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AGNES
!)1
the famous Doctor Brent. So here I am, your guest, with only a scar on my head and five years in a fishing-village to show for my forty-odd years. ' '
The strange recital came to an end, and Agnes sat, drawn, tense, locked in the burning prison of her emotions. ' • " God pity me ! My husband! I am lost — mercy — mercy ' '
The broken, unheard words forced themselves from her torn heart.
The conviction had slowly dawned upon Agnes that this man before her was no other than her husband, Geoffrey Marshe. His hair had grizzled somewhat ; the sea had leathered his cheeks ; his accent and gestures were somewhat changed — but the man, his story, his sprawling bulk, the flecks of ochre in his eyeballs, curiously like a great cat's — all this was Geoffrey Marshe.
Her eyes could never leave him now, this man who was to be operated upon in the morning, and when she measured the ruin it would spell for Loring Brent and the blasting of her own sweet life, she was tempted to beg "Monsieur of the Sea" to live on without tampering with fate and to forego an operation to restore his memory.
All thru the dull night she sat huddled, thinking this thing out. Should she leave Loring at once, or wait until Geoffrey Marshe recognized her ? The result was inevitable, when once his memory should be restored, and she felt herself as shocking as a leper the way she had tangled these two strong men's lives.
And with the coming of dawn and a clinic nurse arriving from the hospital, she still sat helplessly in the coils of her indecision.
When the hour for the operation
AWAITING THE RESULT OF THE OPERATION
arrived, she could restrain herself no longer, but went below. It was deathly quiet behind the closed door of the operating-chamber, and she judged that an anaesthetic had been administered to M. De La Mer.
Ten minutes passed, a half-hour, and no sound came from within ; then she heard the sound of a quick, low command from Doctor Brent, and the swift rustle of starched skirts.
There came a sharp creaking from the operating-table, as tho some strong man labored in agonv, and then :
"Agnes!"
Her name came trumpeting in clear, piteous appeal from the sufferer. Then all was silent again. The tears sprang into her eyes as she knew he had passed away. His big heart had failed to survive the shock of taking up his past life where it had suddenly been cut off. And she knew that the call of "Agnes!" was stronger than life, as lasting as death — an everlasting sweet memory to treasure in her secret mind.