The Bismarck Tribune

"MAKE-BELIEVE"
by
FAITH BALDWIN

Copyright, 1930, by Faith Baldwin. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

CHAPTER XXIII

Mary Lou had poured it all out to her on her visit, so youthfully, so abundantly that Delight had had plenty of time to hide her astonishment, to wait.

She had thought shrewdly, that her own positive knowledge and Lorrimer's lack of it might possibly be a new and important card in the hand she held.

But when Lorrimer came back and recognized her there by the boxwood maze she had been about to tell Mary Lou the truth. His return had silenced her. And then, with Mary Lou gone, with the situation quite changed, she had held her peace. For if he did not remember there was temptation in his lack of memory. It was something a clever woman might take advantage of, after all. But he had remembered. She discarded that card, therefore, as a good player should. It was useless to her now.

"But I don't understand," Mrs. Lorrimer said helplessly.

Dr. Mathews came in. Peter announced him and went out, shutting the door silently, well aware that some drama was being played out, worried in his loyal heart about Mary Lou, wondering where she had gone and why. He'd already seen the cook and been regaled with her backstairs dramatic recital of Mary Lou's entrance through the kitchen and her exit "without a word spoken, and that ain't like her, Mr. Peter!"

Mathews, entering, looked from Margaret to Lorrimer. Margaret indicated the other woman.

"Dr. Mathews—Miss Harford. This is Delight Harford, Dan," she said, unnecessarily, for he had recognized her at once.

Whereabouts Unknown.

The situation, as far as the ankle was concerned, was explained to the doctor. He gave certain orders, and Delight was helped upstairs to a guest room, where the orders were carried out.—Margaret went with her, and Lorrimer, waiting below stairs, went out and talked to Peter and later invaded the kitchen to see Mrs. Jarmen.

They could only tell him that Mary Lou had gone, that Mrs. Jarmen had seen her "fly" through the kitchen "as if the devil himself was after her, sir!" a suitcase in her hand, a hat "anyhow" on her head and a coat over her arm.

He returned to the library. He would find out where she had gone. Someone would know. His mother perhaps. He realized with a tremendous shock that he knew nothing about this girl, her background, where she came from. Nothing but her name. Yet for months he had thought he knew her very well.

His mother came downstairs.

She said, briefly:

"Will you come up to Delight's room? I've asked her to stay, of course. She has telephoned to town and resigned from the company, or whatever it is they do, Dan says the ankle isn't broken but has been badly sprained. She'll be laid up for a little while. She wants to see you, or rather Dan does."

They went upstairs in silence, so much unspoken and unexplained between them. Mathews looked up cheerfully. He was sitting by Delight's bed in the pretty, cheerful room, sunk deep in a low chair.

"I want to get this straight," he said. "I've heard the story now. It worries your mother, Lorrimer, this fixed idea you've had. But I have explained to her that it—or something very like it—isn't unknown in medical annals."

"I wish you'd explain it to me," Lorrimer said, dully; "I can't understand, myself. I was so sure—so sure, all those years! And then today—it came back—and I knew. I remembered. I think I must have been crazy!"

"No. You returned to the front terribly disappointed because your plans had gone awry. Youth can't bear being balked, being impatient and hating the verb 'to wait.' Immediately on your return you had a bad accident. you were ill, you were unconscious for a long time, you came to yourself, a prisoner. Much that had happened was wiped out. That is to say, your most ardent wish, the wish which had not been fulfilled, was fulfilled in the darkness of your subconscious mind. Your last conscious thought perhaps had been of Miss Harford here and the marriage upon which your heart was set. Therefore, in your state of mental and physical shock, the interruption to your plans faded from your conscious memory, the wish fulfillment of the subconscious took its place. Having ardently desired this culmination of your hopes, you came to believe the marriage fait accompli.. Mary Lou—" Doctor Mathews hesitated but went on steadily—"Mary Lou, in assuming the role of Miss Harford, brought nothing to your memory. You simply thought her the girl you had known, come back to you. She stirred no chord in you save to fix your belief that she was Miss Harford because of her accidental resemblance to her.

"But when you encountered the authentic girl memory returned. I can't explain it further. Probably no one could. But we doctors have seen many cases of this sort. It was not, however, an explanation which occurred to me before this; although I was frankly puzzled by your insistence upon this apparently unrecorded marriage, as was your mother. And now I think we'll leave Miss Harford to rest. She can have luncheon brought up here, can she not? It is long past the hour and I've had mine, but I'll invite myself to a cup of coffee if you persuade Mrs. Jarmen to make me one while you people lunch."

Mathews rose and looked down at his patient. She smiled up at him and then spoke to Lorrimer, almost timidly:

"I've brought you all into a dreadful muddle by coming back haven't I? I didn't mean to come back. Not really. Lorry, perhaps you'll come and talk to me after? I want to tell you why you couldn't find me—what happened."

He tried to smile.

"Of course," he said, and added, "Delight." But the name was strange to him now, it had an alien sound, a suggestion of mockery.

Luncheon, as far as Margaret and Lorrimer were concerned, was a farce. Mathews watched them, talked briskly of nothing much when Peter was in the room and later led the way to the library.

Lorrimer shrugged.

"There's only one thing to do," he answered, "If Delight will have me, I'm at her service, of course."

"Oh, Travers, no!" his mother said, in a little sob.

He turned to her, and put his hand over hers.

"I can't help it, mother." he told her. "I suppose it's what Doc Dan here would call my old obsession." He smiled wryly. "I loved her; I asked her to marry me; I went through 10 years of my life with the fixed idea that she had. I—if she wants me. I'm willing to fulfill what I consider an obligation."

He paused and said, slowly.

"I don't know her any more, of course. It's as if she were a stranger. Funny, too, for when that other Delight was here I had no such feeling about her. Yet she was a stranger! But this girl upstairs; she's been through a bad time. I can see that, I'd like to make it up to her if I can."

Forced Role.

Margaret was crying, very quietly.

Mathews looked at her, shook his head warningly. She was saying "My fault—all my fault. Travers, do you blame me very much?"

He replied, slowly.

"No. I understand. You were forced into it by circumstances, by my old madness, by—oh, I don't blame you. But I can't understand—her. Playing that part."

He thought of things he believed no one knew but Mary Lou and himself. Of her eyes when she had said she cared. A part, too? Just the role, just carrying on somehow?

Mathews said, steadily:

"If your mind is made up, we have no right to try and dissuade you, not even your mother. And if you are being hard on Mary Lou Thurston in your thought—don't be. She was forced into this, too. Don't think she liked it! She's a very honest person. But she had to go through with it for your sake, and she did so. You owe her everything. You owe her, even, this final honesty, this clarifying of all the muddled, darkened issues. You owe to her even the strength with which to meet them, face them and to resolve them.

To Be Continued