Se "
Bellefonte, Pa., August 17, ° 1928.
——
A SLIP OF THE KNIFE.
Dwellers in cities, at any rate if
they contain within them any residue
of the savage man whom they deride,
must be pricked at times by a longing
to get away from houses and the ev-
erlasting cries of the streets into the
wastes and the wilds, where nature
definitely dominates man. This get-
ting away—it is a sort of strange go-
ing home. It brings to the inner man
a curious intimate satisfaction, the
happy sense of an appeased appetite.
He has a feeling of finding himself
in loneliness.
One day in London I felt I must
get away, go right away, if only for
a week or ten days. My brain felt
jaded with work. My ears were weary
of noise. :
I opened a yellow railway guide,
turned over the pages, and at last
paused, arrested by a note of simplic-
ity which seemed to sound clearly,
delicately through my mind after all
the hubbub of blatancy. Upon the
page before me was a small picture
of a whitewashed house, ground floor
and one story about it, and under-
neath was printed the following ad-
vertisement:
The Trout Inn
Sand Hills
Cumberland.
Comfortable rooms for travelers. Good
plain cooking. Reasonable terms. Fine
sands. Good bathing. Golf. Fresh-
water fishing. Excursions to the Lake
District. Open all the year round.
A simple advertisement enough,
and that was just why it attracted
me. I never had heard of Sand Hills,
Cumberland. I never had heards of
the Trout Inn. Mrs. Emma Marsh’s
name was unknown to me.
I pictured her as a plump red-
cheeked Cumberland widow great in
the cooking of that famous Cumber-
land dish, ham and eggs. And she
must be a sensible woman because so
unpretentious. Actually she announc-
ed her house for travelers as an inn
—good old, well-nigh forgotten word.
Surely, surely the Trout Inn for me!
And quickly I turned the pages
once more and looked up Sand Hills
in the railway part of the guide. Yes,
there was a station. I glanced at a
map. Sand Hills lay on the coast be-
tween Carnforth and Whitehaven,
much nearer to the latter than to the
former town. It could not be very
far from West Water where the
mountains begin.
The month was October. The golf,
the fishing would be all right. And
I could walk the sands, on the lonely
sands—they surely must be lonely—-
and forget all the voices of London.
I got out a Norfolk jacket, a pair
of gray trousers. I packed a suit-
case. On the following morning be-
fore ten o'clock I was at Euston rail-
way station.
It was good to get to Carnforth.
It was better still, having changed to
a train of the Furness railway, to run
along the coast ever northward. Of-
ten we were close to the sea.
It was a rather dark afternoon.
The foam of the tumbling sea seem-
ed to make a long gash in the gray-
ness. When I let down the carriage
window on the sea side a sharp, eager
wind came in to me, salty and almost
fierce. Gulls flew up in squadrons.
Lonelier, ever lonelier grew the land.
Then the sea was blotted out and
the train ran between the hummocky
sand-hills and meadows enclosed by
stone walls. Five minutes later the
sea again came in sight with a few
cold-looking houses on a low treeless
hill, and below, at the edge of pale
yellow flat sands, another line of
. small houses set along a rough bit of
green going into the sands.
The train slowed up, stopped. I
heard a Cumbrain voice saying, “Sand
Hills! Sand Hills!”
Destination—Trout
Marsh!
The wind up there seemed to em-
phasize, even to make the loneliness of
of the place. The seaside season was
of course quite over, and there was
certainly no crowd in the Trout Inn.
True, as I entered it, treading on oil-
cloth past a stuffed otter in a glass
case, I heard rough talk coming ev-
idently from a concealed bar. But
when I went down a dipping passage,
covered with more oilcloth, into the
“coffee-room”—if you please—to have
a belated tea I found only two per-
sons there. an elderly lady with
bandeaux on which sat a white cap
trimmed with shining black cherries,
and a thin, long-nosed and dreary-
faced man, perhaps her son, who was
playing a patience while she did some
worsted work by one of the large win-
dows which shook under the assault
of the wind. They looked at me as
if with suspicion, certainly with sur-
prise.
Tea finished, I resolved to go out
at once and have a look around, and
again I moved over the oilcloth.
Just as reached the stuffed otter a
large elderly woman emerged from a
narrow passage on the left. She had a
rubicund determined face, steady eyes
and smooth brown hair partly cover-
ed by a black bonnet which had un-
fastened strings.
“Mrs. Emma Marsh!” I said to my-
self.
“Good afternoon,” said I.
“Good afternoon, sir,” she replied,
with a Cumbrian accent.
“This is your hotel 7”
“The Trout is mine, sir. My hus-
band’s been dead these ten years. I
hope you'll feel yourself comfortable.”
“So far I'm delighted,” I said. “I’m
just going out to get a breath of your
splendid air.”
“Though I says it as shouldn’t, sir,
the air here is every bit as good as
Blackpool’s.”
“I'm sure it is.”
And then I went out.
I crossed the railway line, passed
through a swing gate and was soon
on the sands. Although the tide was
flowing it was still far out. I began
to walks briskly and—I don’t know
why—I walked southward.
I love the feel of firm sand under
my feet, and after London days the
Inn—Emma
|
glorious freshnes of the wind, coming
straight to me over the rollers, stung
me into a physical activity I had not
known for long. I walked with ener-
gy, on and on into the loneliness of
this strangely desolate shore. The
lights of Sand Hills fadded and died
behind me.
Now, when I had walked for per-
haps twenty minutes I was aware of
a light at some distance away on my
left, raised, it seemed to me, a little
in the darkness, as if it shone on one
of the low sand-hills and was close to
the shore. I stood still on the sand
and looked at it.
A lonely house here, in this deso-
late place, in the midst of this rum-
mage of hillocks away from any high-
road! Curiosity took hold of me as
1 stared at that yellow eye which
stared back at me steadily, and yet,
as I fancied, somewhat stealthily.
My imagination got to work. Some
oddity must have lighted that lamp,
some crank, some peculiar specimen
of humanity who had a morbid taste
for solitude and who had found jt
here on the fringe of this desolate
shore in the midst of winds and sea
voices.
My desire for quick progress along
the hard sands was checked, and af-
ter standing still for some time I
turned off at right angles and made
my way towards the light. I got
among some low rocks, interspersed
with sandy basins and small pools of
water, and after negotiating them
found myself at the foot of a slope
of loose sand and pebbles leading up
to the sand-hills, among which I now
could see the light shining out of a
bungalow which was set in the midst
of a rabbit-warren.
I mounted the slope and stool still.
The bungalow looked fairly large
and amazingly solitary. It had a jut-
ting window. In the window, or very
near it, was set the lamp which had
drawn me to the fence of barbed wire
protecting the sandy demesne. There
seemed no attempt at a garden. 1
was standing among the pebbles look-
ing at the general darkness of this
house raised a little above me, and
broken only by the one light, when I
heard a man’s voice say, “What is
it you want ’em?”
The voice was rather deep. It
sounded cultivated but acutely suspi-
cious. It startled me, as I had not
seen anyone near me in the dim even-
ing light which was darkening rap-
idly into the blackness of night. Be-
fore I had made any reply to the ab-
rupt question addressed to me I saw
the figure of a man rise up before
me from behind a small sand-bank
out of a depression in the warren. He
stepped up to the wire fence and con-
fronted me.
Tall, broad but thin, he had a red,
or rather purplish-red face with high
cheek-bones, and bright, quickly
shifting eyes whose color I couldn’t
determine, a thin gray mustache and
wispy brown hair wich showed be-
neath a battered old cap. He wore an
obviously old mustard-yellow coat,
and carried a thick gnarled stick in
his right hand. His hands, I noticed,
were of much the same color as his
face. I guessed him to be about fif-
ty-five and a gentleman.
“Want anything?” he added, still
in the suspicious deep voice.
“No, nothing,” I said. :
“Then what are you doing here?”
he rejoined.
“I was walking on the sands. I saw
a light and wondered what it shone
from, as the country along here is so
lonely. That’s why I am here.”
I didn’t look at him as I spoke, for
I wanted him to look at me and be
reassured. For this was a man ob-
viously ready to be suspicious, perhaps
even afraid. And he interested me.
So I didn’t want him to be afraid of
me. Apparently he must have sum-
med me up while I looked away, for
he said in a different tone:
“You’re from Sand Hills?”
“Yes. I'm at the inn for a few
days to get a little air. I live in Lon-
don and felt rather run down.”
“Oh, you're at Emma Marsh’s
place,” he said. There was an instant
of silence. Then he added, “Well,
good night to you!” And I saw his
big form walk away over the hillocks
and depressions of the warren and
disappear round a corner of the bun-
galow.
That same night after dinner in
the coffee-room I resolved to try to
have a little talk with Emma Marsh.
My interview at the edge of the war-
ren had made me, I confess, inquisi-
tive about the dweller in the bunga-
low. And from the intonation of the
stranger’s voice when he had said,
“Oh, you’re at Emma Marsh’s place,”
I had gathered that he was on friend-
ly terms with my landlady.
Accordingly, directly the bananas
and nuts of which our dessert con-
cisted had been dealt with, I bowed
to the lady with the black cherries
and the dreary young man with the
long nose, made my way up the slight
hill from the coffee-room, and betook
myself to the stuffed otter. Opposite
him on the right I had noticed a sort
of parlor which I guessed to be Em-
ma Marsh’s private sanctum. As I
arrived in front of it the door hap-
pened to be standing open, and I saw
Mrs. Marsh within, wearing a black
gown and a white cap and taking
something out of a large work-basket
which stood upon the round table in
front of her.
She looked up as I appeared and
said, “Good evening, sir.”
“Good evening. You're cozy in
here,” I said, looking at the bright
fire behind her. “On a windy night
like this it’s nice to be warm.”
“Yes, sir. It’s pretty near always
windy here—leastways—when sum-
mer’s over. Would you like to step
in?”
“Very much, if I may,” I answered.
And I stepped in and went up to the
fire as if that were the chief attrac-
tion for me.
“Sit down, sir, please, if you care
to,” said Mrs. Marsh, who was evi-
dently not averse to company.
“Thanks, very much.”
I sat down in a round-backed wood-
en chair with a hard cushion of horse-
hair. fitted into it, and put my hands
towards the fire. She sat down too,
after partially closing the door, and
began doing some work by the table
in a thoroughly composed manner. |
Decidedly a somebody in her way—
Mrs. Emma Marsh.
I began warily. First I talked in a
general way about Cumberland, then.
I drew to Sand Hills, and finally I
got to my afternoon walk.
“What wonderful sands you have
here!” I said.
“Yes, sir. Blackpool hasn’t any
better,” said my hostess to whom ev-
idently Blackpool represented the
acme of nature’s and civilization’s
most glorious.
“I could walk on them for miles and
never be tired.”
“That’s what prety near everyone
that comes here says, sir. Did you
go far?”
“As far as the bungalow.”
I saw Mrs. Marsh—somehow, since
I began I felt less familiar, and men-
tally dropped the mere Emma from
my mind—Ilook up from her work.
“That’s a, good step, sir, in the
dark.”
“I had a few words with your neigh-
bor.”
“You did, sir!”
prised, I thought.
the shore, sir?”
“No. I went to have a look at the
bungalow. He was in the warren and
spoke to me.”
“Did he so, sir?”
“Yes. Has he been there long? In
the bungalow, I mean.”
“Over eleven years now, sir.”
“Got his family there, I suppose?”
“Family! Well, I never! Mr. Blow's
not a family man, sir.”
“Lives there alone, does he?”
“Well, sir, there’s a servant comes
in by the day from Brigg village—
that’s about a mile away—and does
for him, but that’s all. Did he speak
to you?”
“Yes. He asked me what I was
there for—what I wanted.”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Marsh, and as she
said it she moved her head down-
wards, suddenly producing a double
chin. “Ah!” she repeated, as if to
herself. And she pursed up her lips.
“He doesn’t like people round his
house, perhaps,” I ventured.
“No, sir, he doesn’t. He’s afraid
of ’em.”
“Afraid—why 7”
“That’s what we don’t know, sir,
what none of us knows after his be-
ing here eleven years. But the funny
thing is—"” She paused. “The funny
thing, is this—that all the time the
poor man’s just pining for company.”
“How d’you know that?”
“Well, he isn’t afraid of me, sir,
not now, and he’s as good as told me
so. He ain’t meant to live alone.”
She sounded sur-
“He was down on
“I wonder why he does it, then.”
“So do we all, sir Why he came
here, why he stays on here year in
and year out, we don’t none of us
know.”
“Did he build the bungalow ?”
“It’s made of iron, sir throughout
except for the flooring, I believe. He
bought the bit of land it stands on and |
just had it brought here and set up
as you see it.”
“Doesn’t he have visitors?”
“Never, sir.”
“What does he do?”
“Walks about, sir. And he reads
a lot, they do say, and paints a bit
now and then. He don’t make any
debts. There’s nothing against him,
nothing whatever.” ;
“Doesn’t anyone who comes here to
stay try to get to know him?”
“No sir. Why should they?”
I had no answer to that.
“But the clergyman. You say
there’s a village called Brigg. Hasn't
the clergyman——"
“Oh, yes, sir, he’s been, and the
clergyman here, Mr. Powting, he’s
been. But Mr. Blow, he don’t hold
with the clergy.”
“Well—the doctor?”
“Mr. Blow’s never ill, sir. And I
believe he’s all against doctors.”
Doesn’t hold with the clergy and
is all against doctors! I left Mrs.
Marsh that night wondering quite a
lot about Mr. Blow.
Our impressions, sudden and vital,
are sometimes very sharp. Some-
thing Mrs. Marsh had said about the
dweller in the bungalow had backed
up an impression of mine. She had
expressed the conviction that he was
afraid of people and yet longed for
company. During my very brief in-
terview with him I had felt that he
was afraid of me, but also that if if
had not been for his fear of me he
would have been glad to keep me with
him. I resolved to try to force my
way through his fear, to set him at
his ease, to get to know him better.
The man interested me. I had been
with him only for a moment but I had
felt force, intelligence, good breeding
in him, and something mysterious
surely had reached out as if sensi-
tively, yet almost with terror—the
terrom of a great reserve—seeking
my sympathy, even perhaps my pity.
I knew that I couldn’t leave the dwel-
ler in the bungalow in his solitude
without making at least one quite
definite attempt to break in on it.
This attempt, I may say here, I nev-
er should have made if I hadn’t felt
certain Mrs. Marsh was right and that
he was longing for speech with some
fellow creature.
It was so. On the following morn-'
ing I walked along the beach and
passed the bungalow, going far be-
yond it. I had the feeling when pass-
ing it that I was seen, although I saw
no one. When I returned the tide was
nearly up and as I approached I saw
Mr. Blow standing at the edge of the '
sea. He was throwing pebbles into
the foam that eddied about his feet
and seemed not to notice my coming.
But I had the conviction that he had
marked my outward walk and was
waiting for me.
Nevertheless, he teok no notice of
me, and when I passed behind him
he didn’t turn his head to glance at
me. Only when I was several yards
away from him did he give in—to
what? His overmastering desire tg
have speech with someone, I felt sure.
Then I heard his deep voice call,
“Hello!”
I turned round. “Good morning—
you want to speak to me?” I said.
He hesitated obviously, but at last
he said: “Yes, if you've no objection.”
And in this oddly abrupt manner haps I had. I wasn’t sure. My mind |
my acquaintance with Derrick Blow
so he called himself at that time—be-
gan.
At first he was not at all at his
ease with me. He had, I suppose, the
natural shyness of a man long unac-
customed to intercourse with his kind.
But there was something else, I felt,
which made him self-conscious and
watchful.
He made upon me the impression
of a man who had suffered acutely,
who even then was suffering from
some tragedy of the past which had
made him afraid of his fellow men.
There were moments when I fan-
cied I detected a look as of guilt in
his eyes when he forced them, as he
sometimes did, to meet mine. But
gradually, walking with me on the
desolate sands day after day, he ev-
idently became accustomed to me and
felt much more at his ease. He even
opened out to me, but on topics of
general interest, never on anything
fannacted with his personal, intimate
ife.
I found him a man of force, ob-
viously well educated and interested
in big matters. He never talked friv-
olously or even lightly, though ie
had a sense of humor, rather sar-
donic. I often wondered what he had
been in the past. I say what, because
I gradually came to the conviction
that he had been a worker, probably
a great worker, and that he must
have succeeded in what he had under-
taken. The man could not have been
just an ordinary failure. Often I
saw him as one crashing—but from a
height.
I had known him for ten days. Not
a very long time, but it seemed to
,me that world nature had drawn ns
together into a strange sort of in-
timacy. It was on the tenth day that
he told me he had practiced as a sur-
geon.
| He let this fact out by accident.
I had been speaking of some medical
discovery connected with the action
of drugs, and to my surprise he sud-
_denly broke out into a diatribe on the
vague humbug of medicine, contrast-
ing it with the marvelous definiteness
jo modern surgery.
| “Medicine is three parts bunkum,”
the said. “It’s surgery that saves
lives.”
adding.
The effect of my remark on him
was startling. He abruptly stood still.
“Is that meant for me?” he said,
with a sort of hushed intensity that
struck right into me like a weapon.
“For you!” I said. “But are you a
surgeon ?”’
; “Ah—you didn’t know it?” he said,
in a quite different, almost faltering
voice.
“Of course not. How could I? I
i know nothing whatever about you.”
i “No,” he said hesitatingly. “How
!
should you? Well”—again he hesi-
tated, but finally as if with an effort
concluded the sentence—“well, I have
been a surgeon. I was even what
is called famous—a famous surgeon.”
| And then he was silent.
“Shall we walk on?” I sugested.
“Would you—would you like to
come to the bungalow ?” he asked me.
I was surprised, for he never be-
fore had invited me into his dwelling,
but I accepted his offer at once, and
we turned from the sands, and went
into the bungalow.
I was surprised to find how cozy,
spacious and even charming it was.
Made of iron, there was nothing to
suggest iron in the interior. Fine
rugs lay on the parqueted floors.
Good pictures hung on the wails,
which were tinted in beautiful colors.
Arm chairs were covered with cre-
tonnes in fine designs. There were
quantities of books. One knew at
once that this was the home of a great
and omnivorous reader. As twilight
was setting in Blow lighted a lamp,
drew shutters, pulled forward cur-
tains of mandarin-yellow.
“I'll tell my servant to bring us
coffee,” he said.
He went out of the room, but came
back in a moment with a box of ex-
cellent cigars and made me take one.
And he did all this with an odd air
of almost excited eagerness. A mid-
dle-aged, very respectable-looking
woman came in and set down a large
silver tray holding a silver coffee-pot,
a silver jug full of boiling milk and
a large silver dish of buttered toast.
She went out quickly, but not before
she had directed to me a look of sur-
prise.
“She’s surprised!” Blow comment-
ed as the door shut behind her. “I
never have people in.”
“Why don’t you?” I said. “It’s
very bad for you to be always alone.
You're suffering acutely from loneli-
ness. And the winters! How can you
get through the winters here all hy
yourself 7”
“How ? Somehow! I've spent eleven
winters up here.” He helped me and
himself.
“It’s unnatural,” I said.
| “I came to live here because I was
afraid of meeting people,” he said.
“I had a great catastrophe in my life.
Have you ever had one in yours?”
| “I've had troubles, anxieties, but
‘never an actual catastrophe.”
{ “Such a thing makes you afraid of
| your kind. I killed my own son.”
{ The abruptnes of this hideous rev-
elation from a man who till that day,
till that very hour, had been so ab-
solutely reserved about his life and
personal affairs, startled me, even
turned me cold. I could not imagine
why Blow had told me this dreadful
thing.
~ He must have read my thought, for
he added after an instant spent in
staring at me closely: “I've been
wanting to tell you ever since I saw
you by the fence that evening. I don’t
know why. But I felt as if you had
been sent in order that I might tell’
ou.”
“Perhaps I was,” I murmured.
“There’s a design—perhaps I was.”
At that moment I felt certainly in-
tense pity for my companion, but I
felt a quite definite shrinking from
him.
“You're wrong,” he said, in a low .
; voice.
| “Wrong! But——7"
i “You think it was deliberate mur-
der, don’t you?”
I suppose I had thought that. Per-
felt confused. 2
“I told you I was a surgeon,” he had a chance to see my son. I felt| ]
“Now can’t you understand?” pretty desperate and because of that mine.
said
+ “D’you mean that you operated on
“Or destroys them!” I couldn’t help
your own son and killed him by mis-
take?” I said. “But I thought—I
had an idea that a man wasn’t allow-
ed to perform an operation on his own
child, at any rate without an assist-
ant. Possibly I'm wrong though about
that.”
He didn’t tell me whether I was
right or wrong. Instead, he remarked:
“Do you happen to remember the
death of the only son, only child, of
Lord Drenmere a good many years
ago?” :
“Drenmere, who was at the British
Embassy in Paris as—as——"
“First Secretary.”
“And who is now—
“He’s a minister now, and will be
an Ambassador.”
“Why—Dbut there was an awful fuss
about his boy’s death, wasn’t there?
The surgeon who performed the op-
eration make a mistake, surely. It
was Sir Mortimer Laton and——"
Suddenly I pulled up. I had realiz-
ed who the man of the bungalow was.
“You’re Laton!” I said, after a long
pause.
“That’s it. I'm Mortimer Laton.
After that business I gave up practice
and dropped out of life. I came and
hid myself here. Very few people
ever think of me now. But those who
happen to probably suppose I've done
the usual thing men who get into
trouble do—gone abroad.”
“But you said you killed your own
son!”
“I did. I was the father of the boy
who was supposed to be Drenmere’s.”
“And didn’t he know it?”
“Not till I killed the child.”
I said nothing more, but sat back
in my chair and looked at him. I was
Yorfering why he was telling me
this.
“An impulse!” he said. “An over-
powering impulse—but one that has
years of misery behind it. The man
who instituted confession as part and
parcel of a religion was a great
psychologist. But unfortunately I
don’t belong to any form of religion.
I'm out in the cold. §f I weren't I
don’t suppose for a ment I ever
should have bored you'gith my bur-
den. Sorry—sorry—sorry!”
He wrinkled the high forehead un-
der his soft brown hair—hair that re-
tained its color and that yet looked
rather old—and got up in a violently
restless way. I felt that he was
dreadfully disappointed in me, that
I had hurt his pride, had wounded
the intense reserve which he had
broken away from for a moment be-
cause, I suppose, of something in me.
“Laton, I wish you would tell me—
if you can,” I said hastily, eagerly.
“I should like to share with you, if
you can bring yourself to it. Iwas
interested in you from the first mo-
ment I saw you that evening in the
warren. I wanted to know you. I
came back the next day with the hope
of seeing you again. And then you
called me.
“Yes, he said, sitting down again.
“I felt I must. It’s deuced odd.”
“We've gone so far, why not go all
the way?”
My manner evidently had reassured
him. He must have felt my sympathy
reaching out, for he seemed suddenly
more at his ease.
“Friendship’s a great thing,” he
said. “But love’s betrayed it over and
over again, and will till the end of
time. I was a great friend of Dren-
mere’s, and a true friend till he mar-
ried and I fell in love with his wife.
But—then! I suppose occasionally
you've read divorce cases in which a
man’s friend has seduced his wife—
eh?” ¢
“Yes,” I said.
“And you’ve condemned the seduc-
er as a blackguard? Exactly! Every-
one does. But they don’t reckon with
love, which can be the most unscrup-
”
ulous passion humanity holds, which ¥
-will trample over corpses to get to
its goal. However, I won’t bother
you with all the ramifications of my
sentimental life, if you like to call it
so. Ill state merely the fact that
after Drenmere married Lady Sybil
Caryllis, and had been married some
time to her, I fell desperately in love
‘with her. She was, in fact, the only
love of my life. There never could
be another.
“Drenmere was appointed to our
legation in Persia not very long af-
| ter the marriage. Her health at that
time was not good. Barton Mills,
the nerve specialist, said she simply
mustn’t go with him. She didn’t go.
She remained in London. Drenmere
begged me to give an eye to her while
they were separated. I said I would.
When he came back we were lovers—
but nothing had happened. You un-
derstand me?”
“Yes.”
“It happened two days after he
came back. His return had made us
both desperate, and she wanted to
prove to me that even when she saw
him again I was the one. Madness
and disgraceful, of course! But so
it was. He had expected to go back
to Persia, but because she couldn’t
go and because he could pull strings
they sent him instead to the legation
at Stockholm.
“My boy was born in Sweden. He
was mine. There’s no doubt about
that. When he began to grow and
develop you had only to look at him.
She knew it too. But Drenmere
hadn’t the faintest suspicion. I knew,
we both knew, that till the night of
catastrophe not a doubt of his wife,
not a doubt of his friend, ever had
darkened his mind. As to the boy—
I’ve never seen a father love a son as
Drenmere loved my son.”
“Whom he considered his,” I said.
”
“But if he had
“I think it’s very dangerous to say
what turn any man’s heart will take
‘in given circumstances,” said Laton.
“The body of man is mysterious
enough. But what we call the heart
of man is a thousand times more mys-
terious. I know that. It’s been my
profession to study the one and my |
fate to have the other revealed to
| me for an instant in a blinding light.
{ The strangest thing of all is that I
"cut into the heart of the friend I be-
, trayed with my surgeon’s knife.”
| “How could that be?” I said.
“This way,” said Laton. “I was
separated from—from her. I hadn’t
.1 worked like a devil. I got on tre-
mendously fast in my profession. I
do believe I had a gift with the knife
such as few men of my time had.
Money came to me. Honors came to
me. But I was separated from the wo-
man I loved and from my son. At
that vime, when money and fame in
my profession both came in full meas-
ure, I was a very miserable man and
a very lonely one. I was punished.
That one word really tells the whole
story of that time.
“I didn’t see my son till 1e»wzs two
years old. Then the Drenmeres were
over for a short time. In that short
time I got to love the boy. But my
love was poisoned by jealousy of
Drenmere. I won’t go into that. It’s
all natural but it’s too ugly. Many
ugly things are dreadfully natural,
During the time when they were in
Fueland she—Sybil—and I didn’t
yield to our love again. But we were
just the same. Only she was a moth-
er now, passionately devoted to the
boy, and—well, we didn’t. That’s all.
“They went back to Stockholm.
Then Drenmere was transferred to
Bucharest, and finally he was sent to
the Paris embassy.
“From time to time they came to
London and I saw them. From time
to time I went over to Paris and was
with thera a little then. I was able
to observe at close quarters Dren-
mere’s intense love of my child. My
own love I had to keep in the shadow
—my love for mother and child. It
was like looking in at a window and
seeing your family in the grip of an-
other man. 2
i “When my fame as a surgeon was
at its height and Marcus, the boy, the
only child she had had, for Drenmere
never gave her a child, was ten years
old and on the eve of being sent to an
English preparatory school, he be-
came alarmingly ill in Paris and
Drenmere sent me a desperate tele-
gram asking me to go over at once.
While I was answering it a telegram
came from her, a telegram of one
word—‘Come.’
“I crossed by the night-boat and
drove to their house in the Champs
Elysees. Two French doctors were
there, one of them a well-known and
expert surgeon. The case had been
diagnosed. The child was suffering
from a deep-seated gastric ulcer. I
realized at once that an immediate
operation was necessary for fear of
perforation. Drenmere begged me to
perform it.”
Laton stopped speaking for an in-
stant. Then he said in a low voice,
“I felt I couldn’t.”
Again he was silent. At last I said:
“You had lost your nerve? That
was it?”
Then he looked up and nodded.
“All my frustrated love for the
child seemed to break away from
something, some barrier, and flood me
then. I knew I wasn’t master of my-
self. I knew it wasn’t safe for me to
operate, I refused. Drenmere insist-
ed He was in an awful state. He
said he wouldn’t trust a French sur-
geon, wouldn’t trust anyone but me. I
still refused. Then he attacked me,
said I was a false friend if I wouldn’t
try to save his chiid, I who was per-
forming operations on strangers
every day of my life.
“She implored me, too. She must
have lost her head then, for she
couldn’t understand that I was the
last man who ought to have operated
that night. I did my best to resist.
I was overcome. They made me do
it. Women can be cruel when the
mother comes uppermost She said
a terrible thing to me that night just
before T was going to operate. She
was beside herself—but still—” He
hesitated.
“What did she
help asking.
“ ‘Save Markie
ou;’ ”
“That was brutal”
“She didn’t mean it. She was half
mad. But I believe it was that sen-
tence and the sound of her voice when
she said it that really caused the
tragedy which followed. I made a
‘ desperate effort to master myself.
But I failed. Too much, for me, hung
on that operation. I bungled. The
knife slipped. I injured the child ir-
reparably. Peritonitis set in. He
died.
{ “There were people in the room,
nurses, a French surgeon assisting
me. They—they didn’t miss my mis-
take. I wasn’t able to hide it. I was
so desperate that I didn’t even try to
hide it. As you know, it got out and
my reputation was ruined. I lost both
my son and my career during that
brief stay in Paris. But I lost more
than that. I lost my friend, and I lost
the love of the woman I adored. It
i was very complete, the catastrophe!”
“But “you mean that she told Lord
Drenmere ?” I asked.
“No, I told him,” he answered.
“When the boy died Drenmere showed
fineness of character. He wrung my
hand and said, ‘It’s not your fault.
You tried to have him. Anyone could
make a mistake.’ If he’d stopped
there I might have controlled myself
though I was almost entirely out of
hand. But he added, ‘Please God,
you'll never have to face such a sor-
row as mine.” Then I was lost. I
don’t make any apology. I did the
unpardonable thing.
“I gave a woman away. I let go.
Something broke in me—the thing
that inhibits. I just told him, blurt--
ed it out, that I was facing a far
worse sororw than his.” He looked
at me with a sort of fierce steadiness.
“Of course you condemn me,” he said,
i “No,” I said. “But—I wish you
hadn’t.” 5
“There are moments when a man
has to be truthful. That was one of
them. Truth was stronger than what.
we call honor, stronger than chivalry,
stronger than sex. It had to come
out. It came out and—I live here
alone.”
“How did Drenmere take it?”
“He said—when he’d had time to
realize the truth—‘If Markie was:
yours in the flesh he was mine in every
other way. He loved me and he never
loved you. If he was alive now and
knew, he'd still love me. He was mine:
.in the only real way. The body can’t
choose always. But nothing can pre-
vent the spirit from having its way.
I always shall think of Markie as
at’s what he said. That's
i (Continued on page 7, Col. 1.)
say?” I couldn’
or I shall hate