Evening Star Newspaper, October 20, 1935, Page 86

4 Magazine Section rous salute of farewell. Lois, on her way to the Wilshire farm buildings, turned and looked back once, but Gailord was striding, tall and determined. in the opposite direction. Dan lay on his back and for a long time stared at the sky. This thing could not remain between himself and Lois. He would talk to her about it, as considerately as he knew how. Perhaps she had merely been swept off her feet momentarily by that trifling bounder -— and yet not emtirely swept off, thank God! Perhaps - - perhaps it was better not to say anything about what he had witnessed today. Let it die naturally. But perhaps she had changed her mind now about marrying him, or anyone. Dan was in a torment of un- certainty. It was almost sundown when he walked up the shallow. broad steps of the old Wilshire house. wondering if the expression on his face were anywhere near normal. It would not do, he thought, to give poor sick Harry Wilshire any cause for distress. But on that score he need not have concerned himself. A long drawn-out, muffled cry came from within the house, a cry which he recognized in alarm to be Lois’s, and when he walked rapidly into the hall without knocking, he was met by one of the hired men, who informed him in a choked voice that Harry Wilshire had died of a heart attack half an hour ago. Lois, he said, had collapsed. Dan brushed past the man and went into the sitting room where Lois lay huddied face down on the sofa. He gathered her up with great tenderness, and she clung to him, moan- ing inarticulately. Dan Campion raised his head and looked across his clasped hands out of the class room window at the flowering Juneberry tree. He had been thirty when that had happened, five years ago. Lois, twenty-two. Now he felt immeasurably old, for his marriage to Lois had been much like living with something infinitely rare and beautiful and changeless, preciously sealed under glass —a mythical flower, perhaps, or an unimaginable crystal. At first, with her dependence upon himafter the shock of her father’s death, he had duped himself into believing that her sweet affection and gratitude — which rather em- barrassed him - would grow into a deeper passion, but in this he had erred. Perhaps if their small son had lived, that bond might eventually have drawn her to him and exor- cised the glamorous memory in which Lois dwelt as though in a trance. Perhaps if he had been less sensitive — if he had spoken out in one of those moments of desperation when he thought he could no longer bear the torture of living with her, and not really living . . . But no. Confronting Lois with her - secret would never have made her love him. Rather it would have changed her friendly sweetness to contempt. He recalled that first winter after their marriage. The Pilmer Enterprise carried the story of old John Morse’s death in Palm Beach, and iois read the item aloud in a voice that was casually light. A short time later the Enierprise announced that the old financier had left nearly a million dollars to his grandson, Gailord Morse, who was now study- ing painting in Europe. Again Lois read the piece to Dan, and laughed in her throaty, delicious way. “Imagine having so much money given you, Dan! I'd rather not. It would go to my head.” But when she had walked out of the room, Dan had caught a glimpse of her eyes in a panel mirror. They did not meet his -— they were dark on a remote distance. There had been news photographs during the following months. Gailord Morse with fashionable people at Cannes, at Ascot, at Newport. Of these Lois had never spoken, although he knew she had seen them. In the past two or three vears there had been no THIS WEEK word of Gailord Morse. While Dan sometimes wondered about this with a dark and guilty hope, he knew that in Lois’s heart Gailord still lived, the very flower of romance. Yes, he thought heavily, there might pos- sibly come a change in her if he could take her away to another scene. He believed that despite her determined loyalty, some unruly depth in her heart still hoped that one day Gailord Morse would rturn. Dan ran his hand morosely across his thick brown hair. Meagerly equipped as he was, there could be no escape for him to any big city. It was when he was climbing into his car that Newt Shafer, the janitor, hailled him. “Guess where | been this afternoon,"”” Newt challenged. “Couldn't, Newt,”’ Dan smiled. “Qver to the big lodge in Opal. A woman come and asked me to sweep up the floors so’s she wouldn't get her feet dirty. Yes, sir. Just them words. So over I went, and there was the old man’s gran'son, sprawled out on a couch, tight as a tick. I'd never of knowed him — no sir! All puffed up and yeller — " “‘Wait a minute, Newt. Take a deep breath. Who was the lady?"’ “Lady, hrrp!” Newt cackled with enjoy- ment. ‘“You should 'a’ heard her lingo! Told me right off that her name was Mrs. O'Leary. or some such, and that she was up here to see what she could get out o’ this Morse prop'ty, which is all that's left o' what the old man couldn't take with him!" “You don't say,”” Dan murmured. “Yes, sir! And what's more, she told me that this here Gailord, he swiped her jools and pawned ‘'em, 'cause he needed quick money. But this Mrs. O'Leary, she was kind- hearted, so she wouldn't have him arrested, but come up here instead to take the prop'ty. Yousee — ' Newt chewed expansively. ‘* ‘This here Gailord, he ain't got long to live,’ she Dan went at once to the unconscious girl. He bent over her tenderly says. So she's goin’ to look after him, but first she’s goin’ to sell the lodge an’ all. She's — "' “Great Scott!” Dan broke out. Suddenly an image of the handsome youth of five years ago came before his eyes. Newt smiled. ‘“You go see for yourself. I got to clean up here, now.” He scratched his head and moved away up the yard. A blowzy, over-dressed woman opened the door of the lodge to Dan. Her eyes were kind, her smile spacious and not stupid. “If you're a friend of his,” she said in an P N — opulent, full-chested voice, “he's in there." She jerked a good-natured thumb over her shoulder. *‘Beginning to come to. But I warn you. mister. My specialist” - a pathetic dig- nity mounted her face - “says that it's only a matter of weeks. Too much money, you understand. The poor dear couldn't carry it, what with the gambling and all.” Dan bowed gravely, and opened the door to the vast living room of the lodge. From the deep, tapestry-covered davenport Gailord Morse raised himself slowly on one elbow and gazed without recognition at Dan Campion. Prepared though he had been, Dan had to take a steady grip on himself to come forward and speak in a natural voice. Here was a complete human wreck! “You don't remember me?"’ he smiled, and offered his hand. “I'm Dan Campion." Morse did not see the hand, but an attempt at recollection flickered in his eyes. “Ah — " His loose grin was shocking to Dan. “You're the mortar board who married that pretty little— "' He frowned cloudily. “What was her name, anyhow? Pretty little farm girl —so long ago - so many - you know - No offence, of course, y' understand. I remember she'd have none of me. Goo' girl. and all that, don't you know. Have a drink’" He lurched suddenly to a sitting position, made an effort to straighten his clothes. ‘“Thanks, no,” Dan said. “‘I just came in to ask how long you would be staying — if we could expect to see anything of you - " Morse waved his hand. ‘‘Nice of you. Sorry —- leaving in the morning. The ol’ girl out there's seizin' the property. Nice girl. Likes me. What's it matter? 1've had my fun. Seen everything — done everything. High, wide and handsome, that's me!" Dan left soon after. He scarcely knew what he said to Morse in parting from him —or what maudlin civility the man himself had expressed. If Lois were to see Gailord Morse / | v ’y now, that ghost of the past would be forever laid! It would be a simple thing to drive over to the lodge again this evening, to drop in there casually with Lois. . . . He drove home slowly, turning the plan over in his mind. But all at once he knew that he could not bring to reality any such scheme as he had been contemplating; he could not so brutally destroy a memory which Lois would cherish all her life. Yet he must tell Lois that he had seen Gailord Morse at the lodge, for it was quite likely that someone might have observed him driving away. October 20, 1935 She was waiting for him on the birch bench among the great pines at the front of the house — looking fragile and tender as she came toward him in a white lace dress. He smiled and took the hand she held out to him. “A little late, aren't you, Dan?" Her voice was light as some winged thing. If only once she would show impatience for his home- coming! “Well - I guess I am, a little.” They entered the coolly shadowed house. ‘I made a call. Sort of uncommon for me. It was only a step out of the way, so I dropped around to the lodge and said hello to Gailord Morse. He's up just for today -- with a prospective buyer of the property.”’ “Oh."” The monosyllable betrayed nothing. Lois was leaning against the stair post, hands clasped before her. She was looking thought- fully away from Dan, as though she had been or.fly half-attentive to what he had said. When they wereat tableand she had served him the spring salad, she asked abruptly, “How is Gailord looking, Dan?" He was taken a little off his guard, and to his annoyance he felt himself flushing. “Why — he seems to be just fine! Aged a little, like all of us, — except you.”” He was floundering, hang it! “But his work — por- traits — that's coming along great. he says. He sent his regards to you, by the way, and said he was sorry he had to leave tonight — " Lois was staring at him curiously, with wide, velvet-black eyes. Oh, Lord! he groaned. She might have spared him that exposed look! “That was awfully polite of him, Dan,”" she said softly. After the meal, they sat for a while on the veranda. Then, suddenly and without warn- ing, Lois stood up and moved to the door. Dan glanced toward her with uneasy in- quiry. “I'm going over to the lodge, Dan,” she said simply, and went indoors. He sprang after his wife, and seized her by one arm. “What do you mean?"’ he demanded thickly. “Have you lost your senses?"”’ Lois looked slowly up at him. Her eyes were unfathomable, her mouth imperiously curved. He had never seen her look like this and the revelation released something within him which he had always held in check. “Is there any reason why I should not go over there, Dan?"’ she asked. “Yes, by God, there is! You're my wife, Lois, whatever else you may think you are!” He seized her with both hands and swung her into his arms. There was no tenderness in his embrace nor in the strength of his kiss on her mouth and throat and bared shoulder. At last she seemed to collapse against him in terrified amazement, and then Dan saw himself and Lois in cold, sick clarity. “Do what you like.”” he muttered, and stumbled out of the house. He had been sitting in the moonlight on a fallen log behind the old barn. Whether he had sat there twenty minutes or twenty hours (Continued on page 13)