The Seventh Hour Read online

Coralie went into her room and glanced about with a shrinking feeling. Bella had said that no one had called, so she felt fairly safe, but she would not light the lamp. If it should be that Dinsmore was keeping watch of the apartment, at least he should have no clue to knowing she was home, unless perhaps he had seen her enter down at the street door.

  So she locked her door and then moved a heavy piece of furniture in front of it. Of course, that was silly, but she would sleep better for it.

  Before eight o'clock the next morning she was awakened by the telephone at her bedside, and in quick alarm she answered it.

  Then she recognized the voice.

  "This is Valerie Shannon," it said blithely. "Excuse me for calling so early, but I wanted to get you before I leave for the office. You see, I met Bruce Carbury last night, and he told me that you were going to be at our meeting Friday evening. I wonder why you couldn't just bring your overnight bag along to the meeting and then come on home with us afterward? It will be that much longer to have fun together. Can't you?"

  "Oh, that will be wonderful!" said Coralie in wonder. "I'd love to come."

  "Of course, I'll have to be at the office Saturday morning for a little while, but you won't mind staying around the house with Mother and the girls till I get home, will you?"

  "Not a bit. I'll love it," she said eagerly, like a little girl.

  Coralie lay there thinking it over after she had hung up. Now wasn't that beautiful? Was it the Lord who was working things out for her that way so that she needn't be afraid, or was it just Bruce Carbury? Perhaps the Lord working through Bruce, she thought shyly.

  She drew a deep breath of relief and let her heart thrill with a real joy.

  Chapter 17

  When Bruce Carbury got back to his room he found Dana there ahead of him, ready to welcome him heartily.

  "Well, Dana," said Bruce hanging up his hat and coat and dropping into a chair, "I don't know what you'll say to me. I've been out with your sister all the evening. Had dinner and a good long talk afterward. If you don't like it you'd better say so, because I'm tremendously interested in her, and I'm liable to go out with her again. In fact, she's promised me to go to the meeting tomorrow night. So speak your mind."

  "Hop to it, Bruce my lad," said Dana fervently. "There's nobody I'd sooner trust her with. Only I must in conscience warn you. I don't believe she's very dependable, and if she's anything like her mother she's got ways with her. I wouldn't like to see you get your heart broke, old man." He gave his friend a comical look, with a keen question behind it.

  Bruce smiled.

  "It hasn't gone that far yet, fella," he said, "but I wouldn't be surprised if you are going to be very much mistaken about that girl, Dana. To tell you the truth, I believe she's saved!"

  "Bruce! You don't mean it! So soon!"

  "Man, it doesn't take long for the Lord to save a soul, you know."

  "But--does she understand? Is it real?"

  "She understands," said Bruce solemnly, with a lovely light in his eyes. "We've been talking all the evening, and if I ever saw a soul accept the Lord and be born again, it was tonight."

  "Praise the Lord!" said Dana in amazement. "I've been praying for this, but I guess I had a very weak faith. I certainly didn't expect an answer to my prayers very soon. I thought the Lord had a long way to go to bring my sister to Himself. Well, Valerie told me last night it was going to be a case of the nobleman's son being healed at the seventh hour."

  Bruce smiled understandingly. "Probably it's always the seventh hour when God does wonders."

  "I guess so, brother. I sure am glad you went after my sister, and the Lord used you to save her. Now perhaps I can have a little faith to pray for my mother. It has almost seemed as if it wasn't worthwhile, as if it might be a waste of time. Well, now, fella, tell me all about it!"

  So they sat and talked, those two, going over every bit of the story, from the time when Bruce had come on Coralie weeping in the Pennsylvania Station and she had asked him how to be saved. And as they talked they seemed to feel the presence of their Master in the room, and to grow nearer to Him and to each other.

  As they rose from their knees, Dana took his friend by the hand warmly.

  "I shall never cease to thank God that He sent you along to New York at this time. If I'd come alone I should probably have gone on my way back the next day and left my mother and sister to their own devices, concluding that they were beyond saving. I'm just beginning to learn what a bounder I've been. Thank the Lord He sent you with me! If my family is saved, I'll have you to thank for it, under God."

  "Don't kid yourself, Dana. You wouldn't have left this little old town, not even if you'd been here alone, till you'd turned every stick and stone to do all you could to get hold of your folks! For it was God's seventh hour, you know, and He was guiding you. But I'm glad God let me have a hand in it; for it's been wonderful. Come now, let's get some sleep or we'll be all haywire tomorrow."

  And on the other side of the city across the street from Lisa's apartment, there lurked her former husband, Dinsmore Collette, taking careful note of every light on every floor of the great building.

  Not that Lisa was living in the same apartment where he had left her. She had moved almost at once after his departure. But he knew her habits. In fact, he knew one of her servants, the butler, who had been with her for years and who was one of those who liked to keep in an attitude favorable to receiving occasional tips from anybody.

  Dinsmore Collette had not understood before his marriage that Lisa's fortune was forfeit if she married. She had carefully guarded that fact even for some time after their marriage, but in due time, of course, it had come out, and he discovered the truth that on their wedding day practically all of her money had automatically passed into the trust fund belonging to her daughter. Of course, until the daughter should come of age, there was a fair amount of the money held in trust by her mother for the child's expenses, as well as an allowance for her own maintenance as guardian. And at first Lisa had cleverly made it appear to Collette that these monies were from her own fortune. So it was a good many months before Collette discovered that he had not married a wealthy woman, and by that time Lisa had also been disillusioned about her husband. After that there were continual battles about money. They always ended in Lisa going to her child and advising her to purchase some new and delightful luxury, the price of which Lisa enlarged to suit her own needs.

  But Dinsmore Collette wanted money, and he wanted plenty of it. He wasn't going to be satisfied with the mere pittance that could be bullied and deceitfully pilfered from a little girl's plentiful allowance. He wanted the bountiful fortune that Lisa used to have before she married him, so he had sought it in the form of a richer woman, not quite so handsome as Lisa but far wealthier, and taken himself to far lands, quite out of the picture for the time being.

  But having heard by some underworld wireless system of his own that Jerrold Barron had left this world, and knowing well that there were crooked ways a-many and crooked lawyers to walk those ways, and since the Asian lady had not turned out to be so easily won as he had hoped, he had returned to see what he could make out of his stepchild's fortune.

  He had taken a room in a great building across the street from the apartment house where Lisa lived, and from time to time that evening he made his way around the block, taking into account the lighted windows on each floor and interpreting signs that he knew well, which told him whether the dwellers over there were at home or away and whether there were guests making revelry.

  Finally he walked into the building and took the elevator up to the apartment. Bella met him with her mistress' carefully directed word and returned from down the hall with the report that Miss Corinne was asleep. He thought a moment and then decided he would do better to wait until the time he had set, and departed without leaving his name.

  Several times since he came to New York he had entered into discreet conversation with the butler, but as yet he had not been able
to discover whether the rumors concerning a new foreign admirer of noble lineage were true or not. If they were, he meant to make Lisa sweat blood for daring, while he was still alive, to smile on anyone else. Not that he still had illusions about Lisa, either financially or sentimentally, but he had a bitter jealous nature that would not brook an insult. It was the cause of his frequently, during his eventful life, being sought after by a much-feared, long-eluded justice.

  Now that he had come back to see what could be done about the Barron fortune, he knew that he must go cautiously and understand fully the situation about Lisa, his former wife, or he might make some mistake and ruin the whole thing. As he remembered it, the girl, Corinne, would come in for something pretty handsome in the way of property, especially if the decree about the bulk of her mother's former portion going to her still held. Of course, it might just be that Lisa had succeeded in getting back that property since he had been away. In which case, he must move very carefully, so that if possible there would be no further financial losses.

  But having concluded that the time was not ripe for him to make himself known at the apartment, and noting that the hour was late for any likelihood of further developments, he at last decided to turn in. Tomorrow night was the time he had set in his letter to Corinne. It might be that even as late as the afternoon mail a check might come from the girl, and it would be so much safer and better to get at least that much money first, for he really was in need of it at once.

  So he repaired to his own apartment, taking the precaution to have a goodly assortment of liquors sent up, and prepared to bide his time and give his stepdaughter plenty of opportunity to respond to his request.

  But Coralie, unaware of the net that was being cautiously spread in the way of her young feet, slept happily through the night and awoke when the day was young, filled with pleasure over the visit she was to make and the company she was to be in over the weekend.

  Quite early she went out to a nearby flower shop and pleased herself by selecting a box of flowers to send to Mrs. Shannon. She had a good time choosing them. She didn't simply order by the dozen, a dozen roses or carnations. She picked them out individually. First a layer of spicy carnations, pink and white and a very deep crimson; then a layer of tea rosebuds like coffee and cream; a handful of African daisies in pastel shades peering tropically from the midst of them; then, nestling at the foot of the longer stems a mass of deep purple sweet violets and three gardenias. The whole was breathtaking in its loveliness. Coralie felt that she had never enjoyed buying flowers so much before in her life, and she paused to look at them and think of the sweet old lady who would open them. Not an old lady, really, just elderly, with soft gray hair in a plain old-fashioned knot at her neck, and a look of sweet motherliness about her. Oh, if Lisa could have been like that, and she could have called her "Mother" the way Valerie did her mother. "Mother dear!"

  But if Lisa had been like that she wouldn't have had that smooth baby complexion, and that hard glint in her eyes. One couldn't have motherliness without any mother-lines in her face. What would it have been to have had a mother like that?

  And then there came a passing wonder about what Lisa was doing now, off in the Canadian snowy regions. Having a good time, of course. Lisa never went anywhere without that. But how did she get the money to go? Lisa simply could not get along without plenty of money to throw around as she pleased, even if she took it away from her own child, and Coralie had made certain she could not do that this time.

  Then suddenly as she looked around her, walking through the empty rooms of the apartment, Coralie noticed a lack. Something was gone that made the place look strange. Something that had been a part of the place so long that she hadn't realized it was gone except for the emptiness. What was it that had stood there--and there--each side of the tall mirror that dropped irregularly and erratically in zigzag blocks at one end of the big reception room? Ah! She knew now! Two heathen gods, hammered priceless creatures of old silver, set with strange winking lights done in jewels. Had Lisa parted with those? She had often heard her say that they were her costliest possession! Ugly, distorted countenances, with wide screaming mouths and forked jewel-tipped tongues. Wild, wicked jeweled demon eyes and frenzied limbs twisted in the anguish of the lost. Coralie had always hated them and turned away from them.

  But Lisa had rejoiced in them. She had called them her gods and said she would never part from them.

  She had won them in some kind of a wild orgylike contest, and boasted of how many had given almost all they had for them and lost. As a child Coralie had wept at sight of them and shuddered always when she passed them. They had symbolized for her that something in her mother that the child could never understand, an utter devotion to a kind of satanic influence that prevented and circumvented anything like love, or gentleness, or devotion.

  Coralie paused as she stared at the empty spaces where these heathen creatures had been so long, appalled. What did it mean? Had Lisa sold them? Was it possible that she had found something greater than these her gods to worship? Or perhaps she had merely loaned them somewhere for a good sum, for the time being, intending to redeem them.

  But it appalled her, because it made her see how determined Lisa was to get money.

  In the midst of her meditations came Lisa's lawyer, wanting Lisa. He glared at Coralie when she assured him that Lisa wasn't there and she wasn't sure just when she would return. He said that she had written demanding instant service, and now she was away and he had many questions to ask. He wanted to know where Dana was.

  This was the first intimation that Coralie had that Lisa was about to put Dana through the third degree to get more money from him. She suddenly felt a great pity for him. What must he think of a mother who would descend to such things? And yet, it had never come to her mind to criticize Lisa in this way before. She had no idealism concerning mothers to judge from.

  The lawyer was standing, grimly surveying her.

  "Where is this son, then?" he questioned. "Won't you call him in? I would like to talk to him."

  "He does not live here," said Coralie quietly. She got rid of the lawyer at last, telling him she knew nothing about Lisa's affairs and he would have to wait till her return.

  When he was gone she went and read her new Bible awhile, but underneath the attention she was giving to the Book she found a constant clamor of questions. What was going to happen next? If Lisa made trouble with Dana, did she want to be mixed up in it? Could she get away somewhere out of it all? It was unthinkable that Lisa would strike Dana for more money than she might marry Ivor for. Oh, Lisa was heartless, of course! She would not have been Lisa if she weren't. She would have stayed with her husband and brought up her children as other women did. Coralie sighed. Oh, if she only had! She would have had a normal home like other girls, and a wonderful father such as Dana had. She wouldn't have had a lot of bad habits that must be broken if she wanted to make herself fit to associate with her brother and his friends. Now here she was, hampered by gnawing desires. Drinking and smoking were not compatible with the new life she was considering. She could not help seeing that girls like Valerie Shannon did not do such things. Since that evening she had gone to church with Dana and Bruce she had smoked very little, only when her nerves grew frantic for it, and she had not drank at all. But it was not easy, and she sensed that the future held for her a terrible struggle if she really decided to be different. One could be saved and still smoke, or even drink a little now and then, but those things just didn't belong in a saved life. She could see that without being told, and she wished with all her heart that she had grown up without them.

  The morning was a disturbing one, and in spite of her pleasant anticipations of the evening and the weekend that was to follow, she found an uneasiness creeping into her thoughts continually, until as the time drew near for Bruce to come for her, she was almost too restless to sit down. She kept wandering from one room to another, starting at every sound, fearful lest Lisa would arrive just as sh
e was leaving and try to hinder her. If she had known how to reach Bruce she would have gone somewhere else and told him to meet her there.

  She had given careful directions to the servants to be expecting Lisa home that weekend, for she felt intuitively that that would be Lisa's next move, and glad indeed she was to be away when she arrived.

  So she hovered anxiously about until Bruce arrived, and the glad lighting of relief in her eyes made his own heartbeats quicken and almost frightened him. He mustn't let his personal interest be caught. She was lovely, but she was not the kind of girl who would be interested in him, even if he were sure of her. Yet it warmed his heart, which had often been lonely, to have her glad to see him.

  They went out into the pleasant evening, he carrying her overnight bag, she regulating her steps to his, and as he drew her hand within his arm he looked down, and she looked up, and a smile passed between them that bore something of a great gladness and promise in spite of all reason or thought, just gladness and a sense of both belonging to God in a special way.

  It was pleasant to get back to the mission and see some of the faces she remembered from the week before, to give an answering smile to shy greetings from this one and that, to be recognized as belonging to the young preacher's crowd, to sit up near the front this time and be able to watch Dana's face as he sang. To get that thrill of belonging to him, his sister! To hear Bruce sing and realize that he had a great deep voice, too, and to catch his glance as he came down from the platform.

  Maybe some of her former companions would wonder that she could get a thrill just from a religious service. But it was true! She was having a good time, with not a dance nor a drink nor a smoke in sight the whole evening.

  Of course, she admitted to herself, it was a new experience. But somehow she couldn't imagine it palling upon her as the amusements of her crowd had been doing of late. She felt as if she had woken up suddenly and found that life was interesting, though she had been thinking for some time now that the sooner she was done with it the better.