A NEW NAME
A NEW NAME
BY
GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL
AUTHOR OF
MARCIA SCHUYLER,
NOT UNDER THE LAW,
ARIEL CUSTER, Etc.
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1925-26, BY THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR WORLD
COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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A NEW NAME
I
Murray Van Rensselaer had been waiting for an hour and a quarter in thereception-room of the Blakeley Hospital.
He was not good at waiting. Things usually came at his call, orsometimes even anticipated his desires. It was incredible that heshould suddenly find himself in such a maddening set of circumstances!
He still wore the great fur-lined overcoat in which he had arrivedafter the accident, but he seemed to be unaware of it as he pacedexcitedly up and down the stark leather-upholstered room.
Across the marble corridor he could just see the tip of white starchedlinen that was the cap of the uniformed person with double-lensedspectacles who sat at the roll-top desk and presided over this fiendishplace.
Three times he had pranced pompously across the tessellated floor anddemanded to know what had become of the patient he had brought in. Shehad only looked him over coldly, impersonally, and reiterated that wordwould be sent to him as soon as the examination was completed. Evenhis name, which he had condescendingly mentioned, had failed to makethe slightest impression upon her. She had merely filed his immaculatecalling card and remanded him to the reception-room.
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The tall clock in the corner, the only live thing in the room, seemedto tick in eons, not seconds. He regarded it belligerently. Why shoulda clock seem to have eyes that searched to your soul? What was a clockdoing there anyway, in a place where they regarded not time, and wereabsorbed in their own terrible affairs? The clock seemed to be the onlyconnecting-link with the outside world.
He strode nearer and read the silver plate of the donor, inscribed inmemory of “Elizabeth,” and turned sharply back to the door again witha haunting vision of the white-faced girl he had brought in a whilebefore. Bessie! Little Bessie Chapparelle! She was “Elizabeth” too.
What a cute kid she was when he first knew her! Strange that on thisday of all days he should have come upon her standing at that cornerafter all these years, suddenly grown up and stunningly handsome!
And now she lay crumpled, somewhere up in those distant marble halls!
He shuddered in his heavy coat and mopped the cold perspirationfrom his brows. If anything should happen to Bessie! And his fault!Everybody would of course say it was his fault! He knew he was areckless driver. He knew he took chances, but he had always got bybefore! If she hadn’t been so darned pretty, so surprisingly sweetand unusual, and like the child she used to be—and that truck comingaround the corner at thirty-five miles an hour!
The air was full of a