The Argosy, Volume XLIV — page 275: what you’re looking at

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

BY THE ENEMY’S - WILL. that from the care with which he had counted the drops. His efforts were no doubt directed to a rallying of the vital energies and causing the girl’s return to conscious- ness. . Putting that belief into words, I was met by the reply, ungraciously uttered: “I hope so.” Again there was such significance in - the tone in which he spoke—despite its seeming callousness—that I cried ex- citedly: “Hope! It is not the word for it! I pray—pray with all my heart and soul that she will recover—and speedily.” “TI quite understand your anxiety.” What there was about me to arouse the doctor’s animosity was a fathomless mystery. To me, his manner was of that aggressive kind which arouses an- tagonism. Unfortunately, I am cast in that mold; am prone to kick against the pricks: hence the undercurrent of hos- tility in my wonder. It was so evident that he discredited every word J uttered; wrongly con- strued my every act; put his own con- struction upon the facts before him re- gardless of any other possible version. Possibly he was influenced by what he read in my face: fright. There is no shadow of doubt that it was displayed there—large sized. That being so, he might zmagine that I feared discovery of some offense or perhaps crime. But the basis of my alarm was other than he supposed. What I did fear was that if the girl died without com- ing to her senses and disclosing the mo- tive which had brought her there, I might find myself in a position of great unpleasantness! A situation bordering on positive danger. The girl’s name and address were un- known to me. The more I thought over the strangeness of her ingress that night—entrance of my chambers by means of keys that fitted the locks—the more clearly I realized how difficult it would be to convince any one to whom I might tell the story that it was a truthful one. Mendacity was written right across the face of it: truth confirming un- truth. 2701 As we stood by the bedside watching She unconscious girl—the doctor occa- | ionally czeferring to his watch and counting off the stipulated thirty min- utes—the suspense became almost in- tolerable. Foreseeing the possibility, the hor- rible possibility, of the girl’s death, I thought it well to essay the making of a friend of him—of this man who had taken so marked a disiike to me. It looked a herculean task, and, as it shaped, it became hopclessly beyond my strength. “Things are quieter now, doctor,” I began. “ Your being here greatly re- heves my anxiety. I am not so excited as I was.” He looked up searchingly; the lie I - was telling must have been palpable. Although trying to force myself into coolness in talking, I was even more agitated than before. Deep rooted in my mind was the hor- rible idea that the girl would die: an idea of the doctor’s planting. “T want to tell you, doctor,” I con- tinued, “how it is that you find this girl here.” “Locked in your room!” “Yes. I am well aware of the con- struction it would be possible for a sus- picious mind to place on that founda- tion.” “ Suspicious ! ” His eyebrows went up again in that peculiar, pertinent, interrogative way of his. I don’t know that facial ex- pression could be more irritatingly shaped. “T want to explain.” _ “It should prove interesting hear- ing.” There was a warning in his tone which I disregarded. Had all my wits been about me, I should have realized the hopeless nature of my efforts. As it was, I struggled on with my attempt to convince him. “She came here to-night,” I per- severed, “voluntarily. I never before saw ter, here or elsewhere, in my life. She came here and entered these rooms without any invitation from me of any kind.” The cynical smile of disbelief which slowly came crecping round the doctor’s (GO) MICO SS (COL