Spice Box E-Book

Grace Livingston Hill

• Herausgeber: Reading Essentials
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

He saved her life, then grew to love her. But can Dr. Sterling discover what is forcing his beautiful patient to keep her identity a secret?

Leseprobe

Spice Box 

by Grace Livingston Hill

First published in 1943

This edition published by Reading Essentials

Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany

[email protected]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Chapter 1

The snow was falling heavily in great blankety flakes as the cars wallowed back from the cemetery. Janice sat staring out the window into the impenetrable whiteness, hearing but not listening to the low-toned, guarded speech of Herbert, her brother-in-law, and Mr. Travillion, the old family lawyer. She was too weary even to think of what might be in the life that was ahead for her.

Then the car turned into their drive and stopped before the door, and the girl shuddered and half drew back as Herbert offered to help her out.

“Good night, Miss Whitmore. Good night, Mr. Stuart,” said the old lawyer, with an all-too-apparent hand on the latch of the car door. “I’ll be seeing you about that matter we spoke of in a few days!” She must not linger. The old man was in a hurry, and Herbert was standing out in the snow. He would be angry.

Out in the walk Herbert grasped her arm as if to steady her steps, but a rush of dislike for him overcame her fear of slipping, and she rushed up the steps regardless of the snow, which had covered several inches deep all traces of the feet that had carried her sister’s casket out of the house a little while before. The thought of it came to the girl as she hurried up to the porch, almost falling, and tried to open the door.

But someone had put the night latch on, and by the time the servant arrived her brother-in-law was beside her, his hand on her arm again with a proprietary air.

“What are you in such a rush about?” he asked her gruffly. “Anybody would think you might be a little more decorous, at least until you get into the house.”

She shrank away from him into the hall, her handkerchief at her eyes, and hastened toward the stairs. How she dreaded to look about the familiar rooms in their prim, funeral order. It seemed so horribly empty in the space where the casket had stood. And there were still flowers everywhere, on the mantel and tables and window ledges. There had been too many to take to the cemetery. Her breath caught in a quick sob as she stumbled forward to the stairs.

Then suddenly Herbert’s voice broke on the silence of the so-called empty house.

“That’s enough sniveling, Janice! We’re done with all that foolishness now. I’ve stood in this gloom for six weeks, but I won’t stand it another hour! Louise is out of it all, and there’s no call for any sentimental bawling. I want a little cheer in my house, and I’m going to have it. You go upstairs and take off those black rags that make you look like a death’s head, and come down to dinner in something bright and cheerful! It’s high time things were done to please me. And no long faces, mind you! Get a little color into your face, and be prepared to make me have a pleasant evening. I’ve ordered a good dinner, and we’re going to have a little enjoyment in life after all the gloom!”

Janice turned in dismay, her face ashen white against the blackness of her garments.

“Oh Herbert! I couldn’t! Not tonight!”

Herbert glared at her, a threatening light in his eyes.

“Don’t you say ‘couldn’t’ to me, young lady!” he roared, and took an unsteady step toward her, recalling to her mind that he had had a number of drinks that morning before the funeral. Her experience through the years she had lived in this household had taught her that when Herbert did much drinking, she and her sister might look for trouble.

“A little decent treatment is what I deserve after all I’ve suffered, and I’m going to have it,” he went on in a high-pitched voice. “Your sister lay down on her job and died, but you’ve got to do as I say, understand?”

Janice began to tremble. Well, she knew that it was of no use to protest when he was in that mood. She turned to hide the quivering of her lips, the falling of her tears, but she was too tired even to try to stop.

“Put on one of your fancy evening dresses. The coral one, or the turquoise. I guess you look best in that. Put rouge on your face, and lipstick, and try to be attractive for once. I’m sick of your washed-out, sniveling looks. I want something cheerful around me. And hurry down soon. I don’t want to be kept waiting. Go, I say, and be quick about it.”

He was speaking to her with the tone he had used to her sister Louise so often during those last two awful years before her death, trying to force her to get up and be lively when she was too weak to stand on her feet.

He had never used that tone with Janice before, for she had always kept out of his way when he was in this mood. Louise had seen to that. Though of late, his manner with Janice had been admiring and affectionate as if she were a little child, growing constantly too affectionate, till her dislike for him had deepened into first dread and then fear. This had made her many times contemplate the possibility of going away permanently from the shelter of her sister’s luxurious but unhappy home. The sister’s certain distress and unhappiness without her had been the only thing that held her.

But the final weeks of Louise’s illness had, of course, separated Janice much from her brother-in-law, as she had been almost constantly beside the sickbed and had not come down to meals at all while he was in the house.

The past four days of deep sorrow had made her forget for the first time her fear, and as yet she had not looked into the immediate future.

Now, however, she was suddenly face-to-face with her unnamed fear, and with no frail, sweet sister to protect her. What should she do? She must go away at once, of course, but not tonight in this terrible storm. And she was in no state of mind either to get ready or to know how to plan and where to go. Besides, there were servants and neighbors to be considered. What would they say? What would they think? For Louise’s sake she must plan so that there would be no scandal, no gossip. Louise had endured everything so that no breath of scandal should be spoken about her broken hopes of life. She must for Louise’s sake get away quietly and naturally if possible, so that no one would think it strange for her to leave so abruptly the home where she had been for the past five years, an apparently loved and honored member of the household.

Gathering all her forces she faced the angry man, her own sweet conquering expression on her face, the look her dead sister used so many times to wear under such circumstances.

“Herbert, really, I’m almost worn out with all I’ve been through. Couldn’t you excuse me this evening? I do need the rest.”

She was very young and sweet. The dark shadows that sorrow had etched under her eyes only served to bring out her loveliness in spite of her pallor. She spoke pleasantly, coaxing, as one tries to explain to an unreasonable child.

Usually her gentle tones had a quieting effect upon him, but tonight he was not himself. He had kept up nerve and brain all day by his many visits to that costly decanter in his library. It was not that he loved his wife so much, for it was long since he had even pretended to do so, but his conscience perhaps—if he had any left—must have set up a rebuking clamor when he saw her lying white and still, a lovely waxen shadow of what she used to be when he married her, before he broke her heart. Death had renewed her youth and set a seal of something more upon her exquisite face, which spoke of immortality and condemned his own weakness. He dared not to face it, so he had tried to drown his conscience into drunkenness. Janice, as she faced him, suddenly realized that she had never seen him in quite this state before, and her spirit quailed within her.

Then his voice thundered out so it could be heard all over the house.

“You’ll do what I say, do you understand? I’m not going to have any more nonsense about it either. I’m master in my own house, and you’re not going to dictate to me the way your nitwit of a sister tried to do. Perhaps you don’t know that you’re entirely dependent upon me now. Your own money was all invested in a stock company that failed a year ago, and you’re absolutely penniless! Your fool sister wouldn’t have told you about it, but it’s all true. So, you see, I’ve been keeping you in luxury all this time, and I guess you can see something is due to me. I’m not going to throw you out as long as you obey me, but I want you to understand once and for all that you are dependent on me, and when I express a wish for anything, it’s up to you to grant it.”

She stood wide-eyed, with anger flashing in her eyes. The blackguard! To dare to take the sacred name of his sweet wife upon his lips in such a way! She was weak with the horror of it! She longed to strike him, to wither him with words. Yet she knew it would be useless to answer him. Louise had never been able to silence him, though she had tried it in many ways. What should she do? Could she possibly hope that if she went upstairs and dressed in brighter garments he would subside and forget some of the things he had said, be more reasonable?

A great fear seized upon her. Dare she stay here overnight? Yet how could she go out in this storm and darkness?

Then she caught a vision of the maid’s frightened, curious gaze peering from behind the heavy curtain of the dining room door. She must somehow quiet this maniac and keep the servants from hearing what was going on if possible.

Her face froze into sudden haughtiness, and her voice was low and controlled, although the effort it took was almost more than she could endure.

“Very well,” she said coldy, and turning, hurried up the stairs. Her mind was in a tumult. Somehow she must quiet this fiend, and afterward she would get out of the house as quickly as possible, no matter how bad the storm.

Hastily she removed her black garments and went to the wardrobe where hung the pretty dresses that her loving sister had provided for her. But she could not bring herself to put them on. The sight of them sent the tears stinging into her eyes. Frantically she reached for a little white crepe de Chine, simply made, that had been her graduating dress the year before. She dashed cold water into her face to repair the damages sorrow had made, and hurried into the dress. Her eyes grew dangerously bright with the excitement of her hurry, and the deadly pallor of her face was heightened by a vivid spot of color that flew into her cheeks. But she did not stop to look at herself. She was too anxious about what was before her to care how she looked. She did not know how beautiful she was as she came down the stairs. But the man at the foot of the stairs knew, and came toward her.

Herbert had taken off his overcoat and hung it in the hall closet, paused to take a deep draught from a bottle he had hidden on a shelf behind the door, and then as he heard her descending the stairs, he hastily corked the almost empty bottle and slid it back on the shelf. Leaving the door carelessly swinging open behind him, he hurried out and waited for her at the foot of the stairs, a maudlin delight in his drunken face that filled her with a frenzy of fear. Yet she did her best to come on calmly, not to let him see that she was frightened.

The heavy frown cleared away from Herbert’s cruelly handsome face, and something almost gloating took its place, as if he were watching a new possession and delighting in it, a possession whose full value he had not heretofore realized. Trying not to look at him, nor to see the expression of his face, Janice came steadily down till she reached the last step. Then suddenly Herbert stepped forward, lifting her hand from the banister and drawing her close to him. Flinging his arms about her fiercely, he laid his lips on her sweet shrinking ones and strained her to him.

“My darling! My beautiful one,” he cried, pressing his face to hers, “you are all mine now! There is no one between us anymore!”

With a wild cry Janice tried to tear herself away from his grasp, those circling arms that were so fierce and strong about her, to turn her face away from those disgusting, clinging lips, gasping and crying out, forgetful of listening servants, of all else save the necessity to get away. But she was held as in a vise, and her face was smothered with loathsome kisses.

At last she wrenched one hand loose and beat wildly against his face, his eyes, his mouth, she could not see where, only to struggle her best and get away.

For an instant he struggled with her, angrily, and then one of her blows must have reached his eye, for he staggered back, his hold about her relaxing, and the girl slid down at his feet.

“You little devil!” he said fiercely. “I’ll teach you! You’ll learn to take it and like it, do you hear that?” And with one hand to his eye, he staggered toward her again.

But Janice, her terror giving her new strength, sprang to her feet and fled from his outstretched hands down the hall toward the front door. Where she was going she did not stop to think, only to get out and away.

Before her stood the hall closet door, swung wide, as Herbert had carelessly left it, and there on the door hook hung an old evening wrap of her sister’s, a long warm circular garment of dull blue. It was richly lined and trimmed with fur, but of a fashion of several years back, and therefore it had fallen into common use. Louise had worn it, she remembered, that last walk they took together around the yard before her final illness and, coming in exhausted, had thrown it down on a hall chair where the maid had found it and hung it in the closet. Such a train of thought to flash across her mind in that moment of stress, but it was her sister’s hand held out to help her.

She caught at the cloak now and dashed out the front door, closing it sharply behind her. She knew that Herbert would be following at once. There was no time to pause.

The fierce winter wind met her like a wild beast, breathed its burning-cold breath on her bare arms and throat, searched her shrinking flesh clad in that thin gown. The sleet cut and scratched her face and hands, and the first step of her light slippers from the threshold into the deep carpet of snow that had already drifted up to the very doorway chilled her through and through.

Yet she dared not hesitate an instant. She plunged wildly down the steps and into the deeper snow of the path, struggling frantically while she tried to fling the cloak about her. She finally succeeded in straining it across her shoulders, holding it fast as she fought against fierce wind and snow, down to the street and out on the road, not realizing what direction she was taking.

Something had happened to the streetlights, and the way was very dark as she sped on. Her fingers were fumbling to find the fastenings of the cloak. If she could only get it buttoned about her! And there was a capacious hood that would cover her head.

But she was too much afraid that Herbert would come out after her. She was faintly conscious that she heard the front door open behind her, heard her name called fiercely, angrily, and so she sped on into the darkness. The sound made her forget the cold and wet, and she plunged wildly on in the night. She must get away from Herbert. If he caught her he would bring her back, and she dared not think of what might happen.

When the baffled maniac rallied from the pain in his eyes Janice’s blow had given him, he stumbled toward the front door, pausing a moment to look into the hall coatroom, with a vague idea that the girl might be hiding in there, else why should that door be open? His dazed mind utterly forgot that he had left it unlatched when he hung up his hat and coat. But he could not believe that Janice had actually gone into the storm on a night like this.

And then he flung the front door wide, and the light streamed out into the storm, lighting up the snow-filled air till it seemed like a great shaft of gold. Janice, shivering into the shelter of a great hedge, saw it and hurried off, farther and farther from the house.

Herbert had expected to find his young sister-in-law near at hand. Perhaps hiding on the front porch. Or she might have merely gone around to the back door and entered the house again that way. She would likely go up to her room and lock herself in. If she had, he would get her, even if he had to break down the door. She should not elude him. He would find her and bring her down again and conquer her!

He purposely waited a moment, to frighten her, if she had really gone out. She would be ready enough to come back out of the cold when she got good and scared, but now, as he stepped outside the doorway and gazed up and down the white flurry of the outer world, he could not see any sign of her. The deep whiteness everywhere brought to his muddled mind the scene at the grave and the awful whiteness of the cemetery. He turned angrily back into the warmth and light of the house, shuddering away from the whirlwind of whiteness. She must be in the house somewhere. She must be! He slammed the door shut, leaving her out in the storm. He could never follow her out into that cold and sleet. He hated discomfort. Not even his anger could carry him so far.

Janice heard the slamming of the door, but did not know whether he had gone back or was still following her, and her terrified feet kept speeding on, numb with cold in their slight covering, struggling through the deep snow as though by superhuman strength. Corner after corner she turned in her flight, out into the country, not stopping to think where she was going.

Stumbling and blind, scarcely knowing what she did, she made her way into the road, through drifts that almost brought her to her knees. Only the strenuous effort necessary to keep moving made her unaware of the fearful cold, the sting of the sleet in her face, the numbing ache in her feet. The hood had slipped back from her head and the snow was covering her hair, lashing into her eyes unmercifully.

And then at the crossroads there was a familiar sign pointing the way to the cemetery. Without an instant’s hesitation she turned into the road through which she had ridden only a little while before. Ah! Here was sanctuary! There was no place for her in this world, but she could rest beside her sister. Here was peace!

She stumbled on. The snow had drifted deeply here, and in some places was much beyond her depth. But she floundered on, again and again plunging down into what seemed bottomless depths and then struggling up again, on toward the place where they had laid her sister that afternoon.

The drifts were deeper here, for the wind had been at work, sweeping down the long bare road from the hilltop, hurling the eddying snow higher. At the side there were places where it was even now above her head, with only a narrow path that was wadable around it, and ever as she struggled on, each step seemed more and more impossible.

The tears had frozen on her white cheeks, and her lips were numb with cold. The frozen cry of her heart stifled in her throat, and there was none to hear. “Oh Louise, my sister, let me come with you!”

Then suddenly she stumbled forward and lost her footing in a deep drift that seemed to envelope her. And there above her loomed the big stone arch that marked the entrance of the cemetery.

She sank back wearily, and the great white drift received her and folded cold arms about her. The lights from the stone arches touched her gold hair till it looked like a coronet, and the long sable-edged robe wrapped around her like a sumptuous winding sheet.

Once she opened her eyes, looked up to the gateway, and tried to struggle up again but found herself too weary and sank back once more, dreaming that her wish for death was coming true. For Herbert would never think to seek for her there. She was alone and safe at last.

Was God anywhere about? And did He care?

Then she closed her eyes, and the snow softly fell on her face and on her eyelids, and the light glinted down and touched her with unearthly beauty.

Chapter 2

Howard Sterling, the young house doctor from the sanitarium at Enderby, had been detailed to accompany a patient home who was still in critical condition, but whom for certain reasons it seemed best to put back among familiar surroundings for a time.

They went in the ambulance. Two nurses had attended on the way and were to remain with the patient indefinitely. The young doctor was to stay overnight if it seemed necessary. But if all went well he had promised to return that evening so that another intern who was taking his place in his absence might get away to attend his sister’s wedding. The patient had borne it well and did not seem much exhausted. The experiment of bringing him home had proved so far a successful one, and he seemed to be resting comfortably. There was no reason at all why the young doctor should stay any longer. The ambulance had returned immediately, but there was still time to make the six o’clock train back to Enderby and take over for Brownleigh so that he could start early for the wedding.

On the other hand, there was a girl, Rose Bradford, in whom he was somewhat interested. She lived only five miles from the house of the patient, and there was time, if he hurried, to make a call upon Rose and then return to see how the patient fared before catching the seven o’clock train from the Crossroads Junction. It was an express that would get him to Enderby a little after eight. He could telephone Brownleigh to arrange for one of the other doctors to take over during the brief interval, only a half hour or so. That would still get Brownleigh to the wedding in time. It was better, perhaps, that he should arrange to do this and so have time to take another look at the patient before he left anyway. So his decision was made.

There was no difficulty in securing a conveyance to take him over to the Bradford estate. The grateful family of the patient could not do enough for him. Dr. Sterling was speeding in a luxurious car toward Rose Bradford.

It happened that Rose was even more interested in the young doctor than he was in her, and she was quite anxious for her father to meet him. She knew her father was a man of influence and could, if he chose, put her young doctor on his way to a name and fame, and place him far beyond the mere drudgery of a common house doctor in a private hospital. So as soon as she received his telephone call she set about at once planning how she might keep him at her home until her father’s return that evening, to dinner, and for the night. Then they would have opportunity to get acquainted.

There was quite a house party of young people staying at Bradford Gables, and they put their heads together to make arrangements for a brilliant evening affair that would without doubt beguile the staunchest and sternest adherent to duty that the medical profession could show. So when young Sterling arrived at the Gables he found the stage set for a prolonged stay, with a delightful program prepared.

He looked about the luxurious house and down on the attractive Rose-girl who awaited his answer with eyes that pleaded eloquently, and felt greatly tempted.

Rose Bradford was small and slender, with wild-rose cheeks and lips like a small red bud. Her hair was dark and curling and fitted close about her face.

He looked down admiringly into her lovely, dark, melting eyes, and his expressive face took on that indulgent gentleness used to speaking to sweet, pretty children.

“How I wish I could,” he said wistfully. “It would be most charming. You certainly are an enchantress, and perhaps I should turn and flee at once, for you are making it more and more difficult for me.”

The eyes melted their sweetest into his glance, and the pleading began in a soft, gentle voice. She was thinking how engagingly the doctor’s crisp hair waved away from his forehead. He was handsome as a Greek god. Why did he have to be poor, and a doctor? Why hadn’t he been born the son of a millionaire instead of that tiresome Channy Foswick that her mother wanted her to marry?

There was a fresh, bright color on the young doctor’s cheeks that spoke of abounding health and clean living, but Rose didn’t think much about such things. She was admiring the interesting whimsical twinkle in his gray eyes, and she was determined to keep him at the house as long as possible, so she kept up her insistence.

“But I can’t possibly stay,” he told her. “The man who is taking my place at the sanitarium is due at his sister’s wedding tonight. I promised to be back and take over.”

Rose shrugged her dainty shoulders. “After all, what is asister’swedding? He wouldn’t be missed,” she said. “It isn’t as if it were something necessary, like illness or death. Can’t you make it up to him afterward? Get him a whole day off or something? Besides, wouldn’t he think the patient had required you to stay? Isn’t it really safer for you to stay a few days and see how the patient gets along at home? Surely you ought to stay, at least overnight.”

But young Dr. Sterling, in spite of his Greek-god features, had a strong firm chin under the curve of his pleasant mouth.

“No,” he said, “I couldn’t do anything like that, not for anyone. I have made a promise and I will not go back on it. Brownleigh is depending on me. It wouldn’t be right.”

The melting brown eyes flashed, the lips took on a look of scorn.

“No,” he said firmly.

She argued and coaxed, but all to no purpose. The time was going that he had hoped to have filled with pleasant talk, and so at last he left her, quite disappointed that she had been so unreasonable, so determined to have her own way. Of course, she had been brought up to have everything she desired. And he was a fool even to play around for an hour or two with such a girl. She was not for him. He still had his way to make. He could never hope to give her all she would want.

But although he had started away in plenty of time for the plan he had made, the costly car in which he had been sent to Bradford Gables was not equipped for the snow that had fallen so rapidly even in this short time, and a slight breakdown delayed them further, so that when they arrived back at the Martin mansion it was quite dark, and he was not a little worried lest he was even now going to have trouble making his train. Also by this time his mind had suffered a turnaround, and it began to seem little short of cruel to have come away leaving the beautiful girl so unhappy. He began to question his own actions. Brownleigh had perfectly understood that it might not be possible for him to return in time. Perhaps it would have been all right to have stayed. Well, he would see how his patient was. Let that settle it. And yet, did he have the meekness to return to Rose after he had been so decided in refusing to stay?

He went up to his patient and found him sleeping quietly, his pulse steady, his whole condition very good. Well, there was nothing for it but to go back to the sanitarium and send Brownleigh off to the wedding.

The chauffeur, meanwhile, had put chains on the car, but the family of the patient were solicitous about him. They begged him to telephone the sanitarium and stay at least overnight. The storm was a real blizzard, they said. He might be snowed in on the train for hours. But when he firmly resisted their appeals, they served him hot delicacies and insisted on loaning him a great fur overcoat that they said would keep him warm on the train in case they were snowed in. And at last he was started.

It was not far to the Junction, only a matter of four or five miles, and the doctor had orders to stay overnight at the Junction if the roads were too bad to return home, so there was no need to worry about him.

Sterling had telephoned Brownleigh just before leaving the house, and the relief in the other’s voice when he found Sterling was returning left no doubt in his mind concerning his duty. Also, Brownleigh’s report of one particular patient made him still more anxious to get back to his work.

But as he sat in the dark in the car, Rose Bradford’s pretty alluring face kept coming across his vision. The disappointed pout, the tearful eyes. Yet what had he to do with her, child of luxury, who had stooped to coax one of the world’s workers to while away a stormy evening?

He set his lips in the darkness and began planning how he might conquer fate, make himself a force in the world, one who would have a right to court a girl like Rose.

The car wallowed through the uneven road, plunged from side to side, and was aggravatingly slow. Sterling studied his watch by the light of his pocket flashlight and saw it was getting perilously close to the time the train would pass the Junction.

The world stretched white and wide as he looked through the window. White darkness, terribly white. And even the lighted windows of the houses they passed made but small blurs afar. The progress of the car grew slower and slower. Then they came to an enormous drift that spread wide and high before them and the driver got down to examine it. A great wall of snow seemed to have reared itself impassably across the way. Sterling opened the car door and leaned out, calling questions, making futile suggestions. And then the driver uttered a sharp cry, a call it really was, and Sterling sprang out and went to his side.

It was then that he saw her. There in the full glare of the headlights of the car she lay, pillowed on the snow, her gold hair matted with ice where the velvet hood had fallen back. The velvet drapery of her cloak was fast disappearing under the hurricane of the sleet, and there above her arched the great stone gateway of the cemetery! It was a startling sight on a night like this, the beautiful girl with the white, white face in its setting of blue and gold and snow.

He glanced about him to see if there was anything to explain the phenomenon of a lovely young woman thus attired, asleep in a snowdrift in front of the cemetery in this awful storm, but only the driving sleet and luminous distance of impenetrable whiteness answered his question.

It was as if the heavens had come down in a majesty of snow and lifted the earth up in a deep embrace.

Then his physician’s instinct and training instantly began to work. He plunged over to where the girl was lying and tried to lift her, giving directions to the frightened chauffeur, who was reluctant to touch what seemed to him like an apparition, but they finally succeeded in carrying her to the car and laying her on the cushions. Then the driver, wishing he were anywhere but on the road on a night like this, tried to find the road. He had taken the precaution to bring a snow shovel along, and working with all his might, managed to clear a way back into the main road. So he climbed to his seat and started his car, his mind still heavy over the burden of beautiful death behind him.

And meanwhile, Sterling knelt beside the silent girl, touching her cold, cold face that seemed so deathlike. He lifted the stiff little hand, but no response came. He threw back the frozen velvet cloak and stooped his skilled ear to listen if there was still life in her body. He could not be sure, but he worked swiftly with what remedies he had at hand. There was no time to lose.

He jerked off the warm fur coat in which his hostess had enveloped him and wrapped it around the girl’s still form. He chafed her cold hands; he took off the sodden slippers stiff with ice and held the little icy feet in his warm hands, drying them and finally wrapping them in the fur robe of the car. With his pocket flashlight he looked keenly into her face again for any signs of life. Then from his case he forced a few drops of stimulant between those white lips, but it was hard to tell whether they got farther than the lips, for he worked almost in the dark.

The face still looked marble-white and peaceful in its earthly beauty, and there was something so exquisitely pure and almost holy about her that he touched her with awe.

In desperation he laid his own face against the girl’s face and felt the chill of her flesh. He laid his lips upon hers, and tried to think he felt a warmth stealing into them.

Then suddenly he was confronted with the problem of what to do with her. They had reached the foot of the long hill below the cemetery. The village could not be far away. He could see dim lights blurring through the storm. He knew it was almost train time, for he had looked at his watch just before they had stopped their car. Would it be possible for him to stop somewhere and leave his burden and still make his train?

He called to the chauffeur. “Is there a doctor near here you can call before the train comes?”

The chauffeur shook his head. “Village is half a mile away. I don’t know any doctor around here.”

“Well, can you take her into the station and get someone to take charge of her at once? I must make the train.”

“Station’s closed,” said the man tersely.

“Well, what can you do with her?” asked the doctor sharply. “She ought to have help at once to save her life, if it isn’t too late already.”

“Me? I can’t do nothin’,” gasped the man in horror, stepping away from the sight of the closely wrapped figure.

“Perhaps you know her and can take her to her friends,” he suggested, looking anxiously toward the now coming train. “They will be searching everywhere for her.”

“I don’t know nobody down this way,” said the man stubbornly, with a frightened ring to his voice. “I just been to the house up yonder about two weeks. You’d better take her onto the train with you. I can’t do nothin’ with her.”

Then the train was upon them and there was no more time to think.

Sterling lifted his burden with the help of the chauffeur, who was all too anxious to get it away, and curious, startled officials received it and carried it, awestruck, to a compartment in the Pullman that happened to be vacant.

Sterling lingered on the step of the car a moment, shouting directions to the chauffeur, who readily promised anything to have him gone with the strange girl, who he was certain was dead. Oh! Certainly he would inform his people at once of the stranger who had been found, and ask Mrs. Martin to give the information to the surrounding countryside. Of course he would go to the police headquarters in the village so that the girl’s friends could find her. He assured Sterling that he would do all in his power to locate her folks, and his relieved countenance smiled benignly at the young doctor through the storm as the train took up its laborious way through the snow.

The man watched the train until it was out of sight and then hurried to his car, resolved not to say a single word to anybody about the affair. In his opinion that girl was dead, and maybe he would get mixed up with a murder case somehow if he let on he knew anything about it. Moreover, he had decided on the way over to Bradford Gables that evening that people who would ask a chauffeur to go out in a storm like this for any guy just to see a girl, or catch a train, weren’t good folks to work for, and now was as good a time as any to leave. He would take that car home, and then he would vanish in the morning. What that doctor ought to have done was to leave that girl lying there in the snow and let her folks find her. She must have been dead long before they got there anyway, and it was none of their concern. What was the use of turning everything upside down and being uncomfortable for someone who was already dead? He believed in looking out for number one always and everywhere. So he went to the village and took a little much needed stimulant and then managed to get the car back to its owner’s garage so late that he did not come in contact with any of the family. He said not a word about the strange experience he and the visiting doctor had encountered. He spent the rest of the night packing his effects for a hasty departure, and quite early in the morning he announced to his master that he had heard through a cousin he had met in town the night before, that his mother was very sick, and he felt he should go to her at once. So he received his wages and departed before anyone had time to question him. And long before the doctor had ventured to disturb the family to ask whether they had found out anything about the girl, he had disappeared from the region. So the family knew nothing about the happening in the storm.

Like a frail, crushed lily, Janice lay in a white bed at the hospital and made little response to the treatment given her. It was as if she had gone too far into the world of whiteness and shadows to return.

Meanwhile, back in the house from which she had fled, the drink-crazed man had searched in vain to find her. In a puzzled anger he at last pieced together a story. He told the servants and the few neighbors who came to inquire, that his sister-in-law had gone on a visit to the far west with a relative, and it might be some time before she returned. Then he hastily closed his house, offered it for sale, and went his way into a far country.

Some ten days later there appeared in the local papers of the region near the Martins’ estate a brief account of the young woman who had been found near the cemetery gateway on the night of the blizzard, but not one of all the host of friends who loved Janice and her dead sister recognized her from the brief description given. A lovely girl attired in thin white and a sumptuous velvet cloak trimmed with fur. The Janice they knew would never have tramped the drifts on the road to the cemetery in a blizzard. It never occurred to anyone that the young woman who had been found and was lying near death’s door in a nearby hospital could be Janice Whitmore. She would write to them, of course, as soon as she rallied from the death of her beloved sister. This other girl was probably some poor dancer from a cabaret—a sinner, or perhaps sinned against, and in a desperate situation trying to end her life. “What a pity!” they said and thought no more about it. So days went on, and only the young doctor who had found her, and was slowly bringing her back to life again, had any interest in her.

Her brother-in-law had no thought of her, not even of wonder as to what had become of the helpless young girl who had been left in his power and had escaped him. His only fear was that Janice had gone to a distant cousin who was a famous lawyer and knew all about the financial affairs of the two sisters. He did not wish to get under the keen eyes of that lawyer, nor listen to his questioning about the estate, for Janice was scarcely of age yet, and this cousin had been an executor of the sisters’ inheritance. He did not care to have that cousin know how he had tampered with the estate and how greatly it had diminished under his hand.

The wondering servants in his household had shaken their heads and whispered, mindful of the loud voice and the way the master thundered orders to the girl; mindful of the unwelcome embraces at the foot of the stairs, the wild fright in the girl’s eyes. What had he done to her? Had she gone out alone in that storm, and what had happened to her?

Furtively they searched the house, even down to the cellar, every cranny where she might have hidden. But they were dismissed and far away before any news came out about the girl that was found.