The Argosy, Volume XLIV — page 271: what you’re looking at

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

WV BY THE KENEMY’S WILL. cordance just then—jangling was not the word for them. All sorts of remedies of which I had heard—recommended for use on such occasions—jumbled m my memory. That it was the correct thing, under such circumstances, to loosen the things around a woman’s throat was promi- nent; I unbuttoned those at her neck to which I could get fingers. There was a carafe on a side table; I picked it up and sprinkled her face with water. Frightened? By now I was simply horribly frightened. Perhaps I am not a greater coward than my neighbors, but this particular lion had never crossed my path. I was frightened—that is, if a sinking sensa- tion at the heart is anything of a cri- terion. Really, my apprehensions were scri- ous—she was so still and quiet—that the girl was dead. Back flashed to my memory another thing I had heard: that it is best to lay a fainting woman flat on her back. No sooner the thought than I acted on it: started lifting the girl from her chair, with the intention of putting her on the floor. It seemed a hard, inhuman sort of thing to do, although there existed no reason for any feeling of softness on my part toward the girl. Still, as I picked her up I felt that to dump her down on the floor would be an act bor- dering on sheer callousness. The bedroom was adjoining; I car- ried her there and laid her on the bed. The only thing of which at the mo- ment I could think to revive her— ludicrous as it may sound—was burnt feathers. I had not a feather in the flat, save some quill pens, and they seemed too stubby to contain any reviving power. What next to do I did not know. Brandy in a bottle attracted my atten- tion; I poured some of it into a glass; tried to get a little of the spirit down the girl’s throat. It was a hopeless sort of task. Her teeth were clenched:so that it was im- possible to foree the edge of the glass between them; the brandy all went on the pillow. At my wits’ end what to do, I chafed 207 the palms of her hands—might as well have chafed the soles of her boots for all the effect it had. The throbbing of her heart was so faint that I was in mortal fear lest it should cease beating altogether. The minutes passed; quarter hours passed—a second and a third and a fourth—winding up with the striking of ten o’clock from the turret clock over the library of the Inn. One hour the girl had been lying on my bed in that unconscious condition! She might be growing worse and worse —delay might make her condition dan- gerous ; might even raise the peril to the point of death itself. My mind was made up; I would go out, and, regardless of the conse- quences, fetch in a doctor. The situation was too pregnant with dancer. CHAPTER IV. IN PERIL OF HER LIFE. LEAVING the bedside, I went out into the hall to the hat rack. There I ex- changed my lounge jacket for an out- door coat and put on my hat. Then I went back to the room to take another hurried look at the girl lying there. She had not moved; seemed to be scarcely breathing. | I knew in my heart—a heart that was, metaphorically, in my mouth— that it was not a trick on her part. Yet as I left the bedroom I turned the key in the lock. Inside two or three minutes I had hurried out; was down the stairs; out of the building, out of the Inn. The lodge gates were closed; the porter had to open the wicket to allow me egress. I had no idea in which di- rection to seek for a doctor, and when, after turning to the right, I came out into. Gray’s Inn Road, I looked—un- successfully—right and left for -the usual sign: a red lamp. Ultimately I obtained directions from a policeman. Following them, I reached a house at the Holborn end of the road, on the door of which was a brass plate. It bore a name and description: “ Mr. Maynard, M. R. C. 8.” Colin DOO SS) (GO) awa