Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1919-01-18 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

REPRIEVED.  BY W. A. FREEMA_\.  Doctor Kennedy sat in his motor-car, his face grave, his inind full of a patient—a patient whose finA had haunted him the whole day; had kept I, sleep away the whole of the previous night. She was a girl; an utter stranger; tall, slight, dainty, and he at first had faxi eL her one oi the many ladies of high degree who came to him afflicted with nerves, or jaded. Underneath his sympathetx sir he had been slight:y colitemptuous—and then he, had looked straight into a sad, white, reckless' fa6e . . _ _  " Doctor—l'm not afraid!" She faced him with a brave smile of under• standing; her eyes caught his, making his heart beat strangely, though he regarded her with a grandtatirerly manner that sut quaintly on so ,young a man. And he had to tell her the truth. " How will it happen?' she asked. "I can't Le in my bed, and be a butdeh." There was a bitter ring in her voice, but no terror. She flung back her head defiantly. • " You must not play with your life," he said sternly. " Play with it i" she said, and laughed. it is only right you should know," he said. 'You must go away immediately. Utter rest is your-- your chance." He liadn't courage enough to say "only." " If I don't?" Ile had asked for her doctor's address, meaning to send to him a warning. Life—such a life—was too precious a thing to be flung away at a woman's whim, in the rush of London. And she had said thait she had no doctor—she didn't believe in doctors—with a quick laugh and apology for the *dip. E'o he looked her earnestly in the face, ith a strain at his heart the while: he had had to doom so many, but never had it been lo hard: never had it been such an one as this. " You will kill yourself. The least excitement, the least over-exertion—do you understand?" They were both standing—the judge and the condemned. His attitude gravely professional—she was putting down his fee on the table. They shook hands, and another patient left him. She had come like a ghost; had gone like a ghost; and, like a ghost, would haunt him always. The car stopped with a jerk: Doctor James Kennedy had reached his dinner party.  * *  The doctOw was desperately hungry. At first he paid as little attention as he dared to the lady on either side. He had taken, in a title, though he hadn't the faintest idea what the title was. Fortunately the title was hungry also. At last, however, he became aware that the lady on his right wished for his approval and free atenda.nce at her pet orphanage, and that she on his left was fishing for advice on a hypothetioal case that might—ar might not—be her own. He looked up from his plate. with a sigh of comical despair. It was a brilliant dinrrer. Along the table rippled a quick river of conversation; above it one gay voice, like the voice of a lea&r. " How lucky Mrs Van Dam is to have caught such a brilliant person----" He lifted his eyes. They travelled across the , glitter of silver and glass, and remained staring-thunderstruck. •• Good Heavens!" he said, and was silent. A brilliant jest followed on her lip half an instant; the eyes reading his were dark with sOrlll'. thing like -ear--and then they grew all defiant; and the smile on her lips was daring as a smile of pal Kennedy sat and watched her. She wa„ '•rig herself. He knew: and she knew. it was hard to believe that so short a tine ago Ahey had stood face to face while he had told her th.: awful truth. It was harder, stra.ng•Ay harder, to watch her now. " Why, doctor, you look simply murderowt!" He did not hear the joke; he didn't even know which of the titles had spoken. He xas sta:ing fiercely across the table. She met his eyes, ai.d she gave him a queer little defiant nod, as 1t•:1•ing "I will do what I like with my own lir, doctor!"