Page:Frank Owen - The Actress.djvu/26

14 much alone. If only she had someone to comfort her, someone in whom she could confide.

Down in the room below, Arthur Coningsby lay sleeping peacefully. He was going to get well. Her coming had probably saved his life. Somehow she wondered whether she had any right to save his life under those conditions.

A leaf crackled in the garden below, then a match was struck and it seemed as though someone were lighting a cigar. The next moment the figure of a man appeared in the moonlight. Up and down he walked, restlessly up and down on a trail that led from nowhere and did not have an end.

Even in the moonlight Olga had no difficulty in recognizing Jerold Wharton. Back and forth he walked, puffing nervously at his cigar, ever back and forth.

"Dear boy," she murmured wistfully, "I wonder which is the most unhappy—you or I."

Then she stole noiselessly back to bed and found sleep at last. For now it seemed as though she were no longer alone in her trouble.

When Olga Fullerton awakened, dawn was just breaking through the mists of morning, painting a light of gladness over the distant palisades. Quickly she dressed and stole down into the garden.

Jerold Wharton still paced restlessly back and forth under the trees. At her approach he glanced up with a start, as though her coming had summoned him back from a dream world.