him at first. She had almost thought him embarrassed, but he had seemed exceedingly at his ease with Edith and Charlie. And then the queer, nervous diffidence had come back to him when he was left alone with her just before the accident. He had wanted to tell her something, too; had appeared absurdly in earnest about it. What in the world could he have had io tell her? Nothing important enough to have embarrassed him, surely. The shadows crept up the hill and drove the afterglow from the terrace, but still the girl walked up and down swiftly, nervously, stopping only when the doctor’s form appeared in the low French window of the library.

“Are you out there, Bettina?” he called, peering uncertainly into the gloom. She came forward, and the light from the window fell upon her white, tense face.

Doctor Dawson gave the little grunt of disapproval which was his concession Of feminity. If he had been dealing with a man the grunt would probably have been an oath. There were many folk in the country around Hilldale for whom the doctor's profanity and brus-. querie quite obscured his skill and kindliness, who shook their heads dismally when his name was mentioned, and, with uplifted brows, whispered stories of his deplorable rudeness and godlessness; but none of the Hilldale poor were among the critics. Every child in the country was his friend, every dog along the country roads knew the doctor’s old buckboard and pacing sorrel, and wagged a joyous tail when they hove in sight. When the great surgeons came out to the little town they met the doctor as an equal, and even death seemed to have a wholesome respect for the little man who had so often worsted him in hand-to-hand conflict. The doctor’s vocabulary was rich and unconventional. Even his best friends couldn’t deny that; but, as Jim Bowers, the hotelkeeper, remarked after Doctor Dawsoil pulled him through a sharp attack of pneumonia : “Doc can swear rich and racy. I will eay that. He cussed that pneumonia right out’ of me, but he had his coat and collar oft and was workin’ all right, too. Bless you, the cussing weren’t personal! You see, Doc. gets up such a head of steam when he settles down to work that he’s just naturally got to let it off some way or bust all over the place. Swearing’s his safety-valve.”

The doctor made a laudable effort not to swear before women folk. Nothing short of acute and dangerous illness led him to overstep the rule, and the womeff who had been sick enough to hear him swear were seldom the ones who re-

sorted to the gentlemanly homoeopath on Valley-road. They thought too much of him, by the time he had dragged them out of the valley of the shadow, to be affected by his peculiarities. Bettina Morton had known him . all her life, and she read his emphatic grunt aright. “Yes?” she said, smiling into the frowning, yet friendly face. “I said twenty minutes. Didn't intend you should go in for a century run. Did you eat any dinner?” “No, I didn’t want anything.” The second grunt was eloquent.

“All women are fools —so are most men. It’ll help me out wonderfully to have you sick on our hands, won’t it T You go in and eat something hot and sensible, and then go up and let Alling get away. I left him in charge, and he hasn’t had any dinner.”

Bettina’s face was flooded with contrition.

“Oh, the poor fellow! I didn’t think.” She brushed hastily past the doctor, but he caught her arm. “Poor nothing! It won’t hurt the boy to be useful once in a way. You are to cat something before you go up to relieve him. I’ll be back before Remington comes. Got a. pretty sick boy down on Locust-street, and I want to fix him up for the night. Don’t ring. I’ll go out to the stable for Dolly.” He turned off'into the twilight, and Bettina, after succeeding in swallowing a cup of bouillon, went up to the room where the night-lamp burned. “You must go down and have some dinner, Charlie, and then go home,” she said softly. “I can’t tell you how grateful we are to you.” The young fellow stood hesitating beside the bed.

“I don’t like to leave you here alone before Tom comes.”

“Oh, that’s all right! The servants are here, and the doctor will be back soon, and I think Tom will come on the eight-thirty. He isn’t so restless, is he?” She turned a wide-eyed, fascinated gaze upon the bandaged head upon the pillow.

“No—mutters a little sometimes, that’s all. The doctor gave him something to quieten him, I think. The ice-bags have to be kept filled—and if he should get to tossing a bit he’s to have a teaspoonful of this stuff in the tumbler. I’ll go down and feed, for I’m as hollow as a drum—but I won’t leave the house.”

He left her sitting in the high-back-ed chair beside the bed —for the first time in her life alone with one who was dangerously ill—and she had scarcely stirred in her place when, twenty minutes later, she heard the roll of wheels on the drive.

“Tom!” she thought, with a sigh of relief and an involuntary relaxing of tense nerves and muscles. Tom’s sister did not share his wife’s belief in his omnipotence, but she was used to turning to him in emergencies, and she would be so glad to shift the responsibility to his ibroad shoulders. Quick steps came up the stairs and down the hall. The girl rose noiselessly, went to the door, opened it, and for a fraction of a second put her hand down on the shoulder of the big man whose genial, iboyish face was sobered by alarm and anxiety. He slipped his arm around her and

patted her awkwardly on the back with a big hand.

“Rough on you, Bettina,” he whispered, “but brace up. How is he?” She was standing straight and selfreliant again as they moved toward the bed, and in a low voice she told him how things stood.

“Poor duffer!” murmured Tom, honest grief under the inadequate words. “Poor duffer!”

Bettina took the little night-lamp from the table and held it so it lighted the sick man’s face as her brother bent over the bed.

Tom looked down pityingly, started, leaned nearer the pillow and stared with dilating eyes and mouth puckering slowly a« though for a long whistle. Then suddenly he straightened up, bee-

koued to his sister and made hastily] for the door, swelling visibly with suppressed excitement. Wondering, puzzled by Ws behaviour, Bettina put down the lamp, and followed him to the hall, closing the door behind her. Tom was standing with his hands in his pockets and bewilderment in every, line of his face. “For Heaven’s sake, Betty,” he said, in low, excited tones, “who’s that man ?” She stared at him blankly. Had he taken leave of his senses? “Why, Tom ” she began, but he interrupted her. “Where’s Watson?” he asked. “That’s not Watson!”

(Concluded next week.)