Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 2 — page 34: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

168 ried her to her bedroom. He would have lingered beside the four-posted, chintz-cur- tained bed, but Rhoda swept him out quickly. When she turned to undress her stepdaughter she felt the fever of the lust to kill. For the sake of appearances she had to summon the doctor. He came the same afternoon, wheezing up the narrow stairs, and stood with one hand under the tails of his shiny frock coat and the other caressing the whiskers that had been streaked with just. so much gray ever since Rhoda had known the neighborhood. Rhoda told him how Amy had been wrenched with a series of paroxysms there under her eyes, and how the girl had been ill for a time. ‘“‘Eehm!” he coughed, counting the pa- tient’s pulse by his enormous watch. ‘‘ De- bility! Eghm! Eghm! What I might call a decline, Mrs. Barker, complicated by a severe intestinal disturbance. Very little food for a few days. Rest. Plenty of water. Send for me if she gets any worse. Eghm!”’ He went away, leaving some white tab- lets “ for pain’ which Mrs. Barker knew from her own experience to be morphin. She had her victim now, more surely and safely than as though they were together in the depths of the mountains. Now there was nothing between her and the pallid face that lay sunk in one of the great feather pillows. What man would fall in love with that? she thought contemptuously. A_ face stripped of charm. Nothing but drawn lips and dulled blue eyes and dead-looking hair. Almost she was tempted to let Amy get well in time to see her stepmother mar-. ried to Martin Hewes. She ought to be satisfied, she told herself, and she knew that she would have been a few weeks be- fore. But she had become acquainted with delight in the sight of suffering., More- over, her hatred carried over, and she could not forget that this broken girl had been, or had seemed to be, her rival. So she put the issue of life and death away for a few days. Certainly Amy must stay in bed. There was the morphin, with which she might easily make a mistake, and better still, thought she THE ARGOSY. there was the little blue box that never left her apron pocket by day or her pillow by night. Time enough to decide. Martin Hewes met her anxiously at the For the first time she saw his hand _ tremble— thought she heard a slight catch in his voice. “How is she?” he demanded. did the doctor say?” ‘A decline!” She shrugged; not un- foot of the stairs. sympathetically but with a hint of patient pity. ‘‘ And nerves! know, Martin—”’ She smiled at him, and he answered that smile with a gleam in his eyes such as she had lately been able to rouse there at will. His interest in Amy seemed to cool. ‘She'll be all right, then?” “If she don’t get all right soon I’m to send for the doctor again.’ He was satisfied; and he offered to help her wipe the dishes. She gasped. It was hard to know whether to be pleased, or frightened, or regretful that this superbly chiseled giant should stand with a dish- towel in his hands and wipe plates and cups. Of course she accepted and, with triumph singing to her, she stood side by side with him at ‘the sink through a de- licious half-hour. For the first time she felt complete pow- er over the situation. First the girl and then the man. The two rocks were chipped She was very nearly kind to Amy that night before she went to her own room. 3 Victory was not completely hers, as she learned during the next few days. Each morning, while she was giving Amy her breakfast of toast and milk, Hewes came to the door and knocked. Then he ducked his head so that he could clear the lintel and stepped inside where he could look down at the motionless head of limp, light- colored hair. ‘Feeling better?” he would ask; and al- ways Amy managed to bring back to her face something of the light that had been there—a little upward curve of the lips and a brave crinkle about the eyes. “ Yes—better!”’ Some women, you Then he would flash his own smile back comicloool ‘< Whe. . C©