The Destroying Angel. Vance Louis Joseph

relegated to the status of a last resort, as involving explanations which might not seem adequate to the singular circumstances; besides, he entertained a dim, searching, intuitive suspicion that possibly the girl herself would more cheerfully dispense with explanations – though he hardly knew why… He remembered that people burned feathers in such emergencies, or else loosened the lady's stays (corsets plus a fainting fit equal stays, invariably, it seems). But there weren't any feathers handy, and – well, anyway, neither expedient made any real appeal to his intelligence. Besides, there were sensible things he could do to make her more comfortable – chafe her hands and administer stimulants: things like that.

      Even while these thoughts were running through his mind, he was gathering the slight young body into his arms; and he found it really astonishingly easy to rise and bear her to the bed, where he put her down flat on her back, without a pillow. Then turning to his hand-bag, he opened it and produced a small, leather-bound flask of brandy; a little of which would go far toward shattering her syncope, he fancied.

      It did, in fact; a few drops between her half-parted lips, and she came to with disconcerting rapidity, opening dazed eyes in the middle of a spasm of coughing. He stepped back, stoppering the flask.

      "That's better," he said pleasantly. "Now lie still while I fetch you a drink of water."

      As he turned to the wash-stand his foot struck the tumbler she had dropped. He stopped short, frowning down at the great, staring, wet, yellow stain on the dingy and threadbare carpet. Together with this discovery he got a whiff of an acrid-sweet effluvium that spelled "Oxalic Acid – Poison" as unmistakably as did the druggist's label on the empty packet on the wash-stand…

      In another moment he was back at the bedside with a clean glass of water, which he offered to the girl's lips, passing his arm beneath her shoulders and lifting her head so that she might drink.

      She emptied the glass thirstily.

      "Look here," he said almost roughly under the lash of this new fear – "you didn't really drink any of that stuff, did you?"

      Her eyes met his with a look of negation clouded by fear and bewilderment. Then she turned her head away. Dragging a pillow beneath it, he let her down again.

      "Good," he said in accents meant to be enheartening; "you'll be all right in a moment or two."

      Her colourless lips moved in a whisper he had to bend close to distinguish.

      "Please…"

      "Yes?"

      "Please don't … call anybody…"

      "I won't. Don't worry."

      The lids quivered down over her eyes, and her mouth was wrung with anguish. He stared, perplexed. He wanted to go away quickly, but couldn't gain his own consent to do so. She was in no condition to be left alone, this delicate and fragile child, defenceless and beset. It wasn't hard to conjecture the hell of suffering she must have endured before coming to a pass of such desperation. There were dull blue shadows beneath eyes red with weeping, a forlorn twist to her thin, bloodless lips, a pinched look of wretchedness like a glaze over her unhappy face, that told too plain a story. A strange girl, to find in a plight like hers, he thought: not pretty, but quite unusual: delicate, sensitive, high-strung, bred to the finer things of life – this last was self-evident in the fine simplicity of her severely plain attire. Over her hair, drawn tight down round her head, she wore one of those knitted motor caps which were the fashion of that day. Her shoes were still wet and a trifle muddy, her coat and skirt more than a trifle damp, indicating that she had returned from a dash to the drug store not long before Whitaker arrived.

      A variety of impressions, these with others less significant, crowded upon his perceptions in little more than a glance. For suddenly Nature took her in hand; she twisted upon her side, as if to escape his regard, and covered her face, her palms muffling deep tearing sobs while waves of pent-up misery racked her slender little body.

      Whitaker moved softly away…

      Difficult, he found it, to guess what to do; more difficult still to do nothing. His nerves were badly jangled; light-footed, he wandered restlessly to and fro, half distracted between the storm of weeping that beat gustily within the room and the deadly blind drum of the downpour on the tin roof beyond the windows. Since that twilight hour in that tawdry hotel chamber, no one has ever been able to counterfeit sorrow and remorse to Whitaker; he listened then to the very voice of utter Woe.

      Once, pausing by the centre-table, he happened to look down. He saw a little heap of the hotel writing-paper, together with envelopes, a pen, a bottle of ink. Three of the envelopes were sealed and superscribed, and two were stamped. The unstamped letter was addressed to the Proprietor of the Commercial House.

      Of the others, one was directed to a Mr. C. W. Morton in care of another person at a number on lower Sixth Avenue, New York; and from this Whitaker began to understand the singular manner of his introduction to the wrong room; there's no great difference between Morton and Morten, especially when written carelessly.

      But the third letter caused his eyes to widen considerably. It bore the name of Thurlow Ladislas, Esq., and a Wall Street address.

      Whitaker's mouth shaped a still-born whistle. He was recalling with surprising distinctness the fragment of dialogue he had overheard at his club the previous afternoon.

      IV

      MRS. WHITAKER

      He lived through a long, bad quarter hour, his own tensed nerves twanging in sympathy with the girl's sobbing – like telegraph wires singing in a gale – his mind busy with many thoughts, thoughts strangely new and compelling, wearing a fresh complexion that lacked altogether the colouring of self-interest.

      He mixed a weak draught of brandy and water and returned to the bedside. The storm was passing in convulsive gasps ever more widely spaced, but still the girl lay with her back to him.

      "If you'll sit up and try to drink this," he suggested quietly, "I think you'll feel a good deal better."

      Her shoulders moved spasmodically; otherwise he saw no sign that she heard.

      "Come – please," he begged gently.

      She made an effort to rise, sat up on the bed, dabbed at her eyes with a sodden wisp of handkerchief, and groped blindly for the glass. He offered it to her lips.

      "What is it?" she whispered hoarsely.

      He spoke of the mixture in disparaging terms as to its potency, until at length she consented to swallow it – teeth chattering on the rim of the tumbler. The effect was quickly apparent in the colour that came into her cheeks, faint but warm. He avoided looking directly at her, however, and cast round for the bell-push, which he presently found near the head of the bed.

      She moved quickly with alarm.

      "What are you going to do?" she demanded in a stronger voice.

      "Order you something to eat," he said. "No – please don't object. You need food, and I mean to see you get it before I leave."

      If she thought of protesting, the measured determination in his manner deterred her. After a moment she asked:

      "Please – who are you?"

      "My name is Whitaker," he said – "Hugh Morten Whitaker."

      She repeated the name aloud. "Haven't I heard of you? Aren't you engaged to Alice Carstairs?"

      "I'm the man you mean," he said quietly; "but I'm not engaged to Alice Carstairs."

      "Oh…" Perplexity clouded the eyes that followed closely his every movement. "How did you happen to – to find me here?"

      "Quite by accident," he replied. "I didn't want to be known, so registered as Hugh Morten. They mistook me for your husband. Do you mind telling me how long it is since you've had anything to eat?"

      She told him: "Last night."

      He suffered a sense of shame only second to her own, to see the dull flush that accompanied her reply. His fingers itched for the throat of Mr. C. W. Morton, chauffeur. Happily a knock at the door distracted him. Opening it no wider than necessary to communicate