Lakeland Evening Telegram Newspaper, February 24, 1915, Page 2

“SweétheaTt! My bravest little ‘woman!"” The hook hung eteadily within six inches of the window-ledge. Alan ex- tended his arm. “Nothing to fear, except lest I hold you too tight, dear one!” Without a word Judith set her foot beside his in the hook, surrendered to his embrace, and closed her eyes. Immediately they were swung away from the window, over toward the op- | posite sidewalk, and gently lowered to | I the street. | “Maybe this isn't a good echeme!” | Alan exulted in the innocence of his heart. “But I think it is. workingmen think it a great lark—I told them the simple truth, you see: that we were eloping!” By way of answer Judith breathed ‘| only a word of tenderness. And that instant the hook paused and Alan stepped off upon the side- walk. “Safe and sound—and not a soul over there the wiser as yet!” he de- clared with a derisive nod toward the home of Trine. “Come along. Here's a limousine waiting. In twenty min- utes we’ll be at the ferry, in forty over in Jersey, within an hour married, within four hours safe at sea!” CHAPTER XXVI. . Make-Believe. fror upwards of three-quarters of an four of that golden morning which fol- Jowed the night of his return to New‘l York, Mr. Law was permitted to es-| teem himself (he happiest of mortals. And inasmuch as this is not only a| longer uninterrupted term of happi- ness than is humanly common but is! more of that emotion than ordinarily leavens the whole of a lifetime, Alan was perhaps to be envied, even though disillusionment when it came was sud- den, sharp, and to him unspeakably shocking—a swift, unpresaged plunge from sunlit peaks of supreme content to the black depths of a bleak Aver- nus of despair. The beginning of the period was synchronous with the slam of a taxi cab door that shut away a superfluous world from the company of two who loved. The sound spelled safety as well a8 success in Alan’s understanding. The car slipped smoothly away from the curb, pursued only by a little gust of semi-ronic cheers from the little company of working men who had wit- nessed as well as measurably particl- pated in the putative elopement from the house of Trine. Vigilant for any indication that their evasion had had a witness in that strange home of deathless hatred, Alan watched it through the little window in the back of the cab until & corner blotted out the vision of it; then with a sigh of relief sank down by the side of the woman to whom his every thought, impulse and emotion were dedicated. “Rose!” he whispered, and tenta And those | ‘ Copyrighs, 1814 by Louis Joseph Vanos She Appeared Anxious to Escape Without Being Seen. clung passionately to Lin again that you love me! “Promise me you'll never let y! come between us. Promise me, Alan —promise me you'll be kind to me &l ways, dear!” “Can you doubt I will be kind?” he murmured reproachfully. . she whispered. | \ | | “I am afraid “How could I be anything else, lov ing you as I do?” “l am afraid . . “Why should I be unkind to you?" “It isn’t that. I'm just afraid.” “Of what?” “Of losing you.” “But that can never be!” “You can’t be sure. What if you were to find you’d been mistaken?"” She caught her breath and added hastily—“That you didn't really love me, I mean.” “Oh, that's ridiculous!” “I can’t be sure. Nothing in life is permanent. What is love? Illusion of the senses! What is happiness? A willo'the-wisp! What is life? A make-believe!” “Dearest!” He held her more close- ly still. “You are nervous and over- wrought. You don’t know what you're saying. You can’t mean what you're eaying. But say that it's so— that life 11 make-believe. Then make-believe you love me—" “Oh, but I do, I do!"” “And make-believe for a little we've « oo tively touched one of the hands that caught the will-othe-wisp—only for a lay clenched in her lap. She responded with never a sign to fndicate consciousness either of his touch or his whisper. And reminding himselt of the strain { fmposed upon her by the experience through which they had just passed, Alan excused her unresponsiveness on grounds of reaction, and for the time felt constrained to let his sweetheart rest snd regain her normal poise: there was bliss enough for him in the consciousness that he had won her . safely away, that mothing now more than a short hour’s drive across town and by ferry across the Hudson stood between them and the marriage that should prove the consummation of all their trials . . . Barring accident! Alan had too often suffered the pen- alty of disappointment for over-indul- gence in this failing of his for depreci- ating the unforeseen, not to make the mental reservation, “Barring accl- dents!” with a little shiver of dread. Had any of Trine’s household been cognizant of his daughter's escape, Alan argued, interference must have been instant. Despite the reassuring aspect, the preoccupation of his companion so ‘wore upon him that he was presently o longer able to refrain from disturb- ing her. “Rose!” he begged again, closing a band tenderly over hers. “Dearest girl, don’t worry another instant! Do calm yourself: remember we are safe now; we fooled them handily—thanks to your faith and bravery, sweetheart! and everything is going to be well ‘with us from now on. Over in Jersey the minister {s waiting now to marry us; and down at the White Star dock the boat is waiting that is to carry us off to England the moment we're mar- ried. Think of that—and that I love you. Nothing can possibly break the strength of that combination!” For another minute she rested as she had ever since sinking into her corner of the taxicab—moveless, taut, unresponsive, Then a long sigh shook her to her very heart, and of a sudden the small | fist in Alan’s grasp relaxed and her| face turned to his like a flower tn| the sun, a face transfigured, its lipe now soft and yielding, its eves un- closed and smiling into his a smile all misty with unshed tears. “Alan.” she breathed gently. “It can’t be true! I'm trying eo hard to belleve—but all the while I know it can't be true!™ He converted a skeptic with the mute eloguence of his lips . . . Head upon his shoulder, the girl little—until you wake up and realize that it's all real and trué.” She closed her eyes again: “Yes,” she breathed, “you are right. Let's make-believe it's all true for a little longer . . and forget . i He could by no means account for this strange humor; but he did his best to comfort her, none the less ten- derly because of his mystification. And for a long time she let illusion blind her, resting quietly in his arms, mak- believe . . . nly on approiching the Twenty- third street ferry they must needs rouse and sit apart constrainedly for fear some one might glance through the window and eurprise their secret. As if one needed the evidence of & caress exchanged to know that they were lovers, who had eyes to see the flushed loveliness of the girl shrink- ing back in her corner or wit to inter pret the radiant happiness that shone in Alan’s face as he bent forward and ‘watched warily from the window. CHAPTER XXVIl. The Ring. Theirs was the last vehicle to swing between the gates before these last were closed. And this was quite as well; for Alan, rising for one last backward glance through the rear window, started in- voluntarily and choked upon an ex- clamation when he descried a power- ful touring car tearing madly toward the ferry-house, it one passenger half rising from the front seat, beside the driver, and exhibiting a countenance purple with congested chagrin as he saw his car barred out of the carriage entrance. . Quickly sensitive to his emotion, the girl caught nervously at Alan’s hand. “What is it, dear?” “Marrophat,” he snapped. She uttered a hushed cry of dismay. “Don’t be alarmed, however,” he hastened to comfort her. “He's lost the race: the gates are shut—even the passenger gates—and there must be a company spotter somewhere near by, for the gateman is virtuously refusing to be bribed by a roll of money as thick as my wrist!"” At that instaut the taxicab rolled aboard the ferry-boat; the deck gates were closed; a hoarse whistle rent the roaring silence of the city; winches rattled and chains clanked; and the boat wore ponderouely out of its slip. “So much for Mr, Marrophat!” Alan crowed, sitting down. “Folled again! He can't stop us now!"” “Perhaps . . “Why that perhaps? Why that tone?” he demanded sharply, struck by the foreboding her acceats con- fessed. “This isn't the only ferry. There's the Pennsylvania and the Lackawanns - got to work. manage to catch the boat that con- nects with this from the Christopher street ferry of the Erie!” “Impossible! I don’t believe it! won't!” “Let's not,” she agreed. “But, Alan “Yes?” “Promise me—if he should manage to catch up with us—you won’t let him talk to you. I mean, don’t let him—" “No fear of that!” he asservated hotly. “If he tries to exchange one word with me—I only wish he would!” She seemed satisfied with that; but | the incident had served appreciably to | chill their spirits. They accompliehed | the remainder of that voyage in a silence that was no less depressed be- cause they sat hand in hand through- out. Nor was their taxicab three minutes out of the ferry house on the Jersey shore—though the chauffeur, stimu- later by Alangs extravagant promises, was doing his best to fracture the speed laws and escape arrest—when the girl’s fears were amply justified; a shout from behind drew Alan’s head out of the window on one side and the | girl’s on the other and proved to both that Marrophat had indeed found some way to make the crossing without great delay. His touring car was within fifty yards when they first were aware of it; and Marrophat,” standing on the running-board, was shouting inarticu- lately and flourishing an imperative hand; while the distance between them was momentarily growing less noticeable. As Marrophat's car drew abreast Alan nodded and said quietly: “Don’t be alarmed; I can attend to this gen- tleman single-handed.” And this he proceeded to demon- strate with admirable ease, even though called upon to do so far soon- er than he had thought to be—thanks to Marrophat's hair-brained precipl tancy. For, failing to influence the taxi driver by shouted demands or threats, or to gain the least attention from Alan, Trine's first lieutenant ab- .| ruptly and surprisingly took his life in his hands and in one wild bound bridged the distance between the two fiying cars and landed on the taxi's running-board. 3 Stop!” he screamed madly. I say! You don't know what you're doing! Let me tell you—" He got that far but no farther. In the same breath Alan had flung wide the door and was at the fellow’s throat. There was a struggle of negligible duration; Marrophat was in no way his antagonist’s match; within three seconds he threw out both hands, clutched hopelessly at the framework of the cab, and fell heavily to the street. The taxi sped on without pause, its driver deat to the hails of innocent if indignant bystanders. Alan pulled himself together and looked back just in time to catch a glimpse of a num- ber of loafers lifting Marrophat to his feet and helping him to the sidewalk “Stop, of an unsavory-looking tenement, be- fore the cab took a corner on two wheels o “Not seriously injured, I fancy,” he told the girl in response to her eager look. “Worse luck!” he added gloomily. But it seeemed that he was to have greater cause than this to complain of his luck, before that ride wae ended. Three blocks further on a tire blew out with a report like a cannon-crack- er, and the taxi lurched perilously, hesitated, slowed down, and limped dejectedly to the curb. Alan and the chauffeur piled out in the same instant, the one standing guard—with an eye out as well for another cab—while the other assessed damages. “Nothing for it but a new tire, sir,” this last reported sympathetically. “It must have been a broken bottle or eomething like that—it sure did rip the usefulness clean out of that shoe.” “Go to it,” Alan advised him terse- ly; “and it you make a quick job of it, I'll stand the cost of the new tire.” “But if another cab comes along while you're at it you'll lose us as quick as a wink. Here's my card, in case we have to desert you in ahurry; you understand this is a matter of lite and death, and Il have no time to settle up with you. But you can call at Mr. Digby's office and he'll fix things up to your satisfaction.” The man took the card and after a glance at the name touched his hat with more noticeable respect. “All right, Mr, Law,” he agreed; | “anything you say.” And forthwith The rapidity with which he com- pleted the change of tires proved him an excellent chauffeur, an adept at his craft; but the delay was one disas- trous for all that. It worked together with what Alan pardonably described as the devil's own luck to bring the | touring car in sight at the precise mo- ment when the chauffeur wae cranking up and Alan on the point of re-enter- ing the cab. And though they were oft again before Alan could close the door, the attempt was hopeless from the start. And yet—whether or mnot because Alan’s distaste for interference had been too convincingly demonstrated— the touring car for the time being contented itself with trailing about fitty feet in the rear, while the taxi fled the tenement purlieus of-.the Ho- boken waterfront and found its way | into the broader streets of an unpre- tentious suburban quarter. Not until they were well into the ' suburbs, with fow dwellings near and no pedestrians to interfere, did Marro- phet's purpose becore apparent. Then, however—and it haopened while Alan was looking back—the touring car drew in swiftly and easily and Marro- phat, rising in his seat, leveled a re- volver over the windshield and fired. inclined to believe that Marrophat hoped to stop the taxicab by depriv- ing it,-in course of time, of its fuel. And with this in mind he was present- ly surprised, as the cab took a corner, to eee Marrophat's car stop at that corner and Marrophat himself get down. The brow of a hill intervened, shutting off sight of the blackguard as he knelt and lit a match. It was.the girl who gave the alarm, suddenly withdrawing her head from the win- dow to scream at Alan: “He's fired the gasoline! It's flam- ing along the street, following the line of the leak—and catching up with us!” Without pausing to put his hand to the latch, Alan kicked the door open. . “Jump!” he cried. “For your life— jump! As soon as that flame catches up with the tank—" Simultaneously the chauffeur, over hearing, shut off the power. The three gained the sidewalk bare- 1y in time: the tiny trail of flames, al- most imperceptible in the sunlight, was not a yard from the jet that spurt- ed through the bullet hole in the tank. In the flutter of an eyelash the explo- slon followed. Had the cab been load- ed with nitroglycerin its destruction could have been no more absolute. There was a roar . . . and then a heap of smoking ruins. i Without waiting to admire the spec- tacle, Alan caught the arm of the girl, and hurried her up the street, at the same time calling to the chauffeur to follow. And chance brought them to the next corner as another cab, fare- less, hove into view. Promising its driver- anything he might ask, in or out of reason, Alan gave him the ad-. dress, and helped the girl in. If Marrophat pursued Alan could see no sign of him. The second car made ! better time than the first. Unhindered, and es far as could be determined, | without being followed, it covered the ! brief remaining distance in a grno-‘ fully short lapse of time. | The suburb dropped behind a maze of streets where dwellings stood shoul- der to shoulder and dooryards were scant. The car swept up to a corner house of modest and homely aspect. Two minutes more, and Alan was ex- changing salutations with and making ' his bride-to-be known to Digby’s good friend, the Reverend Mr. Wright. | Embarrassment worked confusion | with the young man’s perceptive facul- ties. As this moment approached | when two should be made one who had , gone through fire and flood, maully‘l as well as figuratively, for each oth- er's sake, incredulity drew a vefl be-! fore his vision. He viewed the world as in a glass, darkly. He was aware of a decently fur-: nished minister’s study; of two wit- | nesses in the guise of unmumln:i womenfolk of the minister's house- ! hold; of the Rev. Mr. Wright himself | as a benevolent voice roMng sono- | rously forth from a black-clad nm-' ence; of the woman of his heart stand- ing opposite him; of questions asked and responses made; of a ring that, was magically conjured from some : store apparently maintained against precisely similar emergencies; of “: hand that took the hand that was to be his wife's and placed it in his; of his clumsy and witless bungling with the , task of fitting that ring to the finger of his sweetheart's hand i And then he was aware of a door that banged violently in the hallway; | of the sound of a man’s voice making ! some indistinguishable demand; that | Rose’s hand was euddenly whipped | away, before he could fit on the ring; that the study door was flung open and that this animal of a Marrophat had precipitated himself into the room. He opened his mouth to protest— and Marrophat silenced him with n‘ cry. i “You fool! Drop that ring! Stop this farce! Don't you know whom you're marrying? That woman is Ju- dith Tripe, you idiot—not Rose!” Blankly Alan turned to the girl. Her flaming face, her sullen eyes, her very pose, from which the man- ner of Rose had dropped like a cast garment, confeseed the truth of Mar rophat’s assertion. And as if this were not enough, Judith confessed it doubly with a sudden outbreak of such rage as never could have been brewed in | Rose's gentle nature, I “You devil!” she cried—and threw herselt in front of Marrophat with a spring as lithe as that of a leopardess. “Take warning now from me: keep out of my way forever after this—or | take the consequences! God knnw-,", she panted, “why I don’t kill you as you stand!” He was in her way, between her and the open door. She gave him no, chance to move aside, but seized him 80 flercely by the wrists that he in- stinctively lifted to protect himself, and she fairly threw him half a dozen | i | teet from her. He brought up with, | & crash against the wall even as the | door slammed behind the girl. When Alan, the first to recover, gained the sidewalk, she wae already in the taxicab. Whatever reward she had promised the man, he whipped his ‘ machine away as if from the fear of | sudden death. And darting from the house hard on the minister’s heels, Mnrrophnti leaped into his own car and, as if he | bad not heard her threat or received | substantial proof of her earnestness, | tore off in pursuit. CHAPTER XXVIIlL. And the Rose. Taking the dazed young man by the hand, ae though he had been a child, the Reverend Mr. Wright led Alan back to his study and established him in a comfortable armchair beside his desk. “Sit there and compose yourself, my dear young friend,” he insisted in a soothing voice. i At the elbow of the Reverend Mr. Wright a telephone shrilled impera- t'vely. With a gesture of professional patience he turned to the instrument, lifted the receiver to his ear, and speke in musically modulated accents. “Yes . Yes: this I8 Mr Wright. . . . Ab, yes, Mr. Digby. . . Not coming? But, my dear sir, Mr. law is already here. 1 must tell Jyou— He.checked with a_reproving glance ! i | sassination of Alan the night before! insistently. i “If you please,” Alan begged, “let me speak to Digby at once. Forgive me—" Reluctantly the minister surrendered | the telephone, “That you, Digby?" “Alan! Bless my soul, what are you doing over there? 1Is Miss Trine with you? But how can that be possible?” “Rose? No. What about her?” Alan demanded, stammering with anxiety. “Why—one of my spies has just re- ported by telephone. He was going on duty this morning when he saw & young woman—either Rose or Judith —wearing a rough coat over boudoir | dress—climb out of one of the base-| ment windows of Trine's house. She | was apparently in great distress of 1 mind and anxious to escape wmmut* being seen from the house; but before | my man—whose post of observation is in the third story of one of the | houses opposite—could get to the ! street, she had been caught by several rough-looking customers, who rushed | out of Trine's house, seized the girl, | and made off with her in a motor-car bearing a New Jersey license number. | I am sending men to watch the Jersey | ferries. Call me up in an hour—" Without a word of respouse, and | without a word of apology to the Rev- erend Mr. Wright, Alan dropped the| recelver, snatched up his hat, and fled | that house like a man demented. Rose, escaping from Trine's house, overpowered and made the captive of Trine's lowest creatures—gunmen pos- sibly, of the stamp of that animal | whom Trine had charged with the as- NOMINATION COUPON. this coupon is filled out, mailed to the Contest Manalger ot When brought or : it will entitle nominee to 5000 votes. good but once. Address .- Nominated by ... . . Nominators name will not be given any circumstances. under BHEPRPPPOROHHEBOPEPOLOPBPED s 3 e 51352388335 The One Sure Gift — | ’.lvuyl welcome and admireq is a piece of diamond jewelry. ™ 1t “yoq are planning a gift that wil alwayg please, that Will last forever, s, it from our diamond jewelry colje,. tion. There are pieces to suit ey purse and designs to satisfy ecyery taste. ¢ There was neither a motor-car in sight for him to charter nor any time | to waste in seeking one. Alan could | only hope to find one on his way back | toward the ferry. It must have been“ upwards of an hour before he came | into a street which he recognized, by | ite dinginess and squalor, as that in“ which he had thrown Marrophat from | the running-board of the taxicab. And then, as he paused, breathlese and footsore, to cast about him for the | way to the ferry, a touring car turned a corner at topspeed and slowed to a stop before that selfsame tenement of the unsavory aspect to whose sidewall he had seen Marrophat assisted by the loafers of the quarter. And thie touring car was occupied by some half-a-dozen ruffians in whose hands a young girl writhed and strug- gled when, immediately on the stop, they jumped out and wrestled her out | with brutal inconsideration. Like a shot Alan had crossed the street—but only to bring up nose to' the panels of the tenement door, and to find himself seized and thrown roughly aside by a burly denizen when he grasped the knob and made as if to follow in. | “Keep back, young feller!” his ae- sailant warned him viclously. “Keep outa this, now, if you don’t want to get into trouble.” To the speaker's side another ranged, eyeing Alan with a formidable scowl. At discretion he stepped back and turned as if persuaded t¢ mind his Thereis a differ- ence between Shirts doneup at the Lakeland Steam Laundry and those done at the arerage Theae is also class to our Shirt Work. Send us your Shirts next wees and you will always send them. The Lakeland Steam Laundry R. W. WEAVER, Prop. PHONE 130 own business, then swung on his heel, caught the two in the very act of open- ing the door, and threw himself be- tween them. An elbow planted heavily in the pit of the stomach of one dieposed of him for the time being. A blow from the shoulder sent the other reeling to the gutter. And Alan was in the tene- ment's lowermost hall—a foul and evil-odored place, dark as a pit the instant the door was closed, its murk | relieved only by the flame of a kero- sene lamp smoking in a bracket near the foot of the stairs. Sounds of scuffling of feet were au- dible on the first landing. Alan ad- dressed himeelf impetuously to the staircase, gamning its top in half a dozen leaps, and only in time to see a door slammed at the forward end of the hall and hear a key turned in its lock. A cluster of men blocked the way. He didn’t pause to wait for it to be cleared, but threw himself headlong into their midst, and by dint of the surprise had gained the closed door before they recovered and sought to stay him. 1 Indifferent to them all, he shook the knob and shouted: “Rose! Rose!” l Her cry came back to him, a muf- fled scream: “Alan! Help! Help!” | Backing away with a mad idea of throwing himself bodily against the door and breaking it down, he was sud- denly confronted by a hideous mask of humanity—face of man all misshapen, bruised and swollen and disfigured with smears of dried blood and a dirty bandage round his temples, but none the less vaguely recognizable. * The words that etreamed from its | distorted lips drove recognition home. | “Gee, fellers, look’t who's here! If| it ain’t th’ guy what threw me off'n that girder this mornin’. Stand back | and let me kill th'—" } Without the hesitation of a heart- beat Alan swung heavily for the thug's jaw. The blow went solidly home. The man fell like a poled ox. Pandemonium ensued. Rallying to their comrade, the ruffians attacked Alan with one mind and one intent. Murder would have been done then and there had it not been for a rotten banister-rail, which gave way, precipi- tating the iot to the ground floor of the hallway. Simultaneously the lamp on the wall was struck from its bracket and crashed to the floor, its glass well breaking and loosing a flood of kero- sene to receive the burning wick. The explosion followed instantly. In a trice the hallway was a lake of burn- ing ofl, and hungry flames were lick- ing up the rotting wallpaper and eat- ing into decayed baseboards and stair treads. Siill fighting like a madman, con- testing every foot of the way, Alan was borne down the hall and out of the front door. A scream of “Fire!™ greeted him as he reeled out into the open. It was echoed by a dozen'3d SEPPPPPPEEPEEPIIEIPDIDEDD The doorway vomited men na! ‘women of the tenement. They choked 2 it for a time, blocking both egress and | & ingress. By the time they broke out and left the way clear a solid wall of | 3 flame stood behing it. ¢ (To Be Continued) A 4 Lowér Prices on Ford Cars ffective August 1st, 1014 to Augustist, 1y15 andhgua{anteeck against any reduction auring that time. 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