CHAPTER VIII.

A VISIT TO THE MORGUE.

Two days later Marion was on her way back to Charity Hospital. She had been absent from duty for a week, but they had all heard of her injury and been most kind and sympathetic. This time, as she passed down Twenty-sixth street, Archie Ray was with her. He had been first in the offer of escort on this occasion.

As they rode slowly along in Mr. Ray’s private carriage, Marion could see that his face had grown wonderfully sad. It was not like the face that she had recalled so vividly that night when Dr. Brookes had told her that he loved her.

“You are grieving terribly, Mr. Ray,” she said to him, sweetly. “Do, please, try to look on the bright side a little. There is surely some way of ridding yourself of that woman.”

“Do you believe in divorce?” asked Mr. Ray, suddenly.

“I most certainly do,” was Marion’s prompt answer. “I believe in anything that will undo an error.”

“You are more just and merciful than the world at large,” sighed the young man. “Most people would say, ‘If you married her, stick to her,’ and I would say so, too, if the difference was not quite so glaring.”

Marion’s gray eyes grew tender as she glanced at him shyly. It seemed almost immodest to her that she should be advising him in this matter.

“‘For better or worse’ does not mean that,” she said, very slowly. “When sin and crime come between husband and wife, it is time to separate to avoid contamination. No true man or woman will hold the promise, ‘until death,’ as indissoluble under such conditions. It is contrary to all the laws of human nature.”

Mr. Ray listened eagerly. These were his own thoughts put in words. He was glad, indeed, that she coincided so completely.

“I promised loyally and honestly,” he murmured, after a minute, “but I did not dream that I was marrying a dual character. I wrecked my whole life by one error. Oh, can I ever undo it?”

“I certainly should try,” said Marion, stoutly. “You are too young and too—too noble to be tied to such a woman.”

The carriage halted as Marion spoke, and Mr. Ray glanced out of the window to see what was the matter.

“We are right in front of the Morgue,” said Marion, looking out. “Oh, I see what is stopping us; they are loading up the dead wagon.”

Her companion shivered as he saw a wagon load of pine coffins about ten feet ahead of them.

“What a horrible place!” he said. “Have you ever been in there?”

“No, but I’d like to go if there is time,” said Marion, quickly. “And I am quite sure there is. The boat does not leave until eleven.”

Mr. Ray spoke to the driver and then helped Marion out. At the same moment another carriage rolled up and stopped directly before the entrance.

“It is Mr. Atherton, Dollie’s employer!” Marion whispered, as she drew back suddenly.

A man had stepped from the other carriage and gone into the Morgue. She knew him instantly, although his back was toward her.

Archie Ray hardly heard the young girl’s next words. He was staring after the lawyer with a dazed expression.

“He is the old lawyer who is Dollie’s employer,” Marion said again, “and he’s a regular _roué_, if I am any judge. Why, do you know, he took Dollie to luncheon one day and would have taken her to a matinee if I had not stopped it.”

“Is it possible?” said Mr. Ray, coming back to her words, with a start. “Why, that man is my father-in-law. He is the father of my wife. Has not his own daughter’s career made him more merciful of other maidens?”

Marion was shocked at his news, but there was no time to reply. The next moment they were in the dingy home of the dead, gazing around them with curiosity.

“He did not see us,” whispered Marion, as the lawyer went out again. “And I am very glad, for I should not care to speak to him.”

“Dead John,” the keeper, came in at that moment. He was a little impatient as he looked at his visitors.

“Be yees lookin’ fer any one in perteckeler?” he asked, crossly, “fer if yees ain’t, it ain’t no time ter be comin’ in wen I’m busy.”

“What was he looking for?” asked Mr. Ray, pointing after the lawyer. “You were civil enough to him, even if you were busy.”

The man shook his head and became suddenly better natured.

“He’s lookin’ fer his gal, he sez,” was his answer. “He ain’t seen her fer years an’ he comes here lookin’ every mornin’.”

“That’s a queer combination,” said Mr. Ray, as he put Marion back into the carriage. “A man who is always hunting the Morgue on the lookout for his own wayward one, yet never losing a chance to wrong some other man’s daughter.”

“I think a little more knowledge of the evil in the world will drive me mad,” said Marion, sharply. “Oh, is there no end to it? I am beginning to be doubtful.”

Mr. Ray looked at her fair face with one of his old, tender glances.

“It is wrong that you should have learned even so much as one lesson of the evil,” he said, softly. “You should have been kept free from it all, my peerless Marion.”

The beautiful girl’s face flushed scarlet to the roots of her hair, but Mr. Ray touched her hand gently, almost in a pleading manner.

“Let me think of you thus—it can do no harm,” he said, softly. “Let me say to myself, she is my peerless Marion, even though a barrier exists between us which prevents my saying anything more.”

Marion bowed her head and the tears sprang to her eyes.

“You are too good to think so well of me,” she said, simply. “Oh, I wish you could know how deeply I sympathize with you. How sorry I am to know how you have suffered.”

She let her hand rest in his as she looked at him.

“And you will watch, Marion, for my erring wife,” he said, sadly; “you will forget what she has done in your friendship for me, for I should never forgive myself if she should be in want or die uncared for.”

“I will watch,” said Marion, simply, and then the carriage stopped. Once more Marion was admitted to the little hospital dock, going back to her duties among the city’s unfortunate. As she reached the deck of the _Thomas Brennan_, some one stepped out of the pilot house to greet her.

It was young Dr. Brookes, on his way to the Prison Hospital.