The Christmas Bride E-Book

Grace Livingston Hill

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

Beschreibung

A wealthy young man saves Margaret McClaren's life and falls in love with her. Then she disappears. Will he find her again? 

Leseprobe

The Christmas Bride

by Grace Livingston Hill

First published in 1934

This edition published by Reading Essentials

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

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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

1920s Eastern United States

Gregory Sterling rode slowly out of town toward his little shack among the hills. He had just come from signing the papers that gave over to the Blue Star Production Company full right and title to the land for which he had grubbed and starved and fought and almost died. He was going back to pack up and leave.

Ten years before, a mere lad with a sore heart and a great determination, Greg had come to the Far West and taken up land, worked hard, and raised a few cattle, striving against great odds year after year. Now suddenly within the last few months, a rich yield of oil had been discovered, and the land that had been so hard to subdue had become worth millions. Actually millions!

Greg said it softly over to himself when he was out on the desert alone: “I’m clearing out! I’m going back east. I’m going home wealthy, just as I said I would!”

He set his grim young lips, gazed wistfully off toward the purple heights of the distant mountains, and sighed.

“But it won’t be home,” he added. “Not with Mother gone. There’ll be nobody there I care about. Nobody left! Not even little Alice Blair!”

He was silent again, reflecting on how his mother had hated to have him going with Alice Blair. And then Alice Blair had run away with Murky Powers. Well, that was that! There wouldn’t even be Alice.

He half closed his eyes and tried to visualize Alice as she had been, a little pink and white and golden wisp of a thing with big blue eyes. Impudent eyes, his mother had called them. He hadn’t thought of her for several years now. He had been grimly set on making a living. And now, before he could have dreamed it possible, while he was still young enough to enjoy it, his fortune had come to him without any effort of his own!

He had never expected this thing. The utmost he had hoped when he first came out to these wilds had been the right to do as he pleased, to hide his stricken young life after the death of his mother, to hide away from people who thought they were elected to manage him, and earn a meager living through hard, daily toil.

Then suddenly in a night he was rich! He was going back! Back to the place where they wouldn’t lend him twenty dollars to start a newsstand down near the station. Back where they wanted him to be apprenticed to learn a trade.

He threw his head back and let out his triumph in a bitter laugh, the lightest that had passed his lips since his mother died and left him, a seventeen-year-old boy, with everybody trying to boss him. Well, now he could buy any house in town, pay twenty dollars for a single newspaper if he chose. Rich!

He laughed again that astonished, mirthless laugh, as if it were somehow a joke on himself.

The thin, old rackabones of a horse he was riding heard that unaccountable laughter, threw his head back in astonishment, and gave a swish to his bobbed tail and a canter or two to express his interest. A squirrel whisked up into a tree and dropped the nut he had been so deftly manipulating, turning his head from side to side, taking in this most phenomenal sound on the wide open spaces. Guns he knew with their whistle of death; swearing he knew, and drunken calls; raucous singing he had heard at nighttime when cattlemen were riding home from a brawl. But this strange, uncertain sound of mirth without joy was new, and there was a desperate wistfulness in it that even a wild creature would sense.

All the way back those monotonous miles to his shack, Greg was staring ahead, not at the desert before him, but at his new life, trying to find a gleam. It must be going to be wonderful, but he felt dazed when he should have been thrilled. He had been thinking so long in terms of cattle and feed and the land and the bare necessities of life that his brain and imagination were numb. He could not seem to grasp the possibilities that were his.

He began to visualize his cabin on the mountain. A rude structure of logs and boards that he had built with his own eager, inexperienced hands; a strong door, three small windows with wooden shutters. A sheet iron stove of ancient make, a cupboard with some tin dishes, salt pork, the end of a loaf of bread, a table against one wall made of a packing box. Two other boxes for seats, an army cot with gray blankets, and an old decrepit couch of the kind known as a “sofa,” that he had bought from a settler about to move. Its decrepit springs were bursting forth like fallen soldiers from the old Brussels carpet covering, faded and long since worn beyond all thought of its original pattern.

“Sometime when I’m wealthy, I’ll get you a new cover.” He had promised it again and again when he had stretched his weary form upon its humpy, inadequate dimensions. Well, now he was wealthy enough to buy him a new couch with great, deep leather cushions to build him a palace and furnish it throughout, and yet he found his heart turning wistfully toward a new cover for that poor old couch, the only real longing he had allowed himself during these barren years. He felt shy about going out into the world and hunting luxury for himself. In fact, he had no standards of luxury. All he really longed for was home and somebody to care. His childhood home had been plain and simple, but it had been full of love, and it was home. And you couldn’t buy home!

He had meant to build a fireplace someday in his shack, out of native cobblestones, and spread his big bear rug, the first trophy of his western prowess, before it. Draw up the couch with its bright new cover, sit and stare into the leaping flames as they bit into a great burning log, and heal his broken young heart. Now in his thoughts, the couch seemed to rise in reproach at him as he rode along. He had sold it, couch, cabin, possibilities, and all, and was going away forever!

He had planned to bring water down from the mountain spring above his shack and install a rude water system, to plant a garden with vegetables and maybe a few of the flowers his mother used to love, just for remembrance, someday when he got time. He had meant to make the mountainside lovely, too, and his dreams had even included a better dwelling there someday. But now that could never be. He had sold it all, and before long ugly, disfiguring oil wells would spring up everywhere over his hillside site that he had selected so carefully.

Well, he was rich anyway, and there wasn’t a soul to miss him. He had gone alone these ten long years, eaten and slept alone much of the time except for a few months when old Luke was with him, Luke a wanderer on the face of the earth dropping down for a little while, helping him work. But poor Luke was gone. Killed in a drunken brawl.

Even the dog that had companioned with him during the first few years of his exile had been wounded so badly by a wild steer one day that he had to be shot. There wasn’t even a dog to care that he was leaving. No one out there in the West to care that he was not coming back.

The moon was shining when he reached his shack. He could see its silver light on the opposite hillside. His eye lingered on the wide expanse of sky; the purple mountains; the dark, plumy woods; the river winding like a silver thread in the valley. Would he someday be homesick for all this quietness as he had longed for his home when he came out here?

Off there to the right was where the sun rose, bursting through bars of crimson. Off there to the left was where it set, leaving tatters of purple and gold behind it. And there by the top of that tallest tree was the spot he watched when a storm was coming up and the tops of the tall pines bent with the wind. He sighed deeply and turned to his horse, touching the soft, old nose with a lingering caress like a farewell. The horse was sold, too.

When he went into the cabin, he lighted his smoky oil lamp and looked around. There wouldn’t be much to take with him. There were a few pelts fastened to the wall, skins of animals he had shot or trapped. His gun—he would have little need of that now.

He ate his supper and went to bed listening to the silence outside his cabin, wondering what the new life was going to be like.

It was a little past noon when he finished his packing and cleaning, for he took a certain pride in leaving everything immaculate. On the saddle were fastened two bundles, one sewed into an old piece of burlap bag, to be forwarded to himself in his hometown, the other crudely wrapped in newspaper containing a few necessities that he was taking with him. He had discarded most of his wardrobe. There was not much that would belong in his new life.

When he reached the settlement town and left the bony, old horse with his new owner, he found an uneasy regret in his heart at parting from him. And when he bought his ticket, he stuffed it into his pocket with a strange distaste. He had a passing wonder why he had consented to sell his place and be shoved out again into the world when he was just getting a foothold here and nobody out in the world wanted him. For just that instant, if the Blue Star Company had offered to sell his place back to him, almost he would have been tempted to accept. Then he turned upon himself savagely and told himself he was childish and walked away down the platform to Jake’s Place, where one could get a good dinner of liver and onions and baked beans with dried-apple pie for fifty cents. But somehow he didn’t feel like eating when he looked in the window. The pie looked tired, and there was a smell of burned fat in the air.

He walked back to the little station again and stood looking off down the track that gleamed red as two streaks of blood in the low rays of the setting sun. And presently out of the dazzle of it, the train appeared, a dark speck, growing larger momentarily and bearing down upon him.

An unanticipated shyness came upon him. A bear he had met, wild cattle in a stampede, a gun pointing into his face, the threatening angry growl of a group that outnumbered him, all without the slightest quiver. But that oncoming train that would carry him back into a world of civilization brought a strange panic upon him. He waited while a bundle of papers and a mail pouch were thrown off and a salesman’s case of samples and a trunk were put on. Then just as the conductor waved his signal to the engineer and the first slow revolution of the wheels began, he gravely stepped forward and swung himself aboard the lowest step, his newspaper bundle under his arm, and quite casually rode out of town into the great world.

Cautiously he opened the door of a Pullman and glanced inside. Here at once was a foreign atmosphere. Men and women of another world. Obviously he did not belong here. Swift as the vision of Adam and Eve after they ate the apple came the knowledge to him that his apparel was not right.

The porter approached him hastily from the other end of the car as if he were a stray dog wandered in, to be hustled out as soon as possible.

“Common cah up the othah end of the train!” he said in an unmistakable tone of authority.

Gregory stiffened and lifted his chin haughtily. Here again was that same spirit of class distinction from which he had run away when he came west. He had not expected to meet it again at the first step of the way. He made a mental resolve that his wealth should never make him feel superior to his fellow mortals.

He looked the porter in the eye for an instant and then turned and stalked in the direction indicated, through another parlor car, a club car and diner, on up through several common cars. He dropped finally into a vacant seat, and settling down close to the window, gave himself to watching the sunset, as much as he could see of it reflected in the clouds ahead of the train. Splendid flocks of pinks and blues and delicate pearly grays, like sheep being herded into the oncoming night.

Now and then the train took a slight turn, and he could look directly into the west where were heaped up masses of velvety purple and midnight blue, rent here and there with heavy gold in ragged splashes.

Back there on his old hillside that mingled glory light would be still shining on the home he had left, touching with splendor his rude shack, laying bright hands on the far pile of stones that marked old Luke’s grave, sailing silverly down the river in the valley.

As long as the display lasted, he gave undivided attention to his window, until night pulled the curtain of twilight definitely down and pinned it with a star.

He sat with his head leaning against the cold window pane, looking into the night. And presently he became aware of voices purposely raised across the aisle, four girls in a double seat. They were discussing his clothes, and Greg’s anger arose again. Couldn’t one wear what one pleased in this world?

Greg hadn’t given much thought to what he should wear. Indeed, he had little choice. Out there in his wilderness home, it seemed to matter very little. He was wearing khaki breeches stuffed into heavy boots and belted with a cartridge belt over a flannel shirt of butternut brown. His short coat of khaki color was lined and furred with sheepskin. His hat was a soft, wide-brimmed, weathered felt, and although he did not know it, he made a picturesque figure sitting like a bronze statue against the brilliant, changing sky.

As the girls’ voices rose, he turned and looked at them. He had scarcely noticed them when he sat down. They were brightly dressed—cheaply, too—although he did not know that, and their faces were startling in their makeup. When Gregory came west, nice girls didn’t paint their faces. Even indecent ones did not go to such an extreme as these girls. They looked to him like the girls who came at intervals to Jake’s Place and gave a show, and then danced and drank afterward with the clamoring cowboys who flocked to meet them. He had never cared much for that sort of thing. He had been too busy fighting for his land, too young when he first came west to feel the urge toward such brawls, and later too much in the habits of his hermitage to venture forth for an all-night party. Perhaps, too, the lingering memory of the clean, simple atmosphere with which his mother had surrounded his boyhood days was a strong element in protecting his life from such temptations.

So now as he turned a grave glance toward the three highly illuminated faces and took note of the impudent, intimate challenge of their lawless eyes, he judged them young women of no reputation and met their look with one of half-pitying contempt. He would have been surprised to know that they were simply common, ill-bred, hardworking girls out to have a good time and eager to imitate a brazen modern world whose glamour lured their souls.

The one in red began to laugh and suddenly addressed him mockingly: “Why n’t ya buy ya a haircut, buddie?” she called across to him. “It would improve ya a lot.”

Greg eyed her gravely an instant and then replied in a careless drawl:

“Thanks a lot! I was just thinking how much you girls needed a good face wash!”

Then he slowly straightened up, rose to his full height, and turned his gaze down the car. He made a really stunning figure, and the girls, catching their breath at his audacity, suddenly broke into embarrassed laughter mixed with a note of hilarity. But Greg did not look their way again. He picked up his paper bundle and walked slowly away from them down the aisle and out the car door.

Back through the other common cars he went, looking to neither right nor left, through club car and diner and Pullmans, studying the numbers of the cars as he made his slow progress, till at last he found the number he was looking for. As he paused beside it, the porter whom he had at first encountered came hurrying nervously toward him from the rear end of the car.

Greg eyed him amusedly as he puffed up assertively and seemed about to speak. Then he said in his slow, pleasant drawl: “Sorry to disturb you, brother, but this seems to be my seat,” and he handed out the magic bit of green paper that gave him right to that place and sat down.

The porter eyed him incredulously, studied the ticket a moment, and then looked at him sharply.

“Where’d you-all get this ticket? This yours?”

“Back there at the station where I got on,” said Greg, still in that calm, half-amused tone. “Isn’t it all right?” and he handed out a bill that made the porter stare and melt into smiles.

“Oh, yessah, yessah! It’s all right, sah! I wasn’t just shore where at this party was comin’ on, sah. Any bags, sah?” and he eyed Greg’s newspaper bundle questioningly.

“No bags!” said Greg, grinning and stowing his parcel beside him.

The poor, bewildered porter went on his way, staring down at the greenback and casting furtive glances around at the other passengers. And then, entrenched behind his own special narrow sanctum at the end of the car, he peered out and studied this strange, crude-looking passenger who dressed like a common workman and threw ten dollar bills around so casually.

And Greg sank into his comfortable seat and mused on the ways of the world to which he had come back. He could sense that the porter was still troubled in spite of the tip, and he realized that his appearance was against him. Even money didn’t count if one didn’t dress the part. Well, he could do it now, but would it pay? Would it get him the kind of friends he wanted? Of course he meant to buy some new clothes when he got to a city. Perhaps he would stop off in Chicago and shop. He didn’t want to go home looking like a wild man. But he registered a resolve never to dress conspicuously and never to judge a man merely by his clothes.

Presently, one came through the train announcing the last call for dinner, and Greg, with a furtive glance around, noting that most of his car companions were in their seats and had probably had their dinners, decided that it was late enough for him to venture into the diner. He found he was hungry enough to thoroughly enjoy the first well-cooked meal that he had eaten for several years.

Ten days later, Gregory Sterling stood at the front window of the luxurious room that had been assigned him in the great new apartment hotel in his hometown, looking out at the street that had been a meadow when he went away.

He had chosen the Whittall House from the list the taxicab driver had suggested, because it seemed to be located out on the edge of town, and his soul was weary for the quietness and peace of his wilderness lodge. He had spent several days in Chicago shopping, having acquired what seemed to him a ridiculously large supply of clothing and several quite correct pieces of baggage. Porters and hotel clerks no longer looked at him askance. He was as well turned out as any modern young man could be. The hometown had no need to be ashamed of him.

And now he stood at the window of his room looking out on the amazing changes that had come during his absence, identifying the bit of a park across the street as the very spot where his mother and he used to pick violets years ago on the rare occasions when she had time to take a walk with him. His eyes suddenly filmed over with tears at the memory.

The street was wide, and the little park ran down the center, making a boulevard of it. Traffic was whirling on either side, but the little park in the middle made a haven, a wide, nice pleasant place to rest between the crossings. There were paths of cement wandering across the park, curving this way and that among the trees, and there were flower beds with late fall flowers in blossom, little button chrysanthemums, white and yellow, pompon chrysanthemums flaring red, orange, yellow, russet brown, and flame color, growing rankly with bright, ragged heads in spite of the touch of frost there had been the night before.

There were trees, too. Tall pines and oaks and maples, still clinging to their brilliant foliage, for the street there was sheltered by tall buildings, apartments houses, and hotels. And was that an old, gnarled apple tree? It looked like the very tree he used to climb to get a spray of apple blossoms for his mother. There were no leaves left on it, but high in the top there was a small red apple or two that no one had spied. There was a bench under the tree, and the walk curved to it and away to a fountain a little farther on, a fountain whose bright spray caught the late afternoon sun and reflected it into many faceted jewels.

A girl was sitting on the bench, droopingly, as if she was tired and discouraged. It was good to have a bit of green in the midst of the whirl, a quiet place where the traffic could not come, for tired people to rest in. But better still if the meadow were there the way it used to be!

Across the road beyond the little park and the other road there were tall, beautiful buildings, but they did not look natural. He was almost sorry he had come out here to stay. It did not seem as if it was his hometown at all. It hadn’t ever occurred to him that the town would grow out into the country this way in just ten years!

His eyes wandered back again to the fountain where little brown birds were drenching themselves and shaking fluffy, wet feathers, splashing like children in the marble basin and sitting chirping on the marble rim to dry.

The girl on the bench was not far from them, but she did not seem to be watching the birds. She had put her head down now on her arm across the back of the bench, as if she were too tired to watch birds or enjoy bits of parks.

Then suddenly as he gazed, the girl slumped in a little crumpled heap and slid off the bench, as if she no longer had the power to help herself. So slowly, almost unobtrusively, the slender figure slipped down from the bench, it almost seemed like an empty garment sliding from a chair where it had been carelessly thrown. Could it be that her spirit had fled?

Startled, he looked at the still form lying there on the ground, one arm thrown up and back the way it had slipped when she fell, the white face turned upward. Was he seeing aright? Or was this some illusion?

He passed his hand over his eyes hastily and looked again. Something must be wrong with his vision. It could not be that a thing like that had happened before his eyes in broad daylight with traffic passing either way continually.

But there she lay, still as death, her hat tipped away from her face. And now he saw there were bushes all about which might have obstructed the vision of those on the road. He could see because he was looking down from above. She was lying there as she had fallen on the ground beside the bench, and no one seemed to be doing anything about it. He was perhaps the only one who knew, and she might be dying if she were not dead already!

Greg sprang toward his door and started down the stairs, thankful that he was only three stories up, forgetting that an elevator could travel faster than his feet.

Chapter 2

The doorman was startled as Greg burst hatless into the street.

“A woman fallen off the bench over there!” Greg called breathlessly as the doorman rushed alongside. “I saw her fall. Better call a doctor!”

“Better call the police!” advised the doorman prudently. “You better wait till the police comes! You might get mixed up in some murder or something.” The doorman put a detaining hand on Greg’s arm, holding him back from an oncoming automobile.

“And let her die meantime?” shouted Greg, shaking off the detaining hand and dashing madly in among traffic.

The doorman looked uncertainly after him then turned back to send a gaping bellboy to telephone for an ambulance.

Meantime, a crowd had suddenly gathered and were staring. The clerk of the hotel came out and looked across to the park.

Greg had reached the side of the girl now and was kneeling, looking at her intently, stooping to listen for her heart.

On the way down the stairs, he had thought of possibilities. He hailed from a land where stray bullets were not uncommon, and of course that was the first thing he thought of. Someone had shot the girl, or someone was shooting at birds and sent a wild bullet into the air.

But there was no sign of a wound, no blood on the ground or trickling down the white face. Just a pinched, tired look that went to his heart, just long dark lashes lying over deathly white, thin cheeks.

Greg gave one wild look around and gathered her up into his arms.

“Better leave her lay, buddie,” advised a bystander with his hands in his pockets and his pipe between his teeth. “Always better ta leave ‘em lay till the p’lice gets here, buddie. You don’t get no thanks fer meddling.”

Greg flashed him a look from his steady gray eyes.

“Get me a taxi!” he ordered. “She’s not dead! Only fainted!”

“Ya can’t tell, buddie! She might pass out on ya!” said the bystander.

“Where is the nearest hospital?” demanded Greg, ignoring the man with the advice.

A boy dashed out into the road and stopped a taxi. A shabby man hurried to the fountain and filled his hat full of water from the basin. A woman walking through the park produced a bottle of smelling salts.

Greg wet his handkerchief in the hat and wiped the girl’s forehead and lips. He let the woman hold the bottle of smelling salts under her nostrils, and they were rewarded by a long, slow, trembling breath from the girl, and then a lifting of the fringes of the eyelids just for a fleeting instant that showed great, dark, troubled eyes. The fringes fell almost instantly, but the crowd had seen that she was alive, and a murmur of sympathy went through them like the sighing of the wind.

But Greg saw the taxi draw up at the curb, and he swept them all aside and carried his burden over. He got in with her in his arms.

“The nearest hospital, quick!” he ordered, and they whirled away, leaving the gaping crowd to discuss the incident.

Greg sat holding the girl in his arms, looking down at the white face against his shoulder, the long curling lashes, the disheveled brown hair. Her hat had fallen off, and one of the bystanders had laid it in her arms, a little soft, black felt with a tiny bright feather stuck cockily through the brim, a brave attempt to be like the world. But the rest of her attire was undeniably shabby. Little, stubbed-out shoes, worn down at the heel but bravely polished. Shabby gloves carefully mended. He felt a sudden mistiness in his eyes, a sudden estimate of the preciousness of his burden. Perhaps she was very dear to somebody. There must be people who loved her, many perhaps, but for the time being she was his to protect, until someone else should claim her. He perhaps was all that stood between her and death.

He drew his breath in sharply. If she was living yet!

He looked down with fear. How white her lips were! Perhaps that look she had given had been her last one on earth! Oh, would they never reach the hospital? How light and frail her body seemed! There was something pitiful in the droop of her lips. Something that made him think with a pang of his mother in her last days. Was this death? He held her lightly and felt the wonder of her delicate face against his shoulder.

There! They were stopping! Yes, this was a hospital building. A white-clad doctor appeared! A nurse! They tried to take her from him, but he bore her swiftly up the steps.

“Hurry!” he said. “She may not be gone yet!”

“The emergency ward is full!” he heard a nurse’s voice say sharply. “That fire! They kept bringing them in! Two have died already, but the beds are full.”

“Take her to a private room!” he commanded.

“A private?” another nurse asked. “Who is she? We can’t put her in a private room unless we know she can pay.”

“I will pay. Get her somewhere quick!” said Greg.

Magic money! How it oiled the wheels and hastened matters. No, they were not hardhearted. They were used to emergencies. But there had been so many that night. And the head nurse was off on her vacation. It was only a substitute who was trying to be conscientious.

She was on a bed at last with a doctor and nurse working over her. Finally, the doctor straightened up and looked around.

“Who brought her here? What happened?”

“I did,” said Greg. “Don’t know what happened.”

“Is she your wife?” the doctor asked, looking at him intently.

Greg looked at him with startled eyes.

“Oh no. I never saw her before. She was sitting on a bench in the park across from my hotel. I happened to be looking out the window and saw her fall; that was all.”

“H’m,” said the doctor, touching her pulse again. “A clear case of starvation, I guess. That’s all!”

“Starvation!” said Greg aghast. “You don’t mean it! Not in a city full of people!”

“Oh yeah?” said the doctor brusquely. “You don’t pick food off trees in parks. Does she look like a girl who would go to your back door and beg?”

He turned to the nurse and gave low-voiced directions, and Greg stood looking down at the pathetic little white face on the pillow. Starving! How could that come about?

They were pressing a spoonful of something between the white lips now, and the girl on the bed drew a slow quivering breath again and opened her eyes for an instant.

“That’s it, sister,” said the doctor cheerfully. “You’re going to feel better now in a minute.”

He watched the patient closely.

“A cup of that broth as soon as you can get it, Nurse,” he said in a low tone, keeping his finger on the pulse. Then to Greg who was standing anxiously by: “Yes sir, you find ‘em like this every day. Proud as Lucifer, lost their job, nowhere to turn. All the worse for them if they happen to be good.”

Greg looked at the delicate high-born features of the girl and understood what the doctor meant. He looked at her slender, patrician, well-cared-for hands and read a tragedy. How had a girl like this one come so near to starvation?

When the broth was brought, the patient swallowed obediently but did not open her eyes again. Greg watched from the doorway with misgiving in his heart. Was this little shadow of a girl going to slip away from them out of life after all, without giving a clue as to her identity? Was there perhaps a mother or some other loved one who was waiting anxiously, pondering on such a tragedy for the friends of this girl? Was there nothing he could do?

“Will this nurse stay by her all night?” he asked the doctor while the nurse was feeding her the soup.

“Oh, she’ll be in and out all night,” said the doctor. “You know she has this whole hall to look out for.”

“I’d like her to have someone with her all night,” said Greg. “I’d feel better that way. I feel sort of responsible because I found her, at least till her folks get here.”

“Of course you could have a special nurse if you’re willing to pay for it,” said the doctor thoughtfully, “but it isn’t necessary. She’ll probably pull through all right.”

“I’d like to have a special nurse,” said Greg decidedly.

“Well, of course it’s always safer in a case like this,” said the doctor. “You can’t always be sure about the condition of the heart.”

So presently a pleasant-faced capable young woman appeared and took charge. Greg motioned her out in the hall and talked to her in low tones.

“This girl was sitting on a park bench when I first saw her from my hotel window,” he told her, “and while I was watching, she fell off the bench. I brought her here, and I’m arranging for her to have this room as long as she needs it till she is able to go away. But she doesn’t know me, and I don’t know her. Maybe she might not like it to have me meddling in her affairs, but you don’t need to say anything about it, do you? Just let on the hospital put her in here, can’t you? I don’t want to put her under any obligation.”

“I see,” said the nurse. “We’ll fix that up all right. It’s awfully fine of you to do all this for a stranger, and you can count on me.”

He looked at her wistfully.

“If there is anything else I could do, I’d be glad,” he said. “It seems a pity we don’t know where to find her friends. I don’t suppose she’ll be able to tell us anything tonight.”

“No,” said the nurse, thoughtfully. “Maybe not even tomorrow. It might be best just to let her alone and let her rest. You can’t always tell about these cases.”

“I wonder, said Greg almost shyly, “if I should leave you my telephone number, would you call me in case you found out, or there was anything at all that I could do to help? In the night or anytime. There’s a telephone in my room. It wouldn’t bother me a bit.”

“Sure, I’ll let you know if there is any change or anything you can do. But I guess you needn’t worry. The doctor seemed to think her heart was pretty good. And I’ll be right here all night.”

“That’s good!” he said and gave her a relieved smile.

So Greg went down and arranged for the private room, paying a week in advance.

“If she doesn’t need it that long, you can put some other little stranger in there after she is gone,” he said happily, and swung off down the street to his hotel, thinking about the little, white-faced girl lying in the hospital bed.

It seemed a strange homecoming, almost the first thing to find this girl sitting over there just where he and his mother had picked violets. And now it seemed as though he could not do anything for himself until he knew the fate of this poor little stranger.

He went into the dining room and ate a good dinner, surprised to find that it was well on toward eight o’clock. Why, it had been still daylight when he took that girl to the hospital!

While he ate, he was thinking about the hospital. He remembered various bronze tablets he had seen about on the walls as he waited for his receipt to be signed at the office.

Wouldn’t it be a nice thing for him to endow one of those rooms so it could be used for strangers? He could put up a tablet on the door with his mother’s name, a memorial to her. Call it the Mary Sterling Memorial Room for Strangers. He would enjoy doing that with some of his new money. It would somehow give his mother a part in it. And she would have liked that. She was always doing beautiful things for lonely people. Perhaps he could get that very room the little girl was in tonight! That would be nice. The girl who had been sitting alone in the very spot where his mother used to pick violets would be the first one to lie in the room endowed to her memory. He would do it! The first thing tomorrow morning, he would go over to the hospital and arrange it! He would get the bronze tablet made and put on the door right away. Then if the girl was worried about his paying for her room, there wouldn’t be any trouble. It would just be a free room for strangers.

The idea made him quite happy, and after he had finished his dinner, he went out and walked beside the fountain in the little park, strolling past the bench where the girl had sat, even sitting down upon it a moment to wonder why she had sat there and what had happened that had brought her into such a sorrowful situation.

As he got up, his foot struck against something in the grass, something soft and yielding that slid across the pavement as he hit it.

He stooped and picked it up wonderingly. It was a flat purse with a strap across the back, one of the kind that most girls carried. It had a look of thinness about it that betokened nothing inside. He took it over and stood thoughtfully. Could that belong to the girl he had picked up, and could she possibly have dropped it as she fell?

He went back and laid it down again just where he had found it, figuring out just how it might have fallen from her grasp. Then he took it back to the light once more and opened it. Perhaps it might give some clue to her family.

But it proved to be absolutely empty save for a thin letter addressed to Miss Margaret McLaren, 1546 Rodman Street, that city. There wasn’t even a penny in the little middle purse that obviously was meant for change. His heart went out with pity toward the poor child, for he felt absolutely certain that this pocketbook belonged to the girl he had picked up in the park.

He studied the envelope carefully. Where would Rodman Street be? Wasn’t there such a street down behind the schoolhouse when he was a boy? He could go and see. Perhaps it was her home. Perhaps her father and mother were waiting anxiously. It was late. He looked at his watch—almost eleven o’clock. Yet if they were worried, they would be only too glad to be disturbed.

He looked at the letter again uncertainly. It was postmarked Vermont, but the town was so blurred it was unreadable. Ought he perhaps to know what was in that letter? Well, not yet anyway. If he could find her people, nothing else was his affair.

So he started out to find Rodman Street and at last discovered the address on one of a row of old brownstone-front houses.

There were lights in the second story, and a dim light coming from the transom over the front door, but it was a long time before anybody came, and then the door was opened but a few inches over a sturdy door chain.

“Who’s there?” asked a sharp elderly voice.

“Does Miss Margaret McLaren live here?” asked Greg.

“No. She certainly doesn’t. Not anymore!” said the sharp voice. “I told her this morning that she needn’t come back tonight whining around for me to let her in. She can’t step her foot inside this house again, not till she pays me the three weeks’ rent she owes me. And if it’s her suitcase you’ve come for, you can’t have it till the room rent’s paid. I told her that, too, this morning. I can’t live on air, and I’ve waited for my money just as long as I can wait. I’ve got another party for her room, and if she doesn’t pay up, they’ll move in in the morning.”

Greg was still for a minute considering.

“I didn’t come for her suitcase,” he said. “I was just trying to look up some of her friends, but it doesn’t sound as if you were one. I had thought it might interest you to know that she had an accident this afternoon and she’s in the hospital unconscious now. She won’t need your room tonight, and perhaps not for a good many nights. I don’t know that she ever will.”

There was silence behind the chained door for an instant, and then the sharp voice struck again.

“Accident! Humph! Well they needn’t try to bring her here. I don’t intend to take care of any sick people. I got enough to do to look after my roomers. I’m sick and old. All I’ve got ta say is she deserves what she gets. Anybody that ud give up a perfectly good position just because she couldn’t stomach the man that employs her deserves to get down and out. These aren’t any times to be so squeamish about jobs. She had no business to leave her perfectly good place. He paid her, didn’t he? What I wantta know is what she did with all her money. She didn’t buy cloes, an’ there ain’t scarcely a thing worth holding for my rent. What’d you come here for anyway? Because you aren’t likely to get it.”

“No, so I see,” said Greg indignantly. “Well, suppose I happened to come to pay her rent?”

The woman brought her face closer to the opening.

“Who are you anyway?” she hissed. “I never saw you with her. Why should you pay her rent?”

“I’m only a friend, and you never did see me with her, but I might pay her rent just to save her having to listen to you when she is able to come back again. How much is her rent anyway?”

“It’s fifteen dollars!” said the woman belligerently, “and I won’t come down a cent for cash either!”

“Is that all?” said Greg, amusedly. “Well, I’ll pay it if you’ll make out a receipt in full to date.”

“She’ll have to pay in advance if she wants to keep the room,” added the woman.

“Well, that’s entirely up to her,” laughed Greg, “I hope she doesn’t want the room again. I certainly shall use my influence against it. I wouldn’t enjoy staying under such an unfriendly roof myself.”

“I’m not unfriendly,” said the woman, “but we have to look out for ourselves. We have to live!”

“Do we?” said Greg. “Well, I don’t know about that. Sometimes one can die, you know. Your little friend almost died tonight. However, bring on your receipt, and here’s your money. Are you going to let me come in while you sign it, or do I stay in the street?”

“I suppose you can come in,” said the woman grudgingly. “If you’re really going to pay.” She eyed the roll of bills in Greg’s hand greedily.

She sat down at an old, rickety table in the hall, wrote the receipt painstakingly, and handed it over. Greg folded it carefully and put it in his pocket, meanwhile glancing up the dismal staircase.

“Where is this room I’m paying for?” asked Greg. “Third story back?”

“Yes,” admitted the woman, “and cheap at that. My neighbor next door gets seven and a half for hers.”

As he walked out the door and down the street, Greg was thinking of his clean little shack on the hillside with the whispering pines all around. Somehow there was something terribly desolate and dreary in this rooming house. And was this the place where the little, white-faced girl had lived? For how long? he wondered.

But then, of course, the pocketbook might not have belonged to her. Or even if it had, the letter might not have been hers. He couldn’t tell a thing until he found out if Margaret was really her name. He had been a fool, of course, to pay for that room till he found out. Likely he was a fool anyway. But it was his money, wasn’t it? He had a right to spend it as he liked.

He found himself recalling the landlady’s words about the girl giving up her job because she didn’t like her employer. How much was there to that? Had any rotten bounder dared to be unpleasant to a girl like that?

Chapter 3

He walked around by the hospital again, as if just to see if the building would satisfy that vague anxiety that was in him.

Here he was the first night in his hometown, all mixed up in a strange girl’s troubles, all anxious for her life. That little, white face against his shoulder! He wanted her to get well. Poor kid! She must have been up against it somehow. He wished he knew more about it. Maybe he’d better read that letter after all, just glance at it. There might be an address. Maybe her folks ought to be notified if she was off here in a great city alone.

So when he reached his room in the hotel, he took the letter out of his pocket, half reverently, and opened it.

It was only a torn half sheet of cheap note paper, and just a few lines written on it at that, no name signed either.

Dear Child,

Sam Fletcher is going down to the village, so I write a line to let you know the money came safely. Your Grandfather says, ‘Bless the child,’ and tell her not to send any more now. We’ll make out. Get yourself a good warm winter coat. His knee is a little better now, we think. Don’t overwork

Lovingly,

Grandmother

P.S. Is that man you work for all right? It kind of worries me what you say about him. Maybe you better try for another job

Well, there wasn’t any help here. No date except the blurred postmark, and no name of the town or people. Obviously he couldn’t let that grandfather and grandmother know. He couldn’t go all over the state of Vermont asking for Margaret McLaren’s grandparents.

He put the letter slowly back into the envelope, feeling guilty that he had read it at all, even though he had a good motive in doing so. Now he had laid bare some more of her troubles. Poor kid! She certainly was up against it. And to have a heartless old bird of a landlady like that, with all the rest! No sympathy nor help to be had from her! He shut his lips grimly as he thought of her. Probably he ought not to have paid that bill till he knew more about it, but there was a kind of satisfaction at the memory of the greedy astonishment in the old woman’s face as she took the bills in her hand. He really had got fifteen dollars’ worth of pleasure out of the look on her hard, old, selfish face. But poor devil, she probably was hard up, too! What a lot of people seemed to be hard up and to take it so hard! Why he had been hard up all his life, and now that he had plenty, he didn’t quite know what to do with it. Was he going to find a way of happiness with it, or was he only going to waste it all and then have to go back to work again? Well, if he did, work no longer had a terror for him. He knew how to go without. Though he never had been hungry. That poor little, white-faced girl had been hungry! Starved, the doctor said. How terrible! Would she ever come out of it all, and would there be a way for him to do something for her? Perhaps she was going to make a terrible row about this hospital room. You couldn’t tell. Well, he would get that fixed the first thing in the morning, so that the room was a genuine free one. He wished he knew how she was.

Early in the morning, his telephone rang, causing him to waken sharply to sudden anxiety.

“Is this Mr. Sterling?” Well, this is Miss Gowen, the nurse. I just wanted to tell you that our patient rested nicely all night, took her medicine and nourishment like a lamb, and is still sleeping. The doctor came in in the night and says she is doing well. He says she may sleep right on through the day—you can’t tell. She seems thoroughly exhausted. Will you be over today? Well, I’ll be here. No, I don’t need to sleep. I rested well during the night, only up with her a couple of times for feedings. I’ll get another nice nap sometime today while she is sleeping. You needn’t worry.”

Greg felt like a child with a holiday after he had hung up. Why was he so glad about an utter stranger? Well, he was. It was something to have somebody to care about, even a stranger about whom he knew nothing. He had saved her life perhaps. Didn’t that give him some right to be glad?

He ate his breakfast joyously, planning what he would do.

He had intended going out to see the old landmarks that morning, his old home, the schoolhouse, the church where his mother and he used to go regularly on Sunday, the house where Alice used to live, all the places with which he had been familiar. But that could wait. He wanted to get this business of the hospital fixed up first.

He found there were formalities. He couldn’t just transform a hospital room into any kind of a free place he wished at will. There were officials, and there was a board. But fortunately, the board had a meeting that morning, and he was informed that he could present his proposition at eleven o’clock.

The board was gracious to this opulent stranger who was willing to pay cash for a room that very often stood idle because it was only available to the wealthy people. When the arrangements were completed, Greg went to see about having the bronze tablet made for the door, and it was late in the afternoon before he got back to the hospital.

He found the nurse just coming out of the room.