K Part 53

The hopelessness of her situation was dawning on her. Even when the touch of her beside him and the solitude of the country roads got in his blood, and he bent toward her, she found no encouragement in his words:--"I am mad about you to-night."

She took her courage in her hands:--"Then why give me up for some one else?"

"That's--different."

"Why is it different? I am a woman. I--I love you, Max. No one else will ever care as I do."

"You are in love with the Lamb!"

"That was a trick. I'm sorry, Max. I don't care for anyone else in the world. If you let me go I'll want to die."

Then, as he was silent:--

"If you'll marry me, I'll be true to you all my life. I swear it. There will be n.o.body else, ever."

The sense, if not the words, of what he had sworn to Sidney that Sunday afternoon under the trees, on this very road! Swift shame overtook him, that he should be here, that he had allowed Carlotta to remain in ignorance of how things really stood between them.

"I'm sorry, Carlotta. It's impossible. I'm engaged to marry some one else."

"Sidney Page?"--almost a whisper.

"Yes."

He was ashamed at the way she took the news. If she had stormed or wept, he would have known what to do. But she sat still, not speaking.

"You must have expected it, sooner or later."

Still she made no reply. He thought she might faint, and looked at her anxiously. Her profile, indistinct beside him, looked white and drawn.

But Carlotta was not fainting. She was making a desperate plan. If their escapade became known, it would end things between Sidney and him. She was sure of that. She needed time to think it out. It must become known without any apparent move on her part. If, for instance, she became ill, and was away from the hospital all night, that might answer. The thing would be investigated, and who knew--

The car turned in at Schwitter's road and drew up before the house.

The narrow porch was filled with small tables, above which hung rows of electric lights enclosed in j.a.panese paper lanterns. Midweek, which had found the White Springs Hotel almost deserted, saw Schwitter's crowded tables set out under the trees. Seeing the crowd, Wilson drove directly to the yard and parked his machine.

"No need of running any risk," he explained to the still figure beside him. "We can walk back and take a table under the trees, away from those infernal lanterns."

She reeled a little as he helped her out.

"Not sick, are you?"

"I'm dizzy. I'm all right."

She looked white. He felt a stab of pity for her. She leaned rather heavily on him as they walked toward the house. The faint perfume that had almost intoxicated him, earlier, vaguely irritated him now.

At the rear of the house she shook off his arm and preceded him around the building. She chose the end of the porch as the place in which to drop, and went down like a stone, falling back.

There was a moderate excitement. The visitors at Schwitter's were too much engrossed with themselves to be much interested. She opened her eyes almost as soon as she fell--to forestall any tests; she was shrewd enough to know that Wilson would detect her malingering very quickly--and begged to be taken into the house. "I feel very ill," she said, and her white face bore her out.

Schwitter and Bill carried her in and up the stairs to one of the newly furnished rooms. The little man was twittering with anxiety. He had a horror of knockout drops and the police. They laid her on the bed, her hat beside her; and Wilson, stripping down the long sleeve of her glove, felt her pulse.

"There's a doctor in the next town," said Schwitter. "I was going to send for him, anyhow--my wife's not very well."

"I'm a doctor."

"Is it anything serious?"

"Nothing serious."

He closed the door behind the relieved figure of the landlord, and, going back to Carlotta, stood looking down at her.

"What did you mean by doing that?"

"Doing what?"

"You were no more faint than I am."

She closed her eyes.

"I don't remember. Everything went black. The lanterns--"

He crossed the room deliberately and went out, closing the door behind him. He saw at once where he stood--in what danger. If she insisted that she was ill and unable to go back, there would be a fuss. The story would come out. Everything would be gone. Schwitter's, of all places!

At the foot of the stairs, Schwitter pulled himself together. After all, the girl was only ill. There was nothing for the police. He looked at his watch. The doctor ought to be here by this time. It was sooner than they had expected. Even the nurse had not come. Tillie was alone, out in the harness-room. He looked through the crowded rooms, at the overflowing porch with its travesty of pleasure, and he hated the whole thing with a desperate hatred.

Another car. Would they never stop coming! But perhaps it was the doctor. A young man edged his way into the hall and confronted him.

"Two people just arrived here. A man and a woman--in white. Where are they?"

It was trouble then, after all!

"Upstairs--first bedroom to the right." His teeth chattered. Surely, as a man sowed he reaped.

Joe went up the staircase. At the top, on the landing, he confronted Wilson. He fired at him without a word--saw him fling up his arms and fall back, striking first the wall, then the floor.

The buzz of conversation on the porch suddenly ceased. Joe put his revolver in his pocket and went quietly down the stairs. The crowd parted to let him through.

Carlotta, crouched in her room, listening, not daring to open the door, heard the sound of a car as it swung out into the road.

CHAPTER XXV

On the evening of the shooting at Schwitter's, there had been a late operation at the hospital. Sidney, having duly transcribed her lecture notes and said her prayers, was already asleep when she received the insistent summons to the operating-room. She dressed again with flying fingers. These night battles with death roused all her fighting blood.

There were times when she felt as if, by sheer will, she could force strength, life itself, into failing bodies. Her sensitive nostrils dilated, her brain worked like a machine.

That night she received well-deserved praise. When the Lamb, telephoning hysterically, had failed to locate the younger Wilson, another staff surgeon was called. His keen eyes watched Sidney--felt her capacity, her fiber, so to speak; and, when everything was over, he told her what was in his mind.