The sinister mark
he was summoned to the telephone by John Stevens, who told him, with
evident sympathy, that there had been no change whatever but that he
was preparing to try an experiment that afternoon.
"And I don't want you, Don. Understand?" he said, firmly. "You can't
be of any assistance, and you'd much better stay where you are. I'll
'phone you the instant I want you, but it won't be until five o'clock,
anyway. I promise to let you know then, or soon after. And, Don," he
concluded, with a queer note in his voice, "there is hope, boy. More
than hope for you, I firmly believe. Be patient--and trust me."
In a whirlwind of anxiety and emotion Donald spent that afternoon,
pacing back and forth, back and forth, the length of the great house.
Listening for the telephone's insistent ring, wondering, hoping,
doubting, and hoping again.
At last he felt that he could bear the period of enforced inaction no
longer. He would go up to the sanitarium, he decided, and spend that
last, agonizing half hour before five o'clock on the spot. There could
be no harm, he argued, in waiting downstairs in the reception room. And
if there was news--good news----
He summoned a cab in haste, and drove rapidly to the sanitarium, which
was on West Seventy-sixth Street.
An extraordinarily neat maid answered his ring.
"Doctor Stevens is in the house somewhere," she told him, "with one of
the patients upstairs. I don't think he can be disturbed just now,"
apologetically.
"No, no," said Donald, quickly. "I wouldn't bother him on any account.
I'll just wait here, in the reception room, if I may, till he comes
down."
Accordingly, he passed into the pleasantly furnished room, to the right
of the hall--and waited--waited with every tautened nerve stretched,
it seemed, to the breaking point. Though there were many books lying
about, he could not read, he could not even remain seated for more
than a moment at a time. Restlessly, he paced about, touching various
things on the mantelpiece and table, not knowing why he picked them
up, or noticing when he put them down. And all the while he was
listening--listening for he knew not what.
The big, broad, sunny house was very still. Once or twice a soft
footfall on one of the floors above brought his heart into his mouth,
but the sound passed away into silence, and no one went up or down the
stairs. Again, for the twentieth time, he looked at his watch--five
minutes of five--and John had promised----
Suddenly he heard a slight commotion at the top of the house, and he
turned swiftly toward the door, his clenched hands pressed tightly
together. Mary was on that floor he knew, and he took a step forward.
Now he could faintly hear voices, several voices, speaking very low,
and once he imagined he heard a woman's sob--then steps upon the stairs.
He waited, breathless, keeping himself in hand with an iron grip,
making no sound.
Then, at the head of the lower flight of stairs, he heard Doctor
Stevens's voice. He was speaking to someone behind him, and there was a
ring in his tone which caused Donald's heart to leap up and his blood
to pound in his temples. He took one step nearer the door, and at that
instant Doctor Stevens saw him.
"Don!" he exclaimed, with a curious note of anger--almost of alarm--in
his voice. "Don, I told you not to come here! Not to come here on any
account! I thought I made it plain----Oh!----"
The expression on Donald's face had altered from confusion and surprise
to blinding, dazzling amazement. He was not conscious that there was
any one present save that one figure among several figures coming down
the stairs. He cried out--he threw out his arms----
"Mary!" he said, in a choking whisper. "You know me! You know me, at
last!" And then, with a sudden cry, he recoiled in horror.
The woman who, at the mention of his name, had turned toward him with
a gasp of surprise, had, at the same instant, stepped full into the
light. In her great clear eyes there were love, pain, fear--hope--and
an agonizing tenderness.
Swiftly, she put up her hand and covered the right side of her face.
But he had seen--had seen, upon the smooth curve of chin and neck, a
great red mark--like the print of a bloody hand.
He stood aghast, amazed. All his senses reeled. "Anne!" he cried,
incredulous, staring--"Anne!"
"Oh, Donald," she moaned, "I didn't mean it to be like this, dear. I
didn't mean it to be like this!"
"Mary's voice," he muttered, still staring at her. "And Mary's face,
all except the mark--the mark was on Anne's face--Clancy told me. You
are _Anne_?"
She bowed her head in silence. Tears filled her glorious eyes.
"And Mary--is upstairs," he breathed. "And yet, when you speak, it's
impossible not to believe----"
She shook her head.
"It's my sister, Rosamond, up there," she faltered. "My poor, misguided
little sister that I--lost years ago--that I loved more than anything I
had left in the world--until I saw you.... I never heard of her--never
saw her again until to-day.... You never saw her, Donald. You never
saw her until--was it yesterday?... We always looked very much
alike--except----" She pressed her hand closer against her cheek. "It
was no wonder, seeing her as you did, that you mistook her for----"
"I can't understand." Donald gripped his head with both hands, gazing
at her with strained, bewildered eyes. "You _are_ Anne?"
"Yes," she answered, sadly. "I am Anne Curwood.... Forgive me. Oh,
forgive me, dear!" She stretched out her hands, pleadingly. "I had
planned it all so differently. You can hardly forgive me now. But try
to understand. There is no Mary Blake. There never has been. It was
I--Anne. There is no one but Anne."
"No one but--Anne," he repeated, incredulous.
"I tried to tell you before--before I went away--as soon as I knew
that you--that you cared, Don. As soon as I was sure.... I started to
write it in the letter I left for you--and I hadn't the courage....
'My sister Anne, with whom I live----' I remember I wrote that far,
and crossed it out. I was going to say--I should have said--'My sister
Anne, with whom I live, is a myth. There is no such person living. I
have lived alone, through all these years, and played two parts----'"
He gazed at her, now, with comprehension dawning in his eyes. His
very soul shuddered at the fearful disfigurement which seemed like a
desecration of her wonderful face. His intense, passionate love of all
that was beautiful and perfect wrought in him, for a moment, a feeling
of horror. A fearful, almost physical, recoil.
And if it was thus with him, he thought, wildly, what must it have been
to her--sensitive, high-strung, with magnificent gifts--a handicap
which, in her chosen profession, could never be overcome--unless--
In a blinding flash he saw the reason for her deception of all the
world--a deception which, lastly, had involved himself. He understood,
with sure, keen insight, what her temptation must have been--and,
understanding, he forgave.
The expression of his eyes altered, was changed, illuminated, with a
love transcending all things. Again he stretched out his arms:
"Mary," he whispered. "Mary----"
With a little cry of joy unspeakable she started toward him--and
stopped.
"No, no," she said, softly. "Not yet. Not yet, my beloved. I have
suffered--suffered, to come to you clean. I said I would come to you
clean, or not at all."
Then, to his amazement, she drew a handkerchief from her breast and
turned away from him to a small mirror which hung against the wall.
A moment--and she faced him.
Radiant, glorified love was in her eyes--and on her perfect face there
was no mark or blemish.
CHAPTER XXIX
KATE RUTHERFORD RELIEVES HER MIND
"It was your own fault, Don. Your own fault, boy," Doctor Stevens
remarked, with partly assumed annoyance. "If you'd waited at home until
I 'phoned, you never would have seen Miss Blake with that dreadful
thing on her face. It was part of the experiment I was trying upstairs."
He looked across his private office at a stately figure ensconced in
the largest chair in the room. "It was Mrs. Rutherford who suggested
how it could be managed, and she made Miss Blake up with her own fair
hands. And Mr. Clancy backed me up in style." He glanced aside at Peter
who was sitting near him.
"But," said Donald, looking down into the glowing face so near to
his, as he and Mary (as he insisted on calling her) sat together upon
a couch. "But I can't realize it all, somehow. The--mark, dear," he
clasped her hand tenderly, "was a birthmark, wasn't it? I thought that
it was practically impossible----"
"And I thought so, too, Donald," she interrupted. "For the last few
years I've hunted up every report--all the experiments of this kind
that have been tried, for I wanted--oh, I wanted so to be rid of
the hideous, dreadful thing. I saw one of the best specialists here
last fall. He said something might be done by skin-grafting, but that
it would be a long and painful experiment. I was playing then, of
course, and couldn't give up the time.... And then, just after that,
there was an article in a silly magazine called _Beauty_, which told
of the wonderful discovery, made by a doctor, in a little place near
Chicago named Cordenham. It was a new kind of ray--which destroyed the
colouring matter in the skin. I subscribed for the magazine at once,
but there were only two more notices and they weren't very convincing.
In the meantime I went to the library and looked for more authentic
reports in all the current medical journals. I found the experiments of
Doctor Witherspoon mentioned, but the articles seemed to indicate that
nothing conclusive had been done at that time.... Oh, Donald, can you
imagine with what anxious longing I watched for the new numbers of that
magazine to appear?"
"And when they did come out, Mr. Morris," Peter interjected, "Miss
Blake cut out some of the articles and saved them. That was how I
traced her."
"You found them in her apartment?" asked Donald, quickly. "You didn't
tell me that."
"No," answered Peter, promptly, "for the simple reason that I didn't
find the articles. It was like the old story of the fisherman who was
about to take a party out among some dangerous rocks. When asked if he
knew where the submerged rocks were, he said, 'I don't know where they
be, but I know where they ain't.' Well, that was my case. I found the
magazines that the articles had been cut from pretty early in the game,
but I didn't see any significance in that till I knew--well, most of
the facts. Then I went back to the apartment and made a note of every
magazine from which anything had been clipped, the date and page. After
that, I went to the library--and found that the articles all pointed
one way. Directly or indirectly, they pointed to Doctor Witherspoon and
Cordenham."
"You're all right, Clancy," said Donald with sincerity. "You certainly
are a wonder."
Peter looked a little sheepish. "It would have been more to the point
if I'd made my discovery a little earlier," he said. "Miss Blake was
almost ready to come back to town when I found her."
"Yes, Donald," said Mary, looking at him with concern in her beautiful
eyes. "Doctor Witherspoon was almost ready to let me go, at last.
Oh, my dear, if I had known it would be so long I never would have
done what I did--have left you in suspense all these weeks. I would
have told you everything, and taken the risk.... But the very last
thing I found--it was in the _Planet_, just a few days before I went
away--an article which gave a full description of a wonderful cure made
by Doctor Witherspoon. It took only three days, and was absolutely
successful.... From previous accounts in the medical journals, I knew