The Last Woman

Sally Gardner had found time during this short scene to recover from her moment of excitement. She had heard, and she thought she understood. Being a many-sided young matron, the best one of all came to the surface now--the one that even her best friends had never supposed her to possess. Underneath her fun-and-laughter-loving nature, Sally was gifted with more than her share of rugged common-sense, inherited, doubtless, from her Montana ancestors.

Even as Duncan bent above Beatrice's unconscious form, and before he spoke to her, Sally had started to her feet and pressed the electric-button in the wall, with the consequence that, at the instant when Beatrice became unconscious the second time, two of the servants entered the room.

"Miss Brunswick has only fainted," she told them, rapidly. "Lift her, and carry her to my room. Tell Pauline to care for her, and that I shall be there, immediately." She stood aside while they carried out her commands; then, she turned upon Duncan.

"You are a great fool, Roderick!" she exclaimed, without stopping to weigh her words. "I thought you had some sense; but it seems that you have none at all. Leave the house at once; and don't you dare to seek Beatrice Brunswick, until you have settled, in one way or another, your affairs with Patricia Langdon. Now, go! Really, I thought I liked you, immensely, but, for the present moment, I am not sure whether I hate you, or despise you! Do go, there's a good fellow; and I'll send you word, in the morning, how Beatrice is."

"Sally, what a little trump you are!" he exclaimed. "I know I'm a fool; I have certainly found it out during the last twelve or fourteen hours. You'll have to help me out of this muddle, somehow; you seem to be the only one in the lot of us who has any sense."

"Then, help yourself out of the house, as quickly as you know how," she retorted; and she ran past him up the stairs, toward the room where she had directed that Beatrice should be taken.

Duncan sighed. He looked around him for his hat, to find that it was still crushed down on the back of his head, and, smiling grimly to himself, he passed out of the house upon the street.

* * * * * Only one of the great dailies of New York City, published that Sunday morning, contained any reference whatever to the supposed incident of the wedding ceremony between Roderick Duncan and Miss Brunswick, at "The Little Church Around the Corner." The editors had been afraid to use Radnor's story, without verification. To them, it had seemed preposterous and unnatural, and especially were they reluctant to print anything concerning it when Radnor was forced to admit to them that Jack Gardner had ultimately denied the truth of the story he had first told.