Dawn O'Hara, the Girl Who Laughed Part 23

"Because I shall be needed here, Dawn. Because I cannot leave you now.

You will need--some one--a friend--"

I stared at him with eyes that were wide with terror, waiting for I knew not what.

"Need--some one--for--what?" I stammered. "Why should you--"

In the kindly shadow of the trees Von Gerhard's hands took my icy ones, and held them in a close clasp of encouragement.

"Norah is coming to be with you--"

"Norah! Why? Tell me at once! At once!"

"Because Peter Orme has been sent home--cured," said he.

The lights of the pavilion fell away, and advanced, and swung about in a great sickening circle. I shut my eyes. The lights still swung before my eyes. Von Gerhard leaned toward me with a word of alarm. I clung to his hands with all my strength.

"No!" I said, and the savage voice was not my own. "No! No! No! It isn't true! It isn't--Oh, it's some joke, isn't it? Tell me, it's--it's something funny, isn't it? And after a bit we'll laugh--we'll laugh--of course--see! I am smiling already--"

"Dawn--dear one--it is true. G.o.d knows I wish that I could be happy to know it. The hospital authorities p.r.o.nounce him cured. He has been quite sane for weeks."

"You knew it--how long?"

"You know that Max has attended to all communications from the doctors there. A few weeks ago they wrote that Orme had shown evidences of recovery. He spoke of you, of the people he had known in New York, of his work on the paper, all quite rationally and calmly. But they must first be sure. Max went to New York a week ago. Peter was gone. The hospital authorities were frightened and apologetic. Peter had walked away quite coolly one day. He had gone into the city, borrowed money of some old newspaper cronies, and vanished. He may be there still. He may be--"

"Here! Ernst! Take me home! O G.o.d; I can't do it! I can't! I ought to be happy, but I'm not. I ought to be thankful, but I'm not, I'm not! The horror of having him there was great enough, but it was nothing compared to the horror of having him here. I used to dream that he was well again, and that he was searching for me, and the dreadful realness of it used to waken me, and I would find myself s.h.i.+vering with terror. Once I dreamed that I looked up from my desk to find him standing in the doorway, smiling that mirthless smile of his, and I heard him say, in his mocking way: 'h.e.l.lo, Dawn my love; looking wonderfully well. Gra.s.s widowhood agrees with you, eh?'"

"Dawn, you must not laugh like that. Come, we will go. You are s.h.i.+vering! Don't, dear, don't. See, you have Norah, and Max, and me to help you. We will put him on his feet. Physically he is not what he should be. I can do much for him."

"You!" I cried, and the humor of it was too exquisite for laughter.

"For that I gave up Vienna," said Von Gerhard, simply. "You, too, must do your share."

"My share! I have done my share. He was in the gutter, and he was dragging me with him. When his insanity came upon him I thanked G.o.d for it, and struggled up again. Even Norah never knew what that struggle was. Whatever I am, I am in spite of him. I tell you I could hug my widow's weeds. Ten years ago he showed me how horrible and unclean a thing can be made of this beautiful life. I was a despairing, cowering girl of twenty then--I am a woman now, happy in her work, her friends; growing broader and saner in thought, quicker to appreciate the finer things in life. And now--what?"

They were das.h.i.+ng off a rollicking folk-song indoors. When it was finished there came a burst of laughter and the sharp spat of applauding hands, and shouts of approbation. The sounds seemed seared upon my brain. I rose and ran down the path toward the waiting machine. There in the darkness I buried my shamed face in my hands and prayed for the tears that would not come.

It seemed hours before I heard Von Gerhard's firm, quick tread upon the gravel path. He moved about the machine, adjusting this and that, then took his place at the wheel without a word. We glided out upon the smooth white road. All the loveliness of the night seemed to have vanished. Only the ugly, distorted shadows remained. The terror of uncertainty gripped me. I could not endure the sight of Von Gerhard's stern, set face. I grasped his arm suddenly so that the machine veered and darted across the road. With a mighty wrench Von Gerhard righted it.

He stopped the machine at the road-side.

"Careful, Kindchen," he said, gravely.

"Ernst," I said, and my breath came quickly, chokingly, as though I had been running fast, "Ernst, I can't do it. I'm not big enough. I can't.

I hate him, I tell you, I hate him! My life is my own. I've made it what it is, in the face of a hundred temptations; in spite of a hundred pitfalls. I can't lay it down again for Peter Orme to trample. Ernst, if you love me, take me away now. To Vienna--anywhere--only don't ask me to take up my life with him again. I can't--I can't--"

"Love you?" repeated Ernst, slowly, "yes. Too well--"

"Too well--"

"Yes, too well for that, Gott sei dank, small one. Too well for that."

CHAPTER XVIII. PETER ORME

A man's figure rose from the shadows of the porch and came forward to meet us as we swung up to the curbing. I stifled a scream in my throat.

As I shrank back into the seat I heard the quick intake of Von Gerhard's breath as he leaned forward to peer into the darkness. A sick dread came upon me.

"Sa-a-ay, girl," drawled the man's voice, with a familiar little cackling laugh in it, "sa-a-ay, girl, the policeman on th' beat's got me spotted for a suspicious character. I been hoofin' it up an' down this block like a distracted mamma waitin' for her daughter t' come home from a boat ride."

"Blackie! It's only you!"

"Thanks, flatterer," simpered Blackie, coming to the edge of the walk as I stepped from the automobile. "Was you expectin' the landlady?"

"I don't know just whom I expected. I--I'm nervous, I think, and you startled me. Dr. Von Gerhard was taken back for a moment, weren't you, Doctor?"

Von Gerhard laughed ruefully. "Frankly, yes. It is not early. And visitors at this hour--"

"What in the world is it, Blackie?" I put in. "Don't tell me that Norberg has been seized with one of his fiendish inspirations at this time of night."

Blackie struck a match and held it for an instant so that the flare of it illuminated his face as he lighted his cigarette. There was no laughter in the deep-set black eyes.

"What is it Blackie?" I asked again. The horror of what Von Gerhard had told me made the prospect of any lesser trial a welcome relief.

"I got t' talk to you for a minute. P'raps Von Gerhard 'd better hear it, too. I telephoned you an hour ago. Tried to get you out to the bay.

Waited here ever since. Got a parlor, or somethin', where a guy can talk?"

I led the way indoors. The first floor seemed deserted. The bare, unfriendly boarding-house parlor was unoccupied, and one dim gas jet did duty as illumination.

"Bring in the set pieces," muttered Blackie, as he turned two more gas jets flaring high. "This parlor just yells for a funeral."

Von Gerhard was frowning. "Mrs. Orme is not well," he began. "She has had a shock--some startling news concerning--"

"Her husband?" inquired Blackie, coolly. I started up with a cry. "How could you know?"

A look of relief came into Blackie's face. "That helps a little. Now listen, kid. An' w'en I get through, remember I'm there with the little helpin' mitt. Have a cigarette, Doc?"

"No," said Von Gerhard, shortly.

Blackie's strange black eyes were fastened on my face, and I saw an expression of pity in their depths as he began to talk.

"I was up at the Press Club to-night. Dropped in for a minute or two, like I always do on the rounds. The place sounded kind of still when I come up the steps, and I wondered where all the boys was. Looked into the billiard room--nothin' doin'. Poked my head in at the writin'

room--same. Ambled into the readin' room--empty. Well, I steered for the dining room, an' there was the bunch. An' just as I come in they give a roar, and I started to investigate. Up against the fireplace, with one hand in his pocket, and the other hanging careless like on the mantel, stood a man--stranger t' me. He was talkin' kind of low, and quick, bitin' off his words like a Englishman. An' the boys, they was starin'

with their eyes, an' their mouths, and forgettin' t' smoke, an' lettin'

their pipes an' cigars go dead in their hands, while he talked. Talk!

Sa-a-ay, girl, that guy, he could talk the leads right out of a ruled, locked form. I didn't catch his name. Tall, thin, unearthly lookin'

chap, with the whitest teeth you ever saw, an' eyes--well, his eyes was somethin' like a lighted pipe with a little fine ash over the red, just waitin' for a sudden pull t' make it glow."