Lakeland Evening Telegram Newspaper, February 17, 1915, Page 2

without ceasing sharp-beaked envy, batred, malice and all uncharitable- ness pecked insatiably at his vitals: Seneca Trine sat waiting, with the im- passivity of a graven figure waliting on the imminent hour of ultimate avengement for the wrong that had made him what he was. “Another hour! . . In sixty minutes more they will be here, Judith and Marrophat ‘and Rose—poor fool! —and him! . In sixty minutes more they will put him down before me, bound and helpless, if not dead 5 A |‘I|ghl pause prefaced words that were a whimpered prayer: “God send that he be not dead! Have I lingered Rose Turned on Her Passionately. here in anguish all these weary years for the fulfillment of my revenge only to be cheated at the end by Death? God grant that Alan Law may be lald down still living here at my feet! Then » A bitter smile twisted his tortured features: “Then shall my will be done to him! And then, when I have seen him die as his father died—then—Ah, God!—then at last I too may die! ‘There a long silence, then a groan of perated protest: ‘“Why do they not come? Why does Judith delay, when she knows how I suffer? ‘Why have I been put off from day to day with her telegrams that begged for more time and promised every- thing—but told nothing!—until yester- day. ‘Where are those mes- sages she sent me yesterday?” His one sound hand groped out like & claw and sought a mass of papers on the desk beside him, sorting out from among them two yellow Mrm|.| Painfully he blinked over thess and slowly his pain-bent lips conned their wording; “‘Alan and Rose safe with me—will dring both home tomorrow night with- out fail,’” he read the first aloud; and then the second: *“‘Have motorcar waiting for me tomorrow morning from three o'clock till called for New Bedford waterfront—Judith.'” “No!” he aflirmed with the fervor of one persuaded by his own desires: “I must not doubt the girl! She has promised, she has petformed: So still was he, indeed. that he to slee}, but so deceptive was that semblance that he was alert for the least sound. The girl entered soft- 1y, as it fearful of disturbing his slum- bers; but she found him with head erect and eyes a-blaze. “Judith!” he cried, his great voice vibrating like a brazen bell. “At last! ‘Where is he? You have brought him? Where is he?” With no more answer than a sigh, the girl drooped her head and let her bands hang limply with palms ex- posed. After an instant of incredulous dis- passionately—"what about you? If I love Alan Law, at least I love him openly. Iam not ashamed to own it— and I don't pursue him, as you do, pre- tending I mean to sacrifice him to a wicked family feud, and then spare him every time I meet him, to lead him to believe I haven't the heart to injure him—as you do, hoping so to work upon his sympathies and earn a kindly word and a pat on the head from his hand!” Fiercely she leveled a denunciatory arm at her sister. “There!” she cried | to her father—"if you need to know— there stands the daughter who has ibetnyed your faith—as I have not, i who have never even pretended to approve your villainy!” “I think,” Trine announced in a voice of ice—"I have learned now | what I needed to know.” His fingers sought the row of but- tons; and when a servant responded, he inquired: “Mr. Marrophat has returned?” “He is in the waiting room, sir.” “Conduct Miss Judith to him and tell him I hold him personally respon- sible for her safe-keeping. He will | understand.” And for a long time thereafter the father, alone with the daughter who had been estranged from him since birth by every instinct of her nature, from the rooms to be held prisoner in her bedchamber on the topmost floor of the house. CHAPTER XXIII. A Sporting Offer. Some two hours later, that same evening, Mr. Alan Law, very much alive and, in spite of a complete new outfit of ready-made clothing, looking much more like himself than he had in a fortnight, issued forth from the Grand Central station, hafled a taxi- cab, and had himself conveyed to the Hotel Monolith. But if he looked his proper self once more, it speedily was demonstrated that his wish was otherwise: for after learning from the room-clerk of the Monolith that a suite was being held in the name of Arthur Lawrence, that was the name Mr. Law inscribed on the register. On the other hand, it was his true name that he gave to the person whom he called upon the telephone immedi- ately after being shown to his rooms. But then he was speaking to his old friend and man of business, Mr. Digby. ‘Within another ten minutes this last ‘was in conference with his employer: “I think you must be out of your head,” he insisted nervously, once their first greetings were over. “You might juet as sensibly throw yourself from the top of the Metropolitan tower as come to New York while Trine lives and knows you're this side the water.” “Nonsense!” Alan laughed. “Remem- ber this is New York—not the back- ‘woods of Maine!” Alan paused and smote his palm with a remorseful fist. “By the Eter- nal; I'm forgetting Barcus!” . “Barcus?” “Chap whose boat I chartered in Portland—sheer luck on my part: he's one of the salt of the arth. First, something must be done for the boy. You've got influence of some sort in : New Bedford, surely?” Digby reflected: “Some. There's George Blaine, justice of the peace—" “The very man. Telegraph him in Barcus' interests immediately. And telegraph Barcus as well—send him & hundred for expenses, and tell him to join me here in New York as quick as he can!” “Your friend's address?” Digby in- quired, mildly ironic as he sat down at the desk and fumbled with the sup- ply of stationery. “New Bedford jail, of course!” Alan chuckled—but cut his laugh in two as something fluttered from the pack of envelopes which Digby had disturbed « and fell to the floor between the two men. Face up, it grinned sardonic mock- i essayed In vain to break down her mutinous silence. At last Trine summoned two of his creatures and had her led weeping 1] & Trine is put away comfortably in his grave.” “It shall. be done,” Digby promised. “It must!” “You believe that?” “In twelve hours Rose shall be re- | stored to you.” “Will you make a book on it? Il bet you something happens—and hope 1 lose into the bargain. If you believe you can carry out your promise, wire the White Star line to reserve the best available suite on the Oceanic, sailing tomorrow morning at ten— and make arrangements for a mar- riage before the boat sails.” “I'll go you,” Digby agreed: “and if T fail, I forfeit the cost of the reser- vation. But about this marriage—" He hesitated. “You'll have to have a license in this etate—and can't get one except by applying in person with your bride- to-be. There won't be time—" “Then we'll marry in Jersey!” Alan insisted, “Dig up some clergyman over | there, if you don’t know ome your- selt—" “Oh, I'm well acquainted with the very man!” CHAPTER XXIV. The Time o’ Night. Not {ll-pleased to be left to his own devices (whose proposed character Digby would never have approved had he so much as suspected them) Alan none the less deferred action until after midnight. And espionage was all he feared— save and except always, of course, fail- ure to find his Rose. It was about one in the morning ‘when he arrived inconspicuously (but net 8o much 80 as to seem deserving of police surveillance) in the neigh- borhood of the Riverside drive home of his morjal enemy, a grim white house that towered, stark and tall, upon & corner. His preliminary reconnoisance pro- vided little more than comfortless ex- ercise. Huge, stil], its wall bathed in the milk and ink of moonlight and shadow, all its windows dark but one—and that one, in the topmost tler, showed only a feeble glimmer, so slight that Alan almost overlooked it. But once discovered, it focused upon i {tself his thoughts with a power little less than hypnotic, He believed with small doubt that Rose was a prisoner within those walls; that Judith must have con- veyed her there with all speed. And, this being the presumptive case, that small, high window of the light| might well be hers. Directly across the street from the Trine residence, on the opposite cor- ner, & colossal apartment structure stood half-finished, stonework to its second story, gaunt iron skeleton rear ing above. To his infinite disgust, Alan found the guardian very wide awake, very much on the job: no chance here to steal unseen into the bullding. This in itself might have been deemed a suspicious circumstance: not for nothing does an honest night watchman 8o deny the laws of nature' and the tenets of his craft. But Alan merely praised the man while cursing the very fact of his existence; and, ac- costing, overcame with bank-notes what seemed an uncommonly stubborn reluctance, and got his way. He could not know'that another skulked behind a barrier of lime bar- rels and overheard all that passed and, , when Alan had ducked smartly into the unfinished building, rose and stole after him with footsteps as noiseless as a cat’s and a face that had the sav- agery of a tiger'’s when it was tran- slently revealed in a shaft of moon- light. At length Alan galned the gridiron of girders on a plane with the lighted window across the way, aud crept along one of these, gingerly on his hands and knees, until he came to its end and might, if he cared to, look | ba¢k of the case, and closed it upon the folded message. Then drawing back his arm, he breathed a silent prayer to the god of all true lovers, and cast it from him with all his might—with such force that it almost unseated him at the end of the swing. But nothing less would have served to bridge that yawning chasm. And the watch flew straight and true, squarely through the lighted win- dow and to the further wall. . . . At that very instant of his exultation over an obetacle overcome, he heard a sound bebind him of heavy breathing. The assassin had come that close upon his prey when Alan turned and | discovered his peril. i The same moonbeam which had aided Alan in the composition of his message struck across the other’s face, | and showed it like a hideous Chinese mask of deadly hatred, with its eye- balls glaring and its lips drawn back from the naked blade gripped between | its teeth—a stiletto nothing short of a foot in length. \ With a sharp, startled movement, Alan swung himself bodily about, so that, seated again asetride the girder, he faced the assassin who sat up, straddling the girder, his feet hooked beneath it a stiletto poised in his right hand to strike. ‘ But even now Alan was in little or no better case than before. If he faced " the thug, he faced him with no arms other than his bare hands. He had not ' even a pen-knife in his pockets. With a low cry of desperation Alan snatched off his hat, a soft and shape- less felt affair, and flung it squarely in ' the fellow’s face. Before he could recover—before, that is, it dropped away and cleared his vision, Alan had bent forward and | grasped the wrist of the hand that| held the knife. i He snatched simultaneously at the other hand, but it eluded him, Alan had this advantage, as long as the knife might not strike—that his | right arm was free, while the assassin had only his left. With this he strove | persistently to reach his knife-hand and possess himself of the weapon. As persistently Alan folled his purpose | by dragging the knife-hand toward him and swinging it far out to one side. At the same time he struck repeatedly with hie clenched right fist at the oth- ers face. His blows did little dam- age beyond disconcerting the other; but this proved a very considerable ' factor in the duel. In the end, they served together with that steady, re- sistless downward and outward drag, to break the grip of the man's locked legs. Abruptly he pitched forward on his face along the girder, kicking wildly, grasping at the air. The stiletto fell from an instinctively relaxed grasp, and disappeared. And before Alan could release his hold, or ease the strain upon the right arm of the as- sassin, this last had slipped bodily from the girder and hung helpless in space, danglins at the end of Alan's arm—with no more than the grip of five fingers between him and death. The shock of that unpresaged turn brought Alan forward and fiat on his stomach. And the strain on his left arm was terrific. He doubted if he could maintain it for another minute. Nor was there any reason why he should retain it. The end he had de- signed for his victim was merely his Just desert. And yet Alan could not let him go. Thus the battle began anew—but now it wae a battle with a man half- crazed and struggling so madly that he well-nigh frustrated the efforts of his rescuer. In the upshot the assassin lay like a limp rag across the girder, head and arms dangling on one side, legs and feet on the other, spent with his ter- rific exertions and physically sick with terror. And in this state Alan left him: he had done enough; let the man shift for himself from this time on. CHAPTER XXV, Changeling. In the vague, chill gray of that dull and desolate dawn, Judith stirred ab- | ruptly on the couch of a sleepless night, and with the rapidity of one who has arrived at a settled purpose after a long period of doubt and per- plexity, rose and bathed and dressed herselt in negligee. In the adjoining room she could hear small, stealthy noises—the sounds made by her sister moving about and preparing against the unguessable mo- ment when her rescue would be at- tempted, according to the information conveyed in that midnight message. For chance had conspired with her insomnia to station Judith in the re- cess of her darkened window, idly viewing the gaunt framework of the unfinished building from an angle which, when Alan edged out along the girder, showed him plainly in silhou- ette against the sky. In Judith’s eyes his identity was un- mistakable. She had hardly needed |wlll drain that glaes. - *%What do you want?” she demanded tensely. “To come to an understanding with ou,” Judith told her coolly. 2 “There is no understanding possible between us: you know that as well as L “Yet one there must be.” ] insist that you leave this room at once!” “Insist by all means—and be damned! I may leave this room—and I may not, dear little sister. But one of us will never leave it alive.” ‘With a start of terror, Rose ehrank back from this strange, wild thing that wore the very shape and sem- blance of herself. “What do you mean? You cannot mean to murder me in cold blood, | Judith?” “Not I!” Judith laughed harshly. “But, since it has pleased Destiny to decree that we must both love one man—let Destiny decide between us and bear the blame of murder!” “Judtth!” “One moment!” Crossing to a side table, Judith took up a glass from a tray that held a silver water-pitcher, and returned with it to the table that occupied the middle of the floor. At the same time she opened a hand till then fast clenched and disclosed a small | blue bottle with a red label shrieking the warning “POISON!" “Strychnine,” she explained com- posedly, “in solution.” And emptied the bottle into the glass. A measure of courage returned to Rose. “Do you expect to be able to make me drink that?” ehe demanded contemptuously. “Not I—but Destiny, it it will! here.” From a pocket of her dressing- gown Judith produced a sealed deck of playing cards. “Let these declare the will of Destiny toward us. I will break the seal, shuffle the cards, and deal,” she explained, suiting action to word. “The one who gets the trey of hearts Is it a bar- gain?” “Never! Oh, now I know that you are altogether mad!” “Perhaps. Are you ready?” And Judith made as if to deal. “No—never! I tell you I refuse!” Rose chattered, terrified. “You dare not refuse.” “Why “Because of this.” Whipping a small revolver from an- other pocket of her dressing-gown, Ju- dith placed it on the table, ready to her hand. “You will shoot me if I do not con- sent?” “Not you—but him. If you refuse, little sister, 1 will shoot Alan Law dead when he comes to keep his ap- | pointment with you.” “Ah!” Rose cried in mingled fright and amazement. “How did you find out?” “Never mind. Is it a bargain, now, about the trey of hearts? Remember, | 1 shall keep my word about this pis- tol.” With a shudder Rose bowed her head. “Deal,” she muttered fearfully, “and may God judge between us!” One by one she stripped the cards from the top of the deck, dealing first to Rose, then to herself. One by one they fluttered to the table on either side the glass of poison, and fell face uppermost. The trey of hearts fell to Judith. There was an instant of silent dread, ended by Rose, as Judith’s hand moved steadily toward the glass. “Judith!” she implored. “Don't—I | beg of you—I didn’'t mean it—I take back my coneent—" “Too late!” said Judith, lifting the | & glaes and eyeing its contents with a strange emile. “Judith! you cannot mean to drink | (34 “Can't I, though?” the other laughed mirthlessly, “Just watch me!" With a strangled cry Rose covered ; her face with her hands to shut out the sight, stood momentarily swaying, and dropped to the floor in a complete faint. Delaying only to recogrize this phe- | nomena with a pitying smile for the | weakness of spirit that caused it, Ju-| dith's glance darted through the win- dow and saw that which caused her to stay her hand an instant longer. On the topmost tier ot girders of the ! building opposite, Alan Law stood amid a little knot of amused and ani- mated laborers, one foot in the great steel hook of the hoisting tackle, both hands clasping the chain that linked it to the gigantic block. And ae Judith stared, he smiled at something said by one of those about him, looked back, and waved a hand to some person invisible. Immediately the arm began to ift, | the tackle to move slowly through the | blocks. Very gently he was swung up and outward. . With a cry Judith fung the poison heedlessly from her, leaped across the room, and snatched up the etreet gar- ments Rose had dropped at her siscers entrance. In another moment she was strug- ! gling madly into them. Before the shadow of Alan, clinging See | PRPURTRIRRRRI UL L s atid ida Lands e S ot S m‘ In Large and Small Tracts SUITABLE FOR Fruit, Truck and Improved | General wd 4| Farming Unimprov ; | Unimproved and Improved Samples 23,000 ACRES—In Polk County at $6.00 per, acre. Timber § worth more than half the price. 40 ACRE FARM—35 in bearing Orange Grove, 8- house, packing house and barn, .large lake front. Irrigation plant, good heavy soil and good road. miles from Lakeland. Price $30,000.00. : FOR NON-RESIDENTS—Good Fruit Lands, well located in ten, twenty and forty acre tracts; Co-operative Devel- opment Plan. NEW BRICK STORE BUILDING—In the city of Lake. § land; Leased for five years at $2,600.00 per annum, §3- § 000,00. Will trade for Orange Grove as part payment, 9-ROOM HOUSE and three vacant Lot# Close to Lake § Morton $4,200.00. $1,2c0 down and terms. TWO HOUSES In Dixieland (5-rooms), rented. $3,00000, § Terms. TWO GOOD SUBDIVISION Propositions. and desirably located. 20 ACRES FARM—At Lakeland Highland. 13 acres in bearing grove, 60o trees in good condition. Large res- idence with modern improvement. Private water works; good out buildings with implements and team. Price $10,000. 34 ACRES OF RICH HIGH .HAMMOCK land near Cen ter Hill. Close to school post office and store. Five acres clear. Price $550.00 28 ACRE FARM—with lake front. 6 acres in young grove; new cottage and good barn. 2 1-2 miles from Lakeland on hard road. A good combination farm. Price §. 750.00. Cash $1,250.00, Balance deferred at 8 per cent interest, CORNER LOT—Three blocks south of city hall. East an South exposure. Some fruit trees; new sidewalks. Price $2200.00. room New Six § Both close in § For Further Information See J. Nielsen-Lange Lakeland, Florida Phone 354 Green. Office Evening Telegram Bldg. A A S bt Ak i PBPRPRE PP PPV DD PR L EPOOPPPELPPPE PS4 The Cost of Living Is Great Unless YouKnow Where'To Buy IF YOU KNOW | The Selection willJbeljthe best The variety unmatched The quality unsurpassed The price the Lowest All these you find at our store Just trade with us This settles the question of living BLBERSSIRP PP LI .$ 40 1.00 1.35 6o .50 | Best Butter, per pound . SUERT,T7 PONRAR. (i et e Ts Cottolene, 10 pound pail Cottolene, 4 pound pail 4 pounds Snowdrift Lard ...... ... Snowdrift, 10 pound pails ......... 3 cans family size Cream ......... 12 pounds Best Flour .. 1-2 barrel Best Flour BB i g Pds! | g .25 6o eppointment the man shot a ltuln.' frigid question at her: | “You have failed?” 4.00 .25 down a hundred feet to the sidewalks. That view, however, did not tempt; he kept his eyes level; and was re- to the hook and chain, fell athwart the | ery of Alau’s confidence: it was a trey | the night-glasses which presently she of hearts. Octagon Soap, 6 for . | brought to bear upon him at the mo- ¢ ¢ Ground . ffce, LS TR TR ST S “I have failed,” she confessed. “Why? She shrugged slightly. “Who knows why one fails? I did my best: he was too much for me, outwitted me at eovery turn. Time and again I thought 1 had him, but always he escaped, efther by his own wit and courage or with another's aid. Only yesterday might they were all three in the hol- Jow of my hands—but now I bring you only Rose.” She faltered, awed by the glare of his infuriated eyes. “Let me explain,” she begged. He snapped her short: “You cannot explain. The thing is impossible, that you should have failed. There is some- thing beneath this, something you will not tell me." 8he endeavored to speak, but he en- forced silence with a sonorous “No!™ His hand sought the row of buttons on the desk and pressed one long. Almost instantly a servant glided ato the room. “My ‘daughter Rose—have bher Dbrought here to me at once!” In another moment the replica of his daughter Judith was ushered into his presence. With an ashen face and a trembling hand, Digby stooped to pick the | damned thing up; but Alan was be- . fovehand with him, and got his fingers ! first upon the card. | “Now will you believe?” Dighy de- | manded huskily. “In what? A simple coincidence?’ Alan flouted. “NotI! Who knows I'm in New York—or that the Arthur Law- rence for whom your agent engaged these rooms was Alan Law. No, my friend: it's a bit too thick for me. Take my word for it, this is nothing more nor less than a eouvenir of a poker- party held by yesterday's tenant of this suite.” “Perhaps—perhaps!” Digby assent- ed, stroking tremulous lips. “But I'm afraid for you, my boy. Who knows that Trine's spies were not watching my man when he made this reserva- | tion? Who kmows but that ‘Arthar Lawrence’ ‘was too thin a disguise for Alan Law? 1 tell.you, I'm frightened to the marrow of my old bones! Do me this favor at least, my boy: now that you've been warned, whether by accident or design—we won't argue that--do leave town—go incognito to Iwnoquht place near by and walt warded with a bare glimpse of a pret- tily-papered wall, framed in the lace of half-drawn eurtains. And of sudden—whether through fortuity, or instinct, or the psycho- logical attraction of his steadfast con- centration—the tenant of the room came to the window and stood there for a little, looking pensively out, alto- gether unconscious of the watcher in his aerial coign. Again a horrible uncertainty bar asied him. Was the woman Rose or Judith? That she was one of these he could plainly see. But which? Dared he assume his hopes fulfilled? With difficulty he detached his hungry vision from her, and drawing from his pocket a small notebook, tore out a blank page, placed this flat on the girder, found a pencil, and with the assistance of a ray or two of moonlight scrawled s message of al- most stenographic brevity. ‘When he looked up from this task, she had vanished. Sitting up, astride the girder, he took his watch—a cheap affair he had picked up when reclothing himself in the garments of civilized soclety, at ment when he was laboriously inditing , his message—while grim death stalked him from behind. She had seen him throw the watch and had heard the double thump of its impact with the wall and floor of Rose’s bedchamber. And she had witnessed with wildly beating heart that duel in the air— able to surmise its outcome only from the fact that the victor spared the life of the vanquished. The clock was striking six as she left her room: across the street work- ingmen were etreaming into the build- | ing to bezin the labors of the day. RBruching unceremoniously past the drowsy and indifferent guard in the corridor outside the door to Rose's room, Judith turned the key that re- mained in the lock on the cutside, re- moved it, entered, and locked the door behind her. | Without any surprise she found her | sister already dressed to the point of donning her outer garments. t Rendered half-frantic by this unex- '’ pected interruption, threatening as | did the perilous scheme that Alan had proposed, Rose greeted her sister with | wiathful. { “Not I~-but Destiny, It It Wilil" window, she was dressed and clam. Providence, that morning—opened the | & cOultenance at once aghast and beged out upon.the sill. (To Be Continued) ; f per pound . 5 gallons Kerosen ... A E. 6. TWEEDELL PHONE 59 000”0“0”&‘000"”“00004 PAEL PP P PP P PPIIIRIT PH. 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