CHAPTER XIV—Continued
—16—
“That couldn’t be done, Serena,”
Quentin said quietly. “I have never
had this case. But I'm positive—I
don’t believe — I know — Dr. Cud
worth isn’t seriously suggesting—”
“You may do as you think best.
Doctor,” the other doctor said
abruptly. “I would have entire
faith in anything you saw fit to do.
But I personally must decline the
responsibility.”
“I have nothing to do with it,”
Quentin said briefly. Serena turned
on him.
“Spencer had acute indigestion,
and he’s got a bad heart,” she said.
“But believe me, if there’s any in
vestigation, if there’s one word of
talk, you’re in this, too, Quentin
Hardisty! I’ll not stand it. I’ll not
face a coroner and be questioned,
while you are quietly enjoying your
self over there on the lawn with
your wife, laughing and carrying
the children into the house!”
“I don't think that’ll happen,
Quentin said. But Vicky saw that
his face was pale. "I wish you’d
called me earlier!”
"How do you know what’ll hap
pen!” Serena said. "I know. I
can tell you! We had a coroner’s
Investigation when Gita’s father
died. I know what it means! You’ll
have to sign that death warrant,
Quentin, or I’ll have to drag your
name into it. You and I've talked
of what we'd do if he died; you can’t 1
deny that, if they put you on oath!
Everyone knows what we’ve been to
each other; you had a motive for
giving me something that would
put him to sleep. He told Dr. Cud
worth here that I wanted to get
rid of him.”
“Vic, do you want to stay?”
Quentin asked in an undertone, as
the breathless voice died to silence.
"This isn’t your sort of thing.”
"No, Vic won’t go," Serena said
at white heat. “You don’t think Vic
doesn’t know that you love me, that
you’ve been following me, making
me presents, writing me letters.”
Quentin looked at Vicky, looked
away; he spoke quietly.
"Vicky knows just how badly I’ve
treated her, Serena,” he said.
“She's always known, from the be
ginning. I’m not trying to wriggle
out of that. If you were really fool
enough to give Spencer sleeping
powders or anything else, I’m in it
with you. There’s no question that
you can drag my name and my
children’s names in the mud, if you
want to. You can take those let
ters into court—”
"Letters saying, 'If it weren’t
for Spencer . . Serena inter
rupted him.
"Letters saying everything,”
Quentin said in a low voice, with
a level glance at her. "Letters
saying everything!” he repeated.
“But one thing isn’t true,” he went
on slowly. “I’ve never loved but
one woman in all my life; never,
no matter what I said or wrote or
did. I’ve always loved my wife, al
ways, always held her in a place
by herself!”
Vicky went over to him and
dropped her hand into his, but he
did not glance at her or seem to
know that she was there.
“How nice!” Serena said. “So I
pay the bill alone. How very nice!”
“No, you and I’ll both pay!”
Quentin said. "And she’ll pay, too.
It means disgrace for us all.”
There was a sound at the door of
the invalid’s room; the amah came
out with an agitated face, shaking
her head. Serena gave a short ejac
ulation and, turning, went across
the hall to her own room and went
into it and closed the door. The
two doctors and Vicky faced the
Chinese woman as she came to
ward them. Her jargon was unin
telligible to Quentin. The promised
nurse, hatted, coated, cold, rosy,
came upstairs.
“Amah says Spencer heard your
voice and wants to speak to you,
Vicky interpreted.
“My God, when I saw her face I
thought the poor fellow was gone!”
Dr. Cudworth ejaculated.
“So did I!” Vicky said.
“Do you mean—” Quentin had
clutched her arm; his fingers bit
into it like a vise, he was almost
shouting. “What d’you mean? Isn’t
he gone?”
“Oh, no; but Quentin, there’s no
hope,” Vicky said.
“Master say other doctor come
now," the amah said in a singsong.
“Yes, come in with me, for God’s
sake, Hardisty, and see what you
think!” Cudworth said, as they all
went together to Spencer’s door.
Vicky heard Quentin mutter as if
he spoke to himself: “We all stand
there talking while the poor fellow
dies!”
Then they were in the sickroom;
Vicky watching her husband’s, rath
er than the patient’s, face, her own
face reflecting the fluctuations of
feeling she saw there.
“Quentin,” the sick man said,
clutching at his hand, all personal
feeling fbrgotten in the grips of life
and death, "you can do something
for me, can’t you? For God’s sake
get me out of this, operate, do any
thing! That ass there,” he whis
pered, with a flickering glance at
that agitated Cud worth, “tells me
I’m washed up. There's something
you can do?”
Quentin spoke urgently, definite
ly:
“Vic, get to a telephone and tell
Anna to come over right away with
that big package that’s on my desk;
it's from Lengfeld’s—she can’t miss
it. Rush it! And just as soon as
you’ve done that, get the amah to
get plenty of hot water, boiling wa
ter. I suppose there's a table here,
a long table, flat—”
“You think so, Doctor?" faltered
the other doctor.
“I know so!” Quentin shouted,
suddenly mad with impatience.
“Just lie quiet there, Spencer,” he
added to the patient, “and we’ll get
you out of this if we can.”
"I’ve got an even break? Spen
cer asked.
“Not quite so good. We won’t
know quite what chance you’ve got
until we’ve gone a little further. Ah,
here's our nurse. We want a surgi
cal bath here, nurse, as fast as you
can manage t; we’ve no time to
waste.”
Vicky ran downstairs, ran upstairs
for sheets; Serena was not in evi
dence, and nobody asked for her.
The nurse suggested a rubber sheet,
and Anna panting in with the big
bundle, was sent flying back to the
Hardistys’ for one. Presently there
was nothing for Vicky to do except
sit on a chair in the hall and wait—
and think—and wait.
Quentin came out with a nurse’s
white apron tied on him back to
front and asked for soda, just
plain kitchen soda.
“And you might as well go home,
Vic; this’ll take it out of you.”
“No, I’ll wait. Quent, has he a
chance?”
"I’m afraid not, but we’ll try.
They're putting him under now;
we’ll know in an hour.”
“She couldn’t”—Vicky glanced at
the closed door of Serena’s room—
“She wouldn’t have done it!” she
whispered.
“ I don’t know. But it s not for him
I’m fighting, Vic,” Quentin said.
“It’s for ail of us. It’s touch and
go now; if he lives, we live, and if
he dies, I may have gotten you into
something you’ll never get out of,
my dear.”
“You’ll bo in it, too!”
"I’ll be in it, too. Oh, she couldn’t
get me in as an accomplice,” Quen
tin said. “But she could do enough
to ruin us all. We’d have to go
away, Vic.”
“We’d go away.”
“And the story would follow us,
and follow the children. That’s all
A’ve done to you!” Quentin said.
“The woman—the amah—has pro
duced a bottle, half full, that would
kill ten men. Our one hope is that
it was about a ten-times dose, and
in lemonade. Lemon is the only
anti-acid that touches it! If any
thing saves him, that’ll save him—
that is, if we get to the kidney in
time.”
“You will!” Vicky said, with her
faithful eyes on his and her world
rocking about her and her lips
white.
“You nelieve in God, don’t you?”
Quent asked, almost absentminded
ly
“I do.”
“Then—while I’m in there, you
pray, Vic.” He kissed her without
smiling, without seeming even to
see her; released her from his
arms. “My God, you are a tower of
strength to me,” he said. “You are
a rock of help! Pray for every
thing we’ve got, while I’m in there—
the kids and the home—everything!
I always thought — I always
thought,” Quentin muttered, turn
ing away, “that I’d like my boys
to be proud of their father. My
kids.”
He went into the sickroom, and
Vicky waited. There was a big
Spanish cjiair in the upper hall of
the Morrison place, and she sat in
it and clasped her hands to keep
them still and prayed. A Navajo
blanket, richly striped with yellow
and black and scarlet, had been
hanging over the black iron railing
of the stairway; she wrapped it
about her; the night was bitterly
cold
CHAPTER XV
Silence and night and vigil. Un
seen somewhere a clock struck the
hours and the half-hours; outside in
the dark a rising wind whined un
easily, and now and then a broken
branch skittered on the tiling of
the roof. In the upper hallways of
the Morrison house one lamp
burned softly, steadily; from the
half-open door that led into Spen
cer’s room came sounds: Low
voices, the creaking of a bed and
the clinking of ice, and once a
sort of bubbling groan that made
Vicky’s heart stop for a moment
in terror.
She prayed, trying not to think,
drowsed, awakened with a start to
And that it was not all a strange
dream. She really was here in the
Morrison house in the middle of the
night, Quentin was behind that bed
room door, bringing all his skill,
every ounce of strength and knowl
edge and inspiration that he could
muster to the saving of Spencer
Morrison’s life, and Serena was in
her bedroom only a few feet away
somehow living through the hours
that would decide whether or not
she would be tried on a charge of
murder.
What was she doing? Vicky won
dered. She had swept away from
the group hours earlier, had closed
her bedroom door upon whatever
she was experiencing, suffering.
Furious with fear, the accusing eyes
of both doctors upon her, their flat
refusals to perjure themselves in
protecting her still ringing in her
astounded ears, and Spencer strug
gling in death throes of her causing,
she had angrily withdrawn. Had she
flung herself down on her bed and
fallen into dreamless sleep? Vic
wondered.
“But I’m just magnifying the
whole thing into an absolute buga
boo!” Victoria told herself. “It
won’t happen that way! Spencer
will die of an operation, Quentin
can sign a certificate about that,
anyway, and Cudworth won’t talk,
he’s got his own professional repu
tation to protect, he doesn’t want to
be mixed into any murder trial!
She’ll go away, and this time next
year we’ll be worrying about some
thing else!”
She could reassure herself for a
moment; then the solitude and si
lence of the night began to work
"I’ve Got an Even Break?"
Spencer Asked.
their spell again, and Victoria felt
with a sort of desperation that if
Quentin didn’t come out of that
room pretty soon . . .
The amah appeared presently,
looking like a little old mahogany
carving in a black-and-white cotton
coat.
“Fix room for nurse,” she whis
pered, and Vicky was glad to go
with her to the spare room, help
her in the warming human business
of making beds and arranging tow
els. He wasn’t dead yet, anywayl
Before they had finished, Quentin
and Dr. Cudworth joined them.
Quentin looked exhausted; his
hair was tumbled, and his operating
gown, one of Miss Pierce’s aprons
put on backward, was spattered
with red. He took off the apron.
“Excuse my appearance, Vic,”
he said, sitting down panting. “My
Lord, but that was quick work!”
“How is he?” Vicky asked. But
even before she asked it, the blood
had come back to her heart and
she had had time to feel an al
most frightening first ecstasy of
hope.
"He’s doing remarkable,’’ Dr.
Cudworth said. “And he can thank
your good husband here. You are,
in my opinion, a genius. Dr. Har
disty.”
“Oh, Quent, there isn’t really a
chance?”
“Magnificent constitution, and his
own feeling will help," Quentin still
ghastly pale and breathing hard,
said to the other doctor. And then
to Vicky, “Everything is as good as
it can be; better, I would say. He
opened his eyes and looked at me;
it didn’t take him five minutes to
get his bearings.”
Vicky sat down in a winged chair
and put her hands over her eyes
and began to cry, and Quentin,
leaning over to pat her on the back,
laughed with tears in his own eyes.
“I’m ash-sh-shamed of myself!”
she stammered, looking up to smile
through wet lashes. “But—but it
saves us all! It saves us all, Quen
tin. I’ve been sitting out there
alone, thinking and thinking.”
“Did she come out at all?" the
local doctor asked in the pause.
“Mrs. Morrison?”
“She’s probably packing,” Quen
tin said. “I imagine she’ll get out
right away. It would be the best
thing all round if she did.”
“Oh, but Quentin, the relief!”
Vicky’s eyes shone like stars; it
was too good to be true, too good
tr be true! “If you hadn’t come
back from the hospital!" she said
with a shudder. "If you’d stlD been
in Germany! Quentin, will there
have to be an investigation now,
will there be any talk of poison?”
"I don’t think so," Quentin said
somewhat uncertainly, looking at
his colleague. The other doctor re
peated the phrase more decidedly.
"I’m extremely glad to wash my
hands of the whole thing,” Dr. Cud
worth said. "He’s warned now,
and I think we might give the nurse
a hint; it seems to me we might—”
“I am going to talk to both,
nurses; I’ve had this girl telephone
for another,” Quentin said, and once
again Vicky thought that he was
two men; the Quentin who was the
children's adored "Dad,” easy and
quiet and quite willing to take
their word for anything, to listen
to them, to learn from them, and
this other Quentin, who held life
and death in his big square hands.
"It would be better to get him into
a hospital, of course, but we can’t
move him now. You say Serena
hasn’t shown up at all?" he asked
Victoria,when they were all out
in the hall again.
"Not a sound."
"Will you wake her up? I’m going
to take a look at Spencer. Amah
here will let the nurse go down
for some coffee. I’ve got to talk to
Serena.”
Victoria crossed the upper hall,
turned the knob of Serena’s door,
and spoke from the threshold:
"Serena!”
There was complete darkness
within. Serena’s apartment was on
the western side of the house, and
the first dim grayness of dawn that
had struck into the kitchen, and
that was now timidly attacking the
eastern world, had made no en
trance here. There was black night
beyond Serena's window, and in
the room vague, darker shadows.
Vicky groped inside the door cas
ing. found a switch, and inundated
the place with soft, rosy light.
Everything was orderly enough.
Vicky had seen these pink taffeta
fittings before, the pink-brocaded
walls, the long-legged doll and Man
darin lamps, the black worsted dog
with the beady eyes. But there was
in the silence here now something
indefinably frightening. Her heart
beat fast with terror.
Serena, still wearing the pale lav
ender dressing gown in which Vicky
had first seen her last night, was
lying flat across the unopened bed.
The delicate pink taffeta covers still
were spread in their daytime posi
tion, and flowed over the dais in
thick rich flouncing and folds. At
the top of the low wide bed, a half
circle of finely pleated silk rose
like a moon. Beside the pillows
were the night tattle and the pink
lamps, the pink-and-white tele
phone, the book in a tooled vellum
cover that Serena had been read
ing.
"Serena! Spencer's better. They
think he will live. Quentin wants
to speak to you!”
Silence. The room’s mistress lay
as she might have lain in a moment
of sleep. She was lying on her
back, her beautiful hair loosened
and falling in a cascade over her
shoulder, one arm hanging relaxed
over the edge of the bed. Vicky’s
heart suddenly rose into her throat,
and she felt her knees weaken.
She dared not turn her back on
this room. Instead she backed
slowly away, heard the men emerg
ing from Spencer's room; turned to
show them an ashen face and to
clutch at Quentin’s arm.
"Oh, Quentin, she’s only asleep,
I guess, but don’t go in there!
Don’t. She’s lying on her bed—she
didn’t go to bed—I spoke to her
and she didn’t stir.”
"What’s the matter, Vicky?”
Quentin asked, surprised, weary.
"What did she say? Has she faint
ed?”
He went toward Serena’s door.
Vicky, with a little gasp of fright,
followed along beside him. Again
she looked at the rosy beauty of
Serena’s room: the pink lights on
delicate pink silk, the litter of
beautiful luxurious nothings with
which Serena had surrounded her*
s a rabbit-skin rug, silver frames
and vases, tortoise - shell fitting
mounted in gold for the desk at
which Serena wrote only love notes.
"Wait a minute!” Quentin said
sharply. He went to the bed,
touched the figure lying there;
gripped the unresponsive shoulder
with a big hand and shook it. "Se
rena!” he said. And then, turning
to Vicky and the other doctor:
"Look here!”
"What is it?” Cudworth asked,
advancing into the room.
"Dead!” Quentin said.
“Oh, no, Quent!” Vicky was cling
ing to his arm. "Oh, no! Who
would do it, who would do it?”
"She’s done it herself, eh?" Cud
worth asked. He stooped and picked
from the floor something that glit
tered brightly in the soft light. "Ye
didn’t care for that investigation,
did ye, my lady?” the old man
queried, staring down at the dead
woman with a shrewd light in his
eyes.
"Suicide!” Vicky whispered.
"Yes; she did it herself,” Quen
tin muttered. "Look there!”
(TO BE CONTINUED)
Statue to Morgan Horse
The Morgan horse was developed
in New England. In 1921 a statue of
Justin Morgan, the progenitor of
this race, was erected on the U. S.
Morgan Horse Farm at Middlebury,
Vt., on the 100th anniversary of the
death of this famous horse. This
farm of 400 acres was given to the
Department of Agriculture in 1907,
to be used for developing the best
Morgan blood.
Ask Me
Another ■
A Quiz With
Answers Offering
Information on
Various Subjects
1. How many submarine cables
are there in the world?
2. What people were the first to
use forks?
3. What states have the most in
stitutions of higher education?
4. How many airplanes are
there in the world?
5. Into what body of water does
the Chicago river flow?
6. How many varieties of post
age stamps are there in the
world?
7. Is there a memorial to Ste
phen Collins Foster on the
Suwannee river?
Answers
1. There are more than 3,000
submarine cables in the world
with a total length of more than
300,000 miles.
2. According to the National
Geographic society the Italians
were the first to use forks for eat
ing, and were ridiculed as sissies.
3. Those having the greatest
number of colleges and universi
ties, professional schools, teach
ers’ colleges, normal schools, etc.,
are New York, with 105, and Cal
ifornia, with 102.
4. The world today possesses
approximately 63,000 airplanes,
more than 42,000 of which are mil
itary or naval machines, accord
ing to Collier’s Weekly.
5. The Chiango river originally
emptied into Lake Michigan. Now
water from the lake is forced
through the river into the Illinois
river and so into the Mississippi
river. Thus it may be said that
the Chicago river flows backward.
6. The post offices of the world
issue 56,874 varieties of stamps.
7. In 1928 a monument to the
songwriter was erected at Fargo,
Ga., headwaters of the Suwannee.
It has recently been announced
that an amphitheater in his mem
ory will be built by the Florida
Giving and Asking
In offering help, you make a
step toward gaining a friend; in
asking it, you please by this mark
of confidence. The result of this
will be a constant habit of mutual
forbearance, and a fear to be dis
obliging in matters of greater im
portance.
Federation of Music Clubs on the
banks of the river. Foster never
saw the Suwannee, but picked the
name from an atlas because of
its sound.
Stationary Sun
When we say that the sun has
set w'e use a term which is quite
incorrect. The sun does not rise
or set, for as far as the earth is
concerned it remains stationary.
The sun appears in the morning
and disappears at night because
the earth revolves on its own
axis, and this daily revolution ex
poses us to the sun for that period
which we call a day.
"Here, Dad, put some
of this on—it'll lip
farther!”
GO F/tXmCK.
BEFORE YOU NEED A QUART
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a motor oil of supreme quality, that
is economical, and available wherever
you may go. Try Quaker State.
You'll find you go farther before you
need to add a quart because “there’s
an extra quart of lubrication in every
gallon. "The retail price i# 35ff a
quart. Quaker StateOil Refining
Corporation, Oil City, Pa.
RUCK
JONES
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I WISH I
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