Marion Marlowe in Chicago, or, Trapped by a Lunatic — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

a ~_ x, > - %... * " tion: - pital to look for Mr. Temple. Will telephone _ from there, so don’t worry about me.’ He read the words aloud and sighed as he j finished. “She must have started and then gone back,” he said, desperately. “T cannot think of any other explanation.” “Suppose we ask them to let us telephone to the hotel,” suggested Alma, shrewdly. ‘“‘It _ will save us an hour’s suspense, if they will — let -us do it.” ¢ Bert bounded back up the steps and rang the bell. It was several minutes before he _ Was again admitted to the building. - Marion had not returned to the hotel. The | night clerk at the Richelieu lad been con- stantly on the lookout for her. As Bert was hanging up the receiver he heard a peculiar sound. An ambulance call had been received at the hospital, and the lo- _cality was registered on an indicator right behind him. He gave the matter no attention, for he was thinking deeply of Marion; but as he returned to the carriage the clang of the am- _ bulance bell as the vehicle rumbled from the _ hospital gate seemed to thrill him from head *. to foot with a hideous sensation. “Great Heaven! Suppose it should be for her!’ he burst out, impetuously. “Quick! Order the” driver to follow!” cried Miss Allyn, sharply. “It will probably not be far, and we must relieve ourselves of this anxiety!” Dr. Brookes gave the order and sprang into the carriage. The next minute they were dashing down the street in the wake of the ambulance. It was farther than they had thought, but not a word was spoken. Gazing from the window, they could all see that the neighbor- hood was becoming poorer and poorer, and the gas lamps were so far apart that they were almost useless. As the clang of the bell warned them that the right locality was at hand, the driver slowed up and Bert and the doctor sprang from the carriage. A moment later they were in the thick of - 4 wretched-looking crowd of both men and _ women, who had gathered around the pros- _ trate form of the victim. MY QUEEN. a YJ “T had to knock him down; he’d have killed me if I hadn't,” explained a surly voice, and one of the two policemen present cleared a path for the surgeon, You knock him to pieces and “What? then ring for us to mend him!” cried the ambulance surgeon, angrily. “Well, you cops are dandies! That's all I’ve got to say about you!” The policeman grunted, but he took if good-naturedly. “I guess you'd have hit him, too, if he’d come at you with a knife,” he said, quickly. “The fellow was either drunk or rip-roaring crazy. Just hold on a minute and he'll show you!” he added. The man that the ambulance had come for was staggering to his feet, and in another second he began muttering incoherently. “Are you sure it’s a hospital case instead of an arrest?” asked the surgeon, as he swung the patient around where he could see ins face. ‘““We’ve got no room up there for drunks or disorderlies !”’ ‘““He’s crazy, I tell you,” said the police- man, growing angry. “Think I’ve been on the force ten years and don’t know what I’m a-doing? “Take him along, and take him quick! It’s a straitjacket he wants, not a fine or a cluhbing!”’ iJr. Brookes had pressed forward while the ofiicer Was speaking, for something in the ap- pearance of the crazy man had struck him as familiar. Seizing the ambulance lantern, he swung it close to his face; then, both he and Bert gave a cry of horror. “Percy Preston! as I’m alive!” cried Bert, in astonishment. “Why, I thought he was safe in a lunatic asylum!”’ The words had hardly left bis lips when the maniac turned on him. He had wit enough left to catch the last two words and understand them. “Hal ha!” he cried, feebly. “No bolts and bars for me! Oh, I was there in the asylum —I was there! I was there! And it was Temple who sent me there! Will I ever for- get it! Temple sent me there—he and *Mar- ion Marlowe!” “Take him away, quick! He’s going off into tantrums again!” bawled the officer, who GOMGIOOKSEGoOn