PHYLLIS GOES IN SEARCH OF FRANK
Hendrie's return home became something like an epoch in the life of Phyllis Raysun. It was the moment of her passing from girlhood to the full maturity of a woman. She began to see with eyes more widely open, and a mind whitted to the keenest understanding of the actions and motives of those about her.
Ever since her first coming to Deep Willows, Hendrie, with all her reason for abhorrence of him, had never failed to interest her. Nor was it long before this interest begat forgiveness, and even liking. His colossal powers for dealing with affairs excited her youthful imagination and impelled admiration. But more than all else, his evident passionate devotion to Monica appealed to her.
When he had first learned that Monica was to yield him her woman's pledge of love and devotion, he had displayed a side of character she had deemed impossible in one of his obvious characteristics. His boisterous, almost youthful joy was quite unrestrained. She had never dreamed of such a display in anybody, much less in Hendrie, the hard, stern financier. It became painful and even pathetic in such a man.
But now, since the latest scene in Angus's office, she had read the real truth of his personality. She had always watched and studied him closely, she had detected many almost unaccountable weaknesses, but when the climax in her observations was reached in his insane outburst, she felt she held the key to the driving force which hurled him so frequently blundering down the path of life.
To her he appeared a complex mechanism tremendously organized in one definite direction, which left all other directions utterly uncontrolled. All his life, it seemed to her, he had concentrated his mind and energies upon the process of accumulating wealth, and the power of wealth. Nothing else had been permitted to appeal to him. He had rigorously torn every other inclination up by the roots and flung them aside, to be left behind him in the race to win his ambitions. He had treated himself like a mere thinking machine, a machine to be driven in the only direction in which he desired to think. He had utterly forgotten that he was a human being, created with a hundred and one feelings, all of which must be duly cared for, and used, and controlled. The only control over his more human passions he had ever attempted to use must have been of a nature which endeavored to crush them out of existence.
Now the result was manifest. Human nature had rebelled. Human nature was fighting for its existence. The human nature in him all uncontrolled by careful, studied training, drove him whithersoever it listed. All his great, machine-made brain broke down before its tremendous flood-tide, and he was swept along upon its bosom toward the brink of disaster. His passions once stirred, there was no telling where they might bring him up. She believed that under their influence he would stop at nothing.
Fortunately it seemed that all his passions were wrapped up in Monica. She was certainly their guiding star, and from this thought she drew comfort and hope. She felt that if Monica could only be saved, all would be well with him. While, on the other hand, her loss suggested to her imagination possibilities all too dreadful to contemplate.
Thus was her fevered anxiety stirred to its limits during the rest of the day, and the following morning, Doctor Fraser was to make his final examination of his patient, and give his definite verdict to the husband. Phyllis dreaded that verdict. Whatever it might mean for Monica, it was the man for whom she most feared.
Her mind was kept fully alert for all that was passing during the time of waiting. She knew that Hendrie kept himself tremendously busy. She knew that the wires were speeding messages from the house at Deep Willows, and it required little trouble to find out that Professor Hinkling, of Winnipeg, was in direct communication with the master of Deep Willows. She ascertained, too, that he was the greatest surgeon in the country for all matters to do with Monica's condition.