PAGE 16
The Deliverer
by
“I think Archie must have forgotten to thank you,” she said, “for what you did. But I have not. Will you accept my gratitude?”
There was proud humility in her voice. But Wingarde only shrugged his shoulders with a sneer.
“Your gratitude would have been more genuine if you had been saved a widow instead of a wife,” he said brutally.
She recoiled from him. Her eyes flashed furious indignation. She felt as if he had struck her in the face. She spoke instantly and vehemently. Her voice shook.
“That is a poison of your own mixing,” she said. “You know it!”
“What! It isn’t true?” he asked.
He drew suddenly close to her. His eyes gleamed also with the gleam of a smouldering fire. She saw that he was moved. She believed him to be angry. Trembling, yet scornful, she held her peace.
He gripped her wrists suddenly, bending his dark face close to hers.
“If it isn’t true–” he said, and stopped.
She drew back from him with a startled movement. For an instant her eyes challenged his. Then abruptly their fierce resistance failed. She turned her face aside and burst into tears.
In a moment she was free. Her husband stood regarding her with a very curious look in his eyes. He watched her as she moved slowly away from him, fighting fiercely, desperately, to regain her self-control. He saw her sit down, leaving almost the length of the room between them, and lean her head upon her hand.
Then the man’s arrested brutality suddenly reasserted itself, and he strode to the door.
“Pshaw!” he exclaimed as he went. “Don’t I know that you pray for a deliverer every night of your life? And what deliverer would you have if not death–the surest of all–in your case positively the only one within the bounds of possibility?”
He was gone with the words, but she would not have attempted to answer them had he stayed. Her head was bowed almost to her knees, and she sat quite motionless, as if he had stabbed her to the heart.
Later she dined alone with Archie in her husband’s unexplained absence, and later still, at the theatre, her face was as gay, her laugh as frequent, as any there.
IX
THE END OF A MYSTERY
On the following afternoon Nina went to the Wade Home to see the victim of the accident. She was received by the matron, a middle-aged, kindly woman, who was openly pleased with the concern her visitor exhibited.
“Oh, he’s better,” she said, “much better. But I’m afraid I can’t let you see him now, as he is asleep. Dr. Wade examined him himself yesterday. And he was here again this morning. His opinion is that the spine has been only bruised. While unconsciousness lasted, it was, of course, difficult to tell. But the patient became conscious this morning, and Dr. Wade said he was very well pleased with him on the whole. He thinks we shall not have him very long. He’s a bright little chap and thoroughly likes his quarters. His father is a dock labourer. Everyone knows the Wade Home, and all the patients consider themselves very lucky to be here. You see, the doctor is such a favourite wherever he goes.”
“I have never met Dr. Wade,” Nina said. “I suppose he is a great man?”
The matron’s jolly face glowed with enthusiasm.
“He is indeed,” she said–“a splendid man. You probably know him by another name. They say he is a leading physician in the West End. But we City people know him and love him by his assumed name only. Why, only lately he cut short his holiday on purpose to be near one of his patients who was dying. If you could manage to come to-morrow afternoon after four o’clock, no doubt you would see him. It is visiting-day, and he is always here on Sunday afternoons between three and six in case the visitors like to see him. I should be delighted to give you some tea. And you could then see the little boy.”