Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
images generously made available by The Internet
Archive/American Libraries.)
MY QUEEN
A WEEKLY JOURNAL FOR YOUNG WOMEN
No. 4. PRICE, FIVE CENTS.
MARION MARLOWE’S NOBLE WORK
OR
THE TRAGEDY AT THE HOSPITAL
BY GRACE SHIRLEY
PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY STREET & SMITH, 238 William Street, New York City.
_Copyright, 1900, by Street & Smith. All rights reserved. Entered at New
York Post-Office as Second-Class Matter._
MY QUEEN
A WEEKLY JOURNAL FOR YOUNG WOMEN
_Issued Weekly. By Subscription $2.50 per year. Entered as Second Class
Matter at the N. Y. Post Office, by_ Street & Smith, _238 William St., N. Y.
Entered According to Act of Congress in the year 1900, in the Office of
the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C._
No. 4. NEW YORK, October 20, 1900. Price Five Cents.
Marion Marlowe’s Noble Work;
OR,
THE TRAGEDY AT THE HOSPITAL.
By GRACE SHIRLEY.
CHAPTER I.
A TRIO OF DOCTORS.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons, or the “P. & S.,” as it is
usually called, had just graduated a large class of promising young
doctors, and the morning after the commencement exercises the big
building looked deserted. As Dr. Reginald Brookes, a handsome young man
of twenty-two, passed down the steps, dress suit case in hand, he came
face to face with two of his classmates.
“Hello, doc. What did you get, Charity or Bellevue? I hear you
competed,” called one of the young doctors.
“Neither one,” said Dr. Brookes, with a smile of amusement, “I got a
berth in the Penitentiary, Greenaway!”
“Oh, that’s too bad!” said Dr. Fielding, a pleasant-faced gentleman.
“You’ll rust in that place—they never have anything interesting! Why,
the best you will see will be a few contusions and a case of cholera
morbus or eczema of some kind.”
Reginald Brookes still smiled, although he knew his friend was speaking
truthfully.
“I’m going to Bellevue, and I’m mighty glad of it,” said Fielding,
enthusiastically. “For if there is anything going they get it at
Bellevue.”
“Yes, they catch it all, there,” was Dr. Greenaway’s answer, “and it’s
not so far from the world as the Island, either.”
“Then there’s any number of pretty nurses to flirt with,” he said,
laughing. “No lack of either fun or work in the wards of old Bellevue.”
“I’m sorry for you, Brookes,” exclaimed Dr. Fielding again. “Why, you
poor chap, you’ll hardly see a pretty face where you are going, for I
understand that the prison women do about all the nursing.”
“Yes, ‘Big Belle, the Confidence Queen,’ is head nurse there now, I
believe,” laughed Brookes, “or at least she is guardian of the woman’s
ward just at present. I expect I’ll have to leave my watch and money
outside when I go on duty. She might try her skill on me, just to keep
in practice.”
“Well, I am sorry for you, doc; still it is better than no berth at
all,” said Greenaway, sadly, “I didn’t get a thing, and I’m the poorest
man in the college.”
“By Jove, that’s too bad!” said Reginald Brookes, with feeling. “But,
say, what are you going to do; you can’t go into general practice
without capital.”
Fred Greenaway shrugged his shoulders and frowned slightly.
“I used up all I had on my education,” he said, briefly, “but I’ll
catch on to something. I’m not worrying about it.”
Dick Fielding rushed away at that moment in answer to a call from a
friend, and in a flash Dr. Brookes put his hand on Greenaway’s shoulder.
“Let me lend you five thousand to start with, old chap! I can do it as
well as not, and you can give me an I. O. U. for security.”
Fred Greenaway looked up at the handsome fellow in amazement.
“Great Cæsar! Do you mean that, doc?” he asked, excitedly.
“Certainly,” said young Brookes, briefly, as he drew a check book from
his pocket. “Why the deuce didn’t you tell me you were hard up before.
I thought you considered me your friend, you rascal!”
Fred Greenaway did not speak for the space of a minute. Such generosity
as this was totally unknown to him, and just at this time it was doubly
and trebly grateful.
“I guess I should have gone to the wall in spite of my grit,” he said
slowly, as Brookes folded and handed him the check. “I haven’t five
dollars in my pocket this minute, and as there wasn’t a ghost of a show
in sight for me to practice my profession, I was starting out to apply
for a job as motorman on a street car, or something of that sort.”
“Let me know how you get on,” said Brookes, as he waited for the I. O.
U. that Greenaway was scribbling. “I’ll be on the Island for a year, I
suppose, unless I find, as Fielding says, that I am actually rusting.”
“But why do you go there, Brookes?” asked his friend, rather anxiously.
“With your money, what is to hinder your going straight into practice?”
Reginald Brookes did not answer the question immediately; he appeared
to be a little embarrassed.
“I’ll tell you, Fred!” he blurted out finally, “but don’t give me away,
old man, or the boys will say I lack ambition; but the fact is I’m in
love—desperately in love, and it is with a sweet little nurse who is
‘on probation’ in Charity.”
“I see,” said Greenaway, with a smile of amusement. “And you can’t bear
the idea of having the East River roll between you! Well, I don’t know
that I blame you, doc, for after all, what’s the good of money if you
can’t be independent!”
“It is just this way,” said Brookes, seriously, as the two friends
started slowly up Fifty-ninth street. “She is a beautiful girl, a
country lass, and fresh as a daisy. I’m sure I don’t know how she can
endure that place, but she is determined to stay there and take care of
those poor wretches, and some way I thought she would be happier if I
went over and helped her.”
“Oh, how generous we are!” said Greenaway, laughing. “You mean you knew
you would be happier on Blackwell’s Island with her than you would on
Fifth avenue with any other woman.”
“I see you know how it is,” said young Brookes, with a grin of
sympathy. “You are in love yourself, old boy, or you couldn’t speak so
feelingly.”
“I admit it,” said Greenaway, a sad look crossing his face. “I’m in
love all right, but that is all the good it will ever do me.”
“Who is she?” asked Brookes, with a sudden keen interest.
The frown deepened on Greenaway’s face and his voice fell lower as he
answered: “Her name is May Osgood, and she is an actress,” he said,
slowly. “I have loved her for some time—I can’t seem to get over it.”
That there was a reason why he should get over it was very apparent by
his words, but Reginald Brookes was too cultured to dream of asking his
secret.
“Well, my little sweetheart is only seventeen,” he said gayly, “and,
between you and I, she has not accepted me yet, so you see I have a
double reason for wishing to be near her.”
As they parted at the L station, Greenaway spoke rather suddenly.
“I’ll turn my life insurance over to you if anything happens, Reg; but,
by the way, what is your sweetheart’s name? I seem to have a feeling
that I ought to know it.”
Reginald Brookes glanced at him in a little surprise.
“Her name is Marion Marlowe,” he said, very slowly, then, as Greenaway
ran up the stairs, he looked after him curiously.
“He’s a funny chap,” he muttered, uneasily. “Now, why the deuce did he
feel that he ought to know my little sweetheart’s name? Confound the
fellow! He has no business with such feelings!”