Stranger within the Gates Read Free Page A

the girl in the question except in the most casual way. Just the fact of marriage in connection with her eighteen-year-old son was all she seemed to be able to think of yet.
    But she must do something right away.
    She looked around the room frantically and met the clear, calm gaze of her husband's eyes, from his picture on the wall, and somehow that glance seemed to steady her. If he were only here! Then Mary Garland dropped upon her knees beside her bed and buried her face in her pillow. Up from her heart there arose a great cry of need. It was not in words; it was just her desperate acknowledgment that she was helpless to face this terrible thing that had come upon her.
    If Rex Garland could have seen his little, pitiful mother as she knelt there bowing in her desperation, he might have understood what a terrible thing he had done to her. His little sweet mother whom he adored.
    Mary Garland knelt there for several minutes, just bowing before her humiliation and defeat, and then at last she arose, her face almost calm with a kind of deadly quiet upon it. She walked over to her telephone, dropping down upon the little desk chair beside the telephone table. Her hands were trembling, and her lips were trembling, too, when she called long distance and then the number of Rex's college and waited, but there was about her a look of decision that her children knew well.
    Oh, she didn't know just yet what she was going to say to Rex, but she knew she was going to say it, whatever it was that came to be said. And she knew she must speak to Rex himself right away.
    It seemed interminable, that waiting, till she heard the operator at the college, and then her voice grew strong for her task; she was able to keep her tone quite steady as she spoke.
    "Will you please let me speak with Rex Garland? This is his mother."
    There was an instant's hesitation at the other end of the wire.
    "I'm sorry, Mrs. Garland, but everybody's in class just now. We are not supposed to interrupt classes for anything except a matter of life or death."
    "Yes?" said Mary Garland firmly. "Well, this is a matter of life and death. I must speak with my son at once."
    She could hear a whispered consultation, a little flurry of excitement, and then the young operator was back again.
    "It's out of the ordinary ruling, Mrs. Garland, but if it's quite important--"
    "It is," said Mary Garland steadily.
    "Very well. I'll see what I can do for you. You'll have to wait till I can send word to his class."
    "I'll wait," said the mother firmly.
    It seemed forever that she sat there with the telephone in her hand. She could hear occasional talking, some student coming in to ask about a letter. A professor to leave a message. The dean to ask a question. She could visualize it all, for she had been in that office and knew pretty well what went on. She drew a brief quivering breath. She thought to herself that it was like the time she waited at the hospital when Stanley had his tonsil operation and wasn't coming out of it as well as they had expected. She had waited what seemed like eons for word to come from the operating room. Life was full of such breathtaking experiences. There was the time when Paul had been hurt in the gymnasium on the high bar and the doctor was going over him carefully. It seemed forever while she waited. And there was the time Fae ran a needle into her foot and the doctor had to cut her foot to get it out. Then there was the time--and just then the operator's clear-cut voice broke in upon her thoughts.
    "I'm sorry, Mrs. Garland, but we can't seem to locate Rex Garland anywhere. He told his roommate he was going down to class, but he isn't there. Do you want me to give him a message if he should return? Or will you call again?"
    "I would like you to find my son, wherever he is, and have him call me on the telephone as soon as possible. It is most important."
    "Very well, Mrs. Garland. I'll do my best. If I hear anything before noon, I'll give you a ring,