The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 30, 1904, Page 5

THE watching the glass water-gage where the water shows now only when the engine lurches heavily to the left. He knows that the crown-sheet of the fire bare, and that any moment 1t y give down and the end will come. Yet his gauntleted hand never {falls from the throttle bar to the air-cock, and his eyes never leave the bubble appearing and disappearing at longer intervals in the heel of the water glass. vel has stopped firing, and is ging out of his window for the tining look ahead. Suddenly he ops to the footplate to grip Calla- han's arq. “See!” he says. “They have set the switch to throw us in on the siding!” In one motion the flutter of the ex- haust ceases, and the huge ten-wheeler buckles to the sudden setting of the brakes. The man standing in the for- ward vestibule of the naught-seven lcwers his weapon. Apparently it is not going to be necessary to kill the engineer, after all. But Callahan’s nerve has fatled him only for the moment. There is one chapce in ten thousand that the circumambulating side track is empty: one and one only, and no way to make sure of it. Beyond the station, as Calla- han well knows, the siding comes again into the main line and the switch is a straight-line “safe Once ugain the thought of his motherless child flickers into the engineer's brain; then he re- leases the air and throws his weight backward upon the throttle bar. Two gasps and a heart-beat decide it, and before the man in the vestibule can level his weapon and fire the one-car train has shot around the station, heav- ing and lurching over the uneven rails of the siding and grinding shrilly over the points of the safety switch to race on the down grade to Megilp. At the mining camp the station is in darkness save for the goggle eves of an automobile drawn up beside the platform, and deep silence reigns but for the muffled, irregular thud of the auto car’s motor. But the beam of the 1010's headlight showg the small sta- tion building massed by men, a score of them poising for a spring to the platforms of the private car when the slackening speed shall permit. A bul- let tears into the woodwork at Calla- han's elbow and another breaks the glass of the window beside him, but he makes the stop as steadily as if death were not snapping at him from behind and roaring in his e from the belly of the burned engine. Be doomping yer fire lively, now, ay, b'y,” he says, dropping from his box to help. And while they wrestle with the dumping-bar, these two, the poising figures have swarmed upon the naught-seven, and a voice lifted above the babel of others in sharp pro- test. is nor's private secretary.” “And were they all killed?” A great light broke in upcn Kent when he saw how Marston had misap- prehe Also, he saw how much it would simplify matters if he should be happy enough to catch the ball in the reactionary rebound. > “They are all alive and uninjured, o the best of my knowledge and belief; though I understand that one of them narrowly escaped lynching at the hands of an excited mob.” The long lean figure erected itself in the chair, and the weight of years seemed to slip from its shoulders. “But I understood you to say that the duties of the executive had devolved upon me, Mr. Kent. You also said I could imagine the result of this singu- lar mistaking of train orders,-and I fancied I could. What was the result?” “A conclusion not quite as sangui- nary as that you had in mind, though it is likely to prove serious enough for one member of the party in the private car. The special train was chased all the way across the State by the fast mail. It finally outran the pursuing section and was stopped at Megilp. A sheriff's posse was in waiting, and an arrest was made.” “Go en,” said the Lieutenant Gover- nor. “I must first go back a little. Some weeks ago there was a shooting affray in the mining-camp, arising out of a dispute over a ‘salted’ mine, and a man was killed. The murderer escaped across the State line. Since the au- thorities of the State in which the crime was committed had every reason to believe that a Governer's requisition for this particular criminal would not be honored, two courges were open to them; to publish the facts and let the moral sentiment of the neighboring commonwealth punish the criminal.- as it could, or would; or, suppressing the facts, to bide their chance of catching their man beyond the boundaries of the State which gave him an asylum. They chose the latter.” . A second time Marston left his chair and began to pace the floor. After a little he paused to say: “This murderer is James Guilford, I it; and the Governor—" id Kent, gravel “The mur- —Jasper G. Bucks.” He handed the Judge a copy of the Argus. “You will find it gll in the press despatches; all I have told you, and a great deal more.” The Lieutenant Governor read the newspaper story as he walked, lighting the electric chandelier to enable him to do go. When it was finished he sat down again. “What a hideous cesspool it is!" was his comment. “But we shall clean it, Mr. Kent; we shall clean it if it shall leave the People’s party without a vote in the State. Now what can I do for ANNOUNCEMENT. For the purpose of encouraging California and Western writers, by offering a consideration for short stories equal to that paid by the best magazines, and for the purpose of bringing young and unknown writers to the front, the Sunday Call announces a weekly fiction con- test in which a cash prize of $50 will be paid each week for the best story submitted. There is no section of America more fertile in ma- terial for fiction or more prolific in pens gifted to give spirit to the material at hand than is California and the West. Therefore the Sun- day Call offers $50 for the best story submitted each week by a West- ern writer. Stories of Western life and Western characters will, as a rule, be given the preference, but all strong stories, and especially strong stories by new writers, will receive careful consideration. Each story will be judged strictly upon its literary merit. Type- written copy is the easiest to read and will receive the first consider- ation from the editor. but do not hesitate to send a story in hand- writing if you cannot afford to have it typewritten. ple uf{at the door and say that for the present I refuse positively to be” seen or interviewed. They will find me at the capitol during office hours.” It was 7 o’clock in the evening of the fiercest working day Kent had ever fought through when the special train —his own private special, sent to Gas- ton and brought back again over the strike-paralyzed road by the express permission and command of the strik- ers themselves—set him down in the Union station at the capitol. Looking back to the gray of the morning when he had shaken hands on the top floor of the Kittleton build- ing, the crowding events made the in- terval seem more like a week; and now the events themseives were beginning to take on dream-like incongruities in the haze of utter weariness. “Evening Argus! all about the p’limi- nary trial of Governor Bucks. Argus, sir?” piped a small boy at the station exit; but Kent shook his head, found a cab and had himself conveyed quickly through streets still rife with excite- ment to the Clarendon Hotel. In the lobby was. the same bee-buzz- ing crowd with which he had been con- tending all day, and he edged his way through it to the elevator, praying that he might go unrecognized—as he did. Once safe in his rooms he sent for Lor- i stretching himself on the bed in a very ecstasy of relaxation until the ex- manager came up. Then he emptied his mind as an éverladen ass spills its panniers. “I'm done, Grantham,” he said, “and that is more different kinds of truth than you have heard in a week. Go and reorganize your management, and M'Tosh is the man to put in Halkett’s place. The strike will be decjared off at the mere mention of your name and his. That's all. Now go away and let me sleep.” “Oh, hold on!” was the good-natured protest; “I'm not more curious than I have to be. but I'd like to know how it was done.” “I don’t know, myself; and that's the plain fact. But I suspect Marston fell upon Judge MacFarlane; gave him a wire hint,of what was due to arrive if he didn't give us a clean bill of health. 1 had my preliminary interview with the Governor at daybreak this morn- ing; and I was with him again between 9 and 10. He went over the original papers with me, and about all he said was, ‘Be in Gaston by 2 o’clock this af- ternogn, and MacFarlane will give you the hearing In chambers.’ I went on my knees to the Federative Council to get a train.” ! “You shouldn’t have had any trouble there.” Each Week SHORT SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. person, and so is Penelope.” And it ‘was not until the soup plates had been removed that he added a question. “Are you going out to see them this evening, David? You have my royal permission.” “No”—bluntly. “Isn’t it up to you to go and give them a chance to jolly you a little? I think they are all aching to do/At.. Mrs. Hepzibah has seen the rising stock quotations, and she thinks you are It.” “No; 1 can’t go there any more,” sald Kent, and his voice was gruffer than he meant it to be. “Why not “There were good reasons before; there are better ones now. “A $700,000 difference? suggested ?rmsby. who had had speech with Lor- ng. Kent flushed a dull red. “I sha'n’t strike you, Ormsby, no {natter what you say,” he sald dogged- y. “Humph! There is one difference be- tween you and Rabbi Balaam’s burro, David; it could talk sense, and you can" was the offensive rejoinder. ent changed the subject abruptly. “‘Say, Ormsby; I'm going into a po- litical office hunt. There is a death va- cancy in the House, and I mean to have the nomination and election. I don’t need money now, but I do need a friend. Are you with me?” “Oh, sure. Miss Van Brock will an- swer for tha S “But I don’t want you to do it on her account; I want you to do it for me.” “It's all one,” said the clubman, Kent looked up quickly. “You are right; that is the truest word you've said to-night,” and he went away, leaving the dessert un- touched. The evening was still young when Kent reached the house in Alameda square. Within the week the weather had changed, and the first chill of the approaching autumn was in the air. The great square house was lighted and warmed, and the homeliness of the place appealed to him as it never had before. To her other gifts, which were many and diverse, Miss Van Brock added that of homemaking; and the af- termath of battle is apt to be an acute longing for peace and quiet, for do- mesticity and creature comforts. He had not seen Portia since the night when she had armed him for the final struggle with the enemy; he told himself that he should not see her again until the battle was fought and won. But in no part of the struggle had he been suffered to lose sight of his obligation to her. He had seen the chain lengthen link by link, and now €060900500000000006006 7 =350 for the Best: STORY eTso020009000CH in its most sensitive part. “I am glad if it amuses you,” he frowned. “Only I meant it in all seri- ousness.” “No, you didn’'t; you only thought you did.” she contradicted, and the brown eyes were still laughing at him. “Let me tell you what you did mean. You are pleased to think that I have helped you—that an obligation has been incurred; and you meant to pay your debt like a man and a gentleman in the only coin a woman is supposed to recognize.” “But if I should say that you are misinterpreting the motive?” he sug- gested. “It would make your nice little speech a perjury instead of a simple untruth, and I should say no, again, on other, and perhaps better, grounds.” “Name them,” he said shortly. “I will, David, though I am neither a stick nor a stone to do it without winc- ing. You love another woman with all your heart and soul, and you know it.” “Well? You see I anf neither admit- ting nor denying.” ““As if you needed to!" she scoffed. “But don’t interrupt me, please. You said I might take what there is of you and make what I can of it; I might make you anything and everything in the world, David, except that which a woman craves most in a husband—a lover.” His eyeswgrew dark. “I wish I knew how much that word means to you, Portia.” “It means just as much to me as it dves to everv woman who has ever drawn the breath of life in a passionate world, David. But that isn't all. Leaving Miss Brentwood out of the questicn, you'd be miserably unhappy.” “Why should 1?” “Because I shouldn’t be able to real- ize a single one of your ideals. I know what they are—what you will expect in a wife. I could make you a rich man, a sudcessful man, as the world mea- sures success, and perhaps'l could even give you love; after the first flush of youth is past, the heavenly affinity sentiment loses its hold and a woman comes to know that if she cares to try ~ hard enough she can love any man who will be thoughtful and gentle, and whose habits of life are not hopelessly at war with her own. But that kind of love doesn’t breed love. Your vanity would pique itself for a little while, and then you would know the curse of un- sought love and murder me in your heart a thousand times a day. No, No, David, I have read you to little purpese if these are the things you will ask of the woman who takes your name and becomes the mother of your children.” She had risen and was standing Dbeside his chair, with her hand lightly touching his shoulder. “Will you go now? There are others coming, and—" No story will be considered that is less than 2500 nor more than 3500 words in length. The length of the story must be marked in plain figures. i In the selection of stories names will not count. writer will have the same standing as the popular author. 1 As one of the obijects of the Sunday Call is to develop a new corps of Western writers no stories under noms de plume will be considered. If a story earns publication it will be well worth the writer’s namte. v Stories not accepted will be returned at once. will be published one each week. - v This fiction contest will be continued indefinitely. distance between themselves and Pe- nelope’s joyous grinding out of a Wag- ner scroll. “It looks as if the owners had walked out at a moment's notice.” “They did,” said Kent. “They went to Europe, I believe. And by the way; I thick 1 have a souvenir here some- where. Will you go up to the first landing of the stair and point your finger at that window?” She did it, wondering; and when he had the line of direction he knelt in the cushioned window-seat and began to probe with the blade of his pen knife in a small round hole in the weodwork. “What is it?” she asked, coming down to stand beside him. “This.” He had cut out a flattened bullet and was holding it up for her to see. “It was meant for me, and I've always had an idea that I heard it strike the woodwork.” “For you? Were you ever here when the house was occupied?” ‘“Yes, once: it is tHe Senator Duvall place. This is the window where I broke in.” She nodded intelligence. “I know now why you are going to buy it. The Senator is another of tfose whom you haven't forgiven.” His laugh was a ready denial. “I have nothing against Duvall. He was one of Bucks' dupes, and he is paving the price. The property is to be sold at a forced sale, and it is a good investment.” #‘Is that all it means 40 you? It is too fine to be hawked about as a thing to make money with. It's a splendidly ideal home—leaving out that thing that Penelope is quarreling with.” And she made a feint of stopping her ears. He laughed again. “Ormsby says I ought to buy it, and marry and settle down.” She took him seriously. “You don't need it. Miss Van Brock has a very lovely home of her own,” she said soberly. It was at his tongue’s end to tell the woman he loved how the woman he did not love had refused him, but he saved himself on the brink and said: “Why Miss Van Brock?” “Because she is vindictive, and—" “But I am not vindictive.” “Yes, you are. Do you know any- j thing about Judge MacFarlane’s family § affairs?” “A little. He has three daughters; one of them rather unhappily married, I believe.” “Have you .considered the cost to these three women if you make their father’'s name a byword in the city where they were born?” “He should have considered it,” was the unmoved reply. “David!” she said; and he locked up quiekly. “You want me to let him resign? It would be compounding a felony. He is too, 900000008020000000000000 RULES. The unknown Those selected - $ 50 $ Submitted to the Fifty dollars in cash for a story of not less than 2500 words and not more than 3500 words is approximately $17 per thousand words, or 1.7 cents per word. The highest price paid by the leading magazines for the work of any but the wvery best writers is rarely more than two cents a word, more often one cent and a half, and generally one cent. With the majority of magazines the writer, after his story is ac- cepted, is compelled to wait until the publication of his story before vi An_author may submit as many manuscriots as he desires, but no one writer will be permitted to win more than three prizes during the contest. vit Always inclose return postage. No manuscripts will be returned unless accompanied by return postage. he is paid, a period of seldom less than six months, and usually from nine months to a year. The stories accepted in this contest will be paid for immediately upon publication, and willebe published on the first Sunday following the judeing of the week’s manuscripts. 00000000000000006000000006000000000000 “Put away that rope, boys! There's law here, and by God we're going to maintain it!"” At this a man pushed 'his way out of the thick of the crowd and climbs to & seat beside the chauffeur in the wait- ing automobile. “They've got him,” he says shortly. “To the hotet for all you're worth, Hudgins; our part is to get this on the wires before 1 o’clock. Full speed, and never mind the rutss# CHAPTER XXX. Subhi Sadil. The dawn of a new day was graying over the capital city and the newsboys were crying lustily in the streets when Davi@ Kent felt his way up the dark staircases of the Kittleton building to knock at the door of Judge Oliver Mar- ston’s rooms on the top floor. He was the bearer of tidings and he made no more than a formal excuse for the un- seemly hour when the door was opened by the Lieutenant Governor. “] am sorry to disturb you, Judge Marston,” he began, when he had \% closed the door at his back and was 3 facing the tall thin figure in flannel dressing _gown and slippers, “but I imagine I'm only a few minutes ahead of the crowd. Have you heard the news ©of the night?” The Judge pressed the button of the droplight and waved his visitor to a chalir. “I have heard nothing, Mr. Kent. Have a cigar?’—passing the box of unutterable stogies. “Thank you; not before breakfast,” was the hasty reply. Then, without another word of preface: “Judge Mar- ston, for the time being you are the Governor of the State and I have come to—" “One moment,” interrupted his lis- tener. “There are some stories that read better for a foreword, however brief. What has happened?” “This: last night it was-the purpose of Governor Bucks and Receiver Guil- ford to go to Gaston By special train. In some manner, which has not yet been fully explained, there was a con- fusion of orders. Instead of proceeding eastward the special was switched to the tracks of the western division; was made the first section of the fast malil, which had orders to run through with- out stop. You can imagine the resuit.” Marston got upon his feet slowly and began pacing the length of the long room. | Kent watted, and the shrill cries of the newsboys floated up and in through the open windows. When the judge finally came back to his chair the saturnine face was gray and haggard. “L hope it was an accident that can be clearly proved,” he said; and a mo- ment later: “You spoke of Bucks and Guilford; were there others in the pri- vate car?” “Two others; Halkett and the Gover- you? You didn’t come here at this hour in the morning merely to bring me the news.” “No, I didn’t, Judge Marston. my railroad.” “You shall have it,” was the prompt resporse. “What have you done since our last discussion of the subject?” “I tried to ‘obliterate’ Judge Mac- Farlane, as you suggested. But I failed in the first step. Bucks and Meigs refused to approve the quo war- ranto.” g . 'f‘he Judge knitted his brows thought- ully. “That way is open to you now; but it is long and devious, and delays are al- ways dangerous. You spoke of the re- ceivership as being part of a plan by which your road was to be turned over to an Eastern monopoly. How nearly has that plan succeeded?” Kent hesitated, not because he was afraid to trust the man Oliver Marston, but because there were some things which the Governor of the State might feel called upon to investigate if the knowledge of them were thrust upon him. But in the end he took counsel of utter frankness. “So nearly that if Bucks and the re- ceiver had reached Gaston last night, our road would now be in the hands of the Plantagoulds under a ninety-nine- year lease.” The merest ghost of a smile flitted over the Lieutenant Governor's face when he sald, with his nearest ap- proach to sarcasm: “How extremely opportune the collu- sion of train orders becomes as we go along! But answer one more question if you please—it will not involve these singularly heedless railway employes of yours; is Judge MacFarlane in Gaston now 7" ‘“He is. He was to have met the others on the arrival of the special train.” There were footsteps on the stair and in the corridor, and Marston rose. “Our privacy is about to be invaded, Mr. Kent. This is a miserable busi- ness; miserable for everybody, but most of all for the deceived and hood- winked people of an unhappy State. God knows, I did not seek this office; but since it has fallen on me, I shall do my duty as I see it, and my hand shall be heaviest upon that man who makes a mockery of the justice he is sworn to administer. Come to the capi- tol a little later in the day, pre| to 80 at once to Gaston. I think I can promise you your hearing on the merits without further delay.” “Thank you,” said Kent, simply, grasping the hand of Jeave taking. Then he tried to find other and larger words. “I wish I could do something to show my appreciation of your—" But the Lieutenant Governor was pushing him toward the door. “You have done something, Mr. Kent, and you can do more. Head those peo- I want UNDAY CALL “I didn’t have, after the men under- stood what was in the wind. Jarl Ole- son took me down and brought me back. ~The council did it handsomely, dipping into its treasury and paying the mileage on a Pullman car.” “And MacFarlane reversed his own order?” “Without a question. It was the merest formality. Jennison, Hawk's former law partner, stood for the other side: but he made no argument.” “Good!” said Loring. “That will do for the day's work. But now I'd like to know how last night’s job was man- aged.” “I'm afraid you want to know more than is good for you. What do the gaperu say? I haven't looked at one all ay.” “They say there was a misunder- standing of orders. That will answer for the public, perhaps, but it won't do for me.” “I guess it will have to do for you, too, Grantham,” said Kent, yawning shamelessly. *‘Five men, besides my- self—six of us in all—know the true in- ‘wardness of last night's round up. There will never be a seventh.” Loring’s eye-glasses fell from his noee, gnd he was smiling shrewdly when Re replaced them. “‘There is one small consequence that doesn’t please you, I'm sure. You'll have to bury the hatchet with Mac- Farlane.” “Shall I1?” flashed Kent, sitting up as if he had been struck with a whip. “Let me tell you: Marston is going to call an extra session of the Assembly. There is a death vacancy in this djstrict, and I shall be a candidate in the special election. If there is no other way to get MacFarlane, he shall be im- peached!” “H’'m; so you're going into politics?"” “You've said it,” said Kent, subsid- lnx, among the pillows. “Now will you 02" It took the general manager a wake- ful twenty-four hours to untangle the industrial snarl which was the re- ceiver's legacy to his successor; and David Kent slept through the major part of that interval, rising only in _time to dress for dinner on the day fol- lowing the retrieval of the Transwest- ern. In the grill room of the Camelot he ; > the time was come for the welding of it into a shackle to bind. He did not try to deceive himself, nor did he allow the glamour of false sentiment to bind him. With an undying love for Elinor Brentwood in his heart, he knew well what was before him. None the less, Portia should have her just due. She was waiting for him when he en- tered the comfortable library. “I knew you would come to-night,” she said cheerfully. “I gave you a ddy to drive the nall—and, O David! you have driven it well!'—another day to clinch it, and a third to recover fr the effects. Have you fully recovered? “I hope so. I took the day for it, at all events,” he laughed. “I am just out of bed, as you might say.” “I can imagine how it took it out of you,” she assented. “Not so much the work, but the anxiety. Night before last, after Mr. Loring went away, I sat it out with the telephone, nagging poor Mr. Hildreth for news until I know he wanted to murder me.” “How much did you get of it?” he asked. ““He told me all he dared—or perhaps it was all he knew—and it made me feel miserably helpless. The little I could get from the Argus cffice was enough to prove that all your plans had been changed at the last moment.” “‘They were,” he admitted; and he be- gan.at the beginning and filled in the details for her. She heard him through without com- ment other than a kindling of the\ brown eyes at the climaxes of daring; but at the end she gave him praise un- stinted. “You have played the man, David, as I knew you would if yoy could be once fully aroused. I've Ld faith in you from the very first.” ““It has been more than faith, Portia,” he asserted soberly. “You have taken me up and carried me when I could neither run nor walk. Do yeu suppose I am so besotted as not to realize that you have been the head, while I have been only the hand?” “Nonsensel” she said lightly. “You are in the dumps of “the reaction now. You mustn’t say things that you will be sorry for, later on.” “I am going to say one thing, never- theless; and it will remain for you to make it a thing hard to be remem- came face to face with Ormsby, and, bered, or the other kind. Will you take learned, something to his astonish- ment, that the Breezeland party had returned to the capital on the first train in from the west. ' 2 “I thought ycu were going to stay a month or more,” he said, with his eyes “So did 1,” said Ormsby. “But Mrs. Brentwood cut it short. She’s a town what there is of me and make what you can of it?"” 5 ‘She laughed in His face. “No, my dear David; no, no, no.” And after a Mttle pause: “How deli- clmull'y transparent you are, to be sure!” 54 He would have been less than a man Jf his seif-love had not been tcuched Vit Write on one side of paper only; last page, and address to the SUNDAY EDITOR OF THE CALL. SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. He made his adieux gravely and went away half dazed and a prey to many emotions, but strangely light hearted withal; and as once before, he walked when he might have ridden. But the mixed-emotion mood was not immortal. At the Clarendon he found a com- mittee of Civic Leaguers wadting to ask him if he would stand as a “Good Government” candidate in the capital district; and in the discussion of ways and means, and the settling of political plans which followed there was little food for sentiment. It was three weeks and more after Gevernor Marston's call summoning the Assembly for an investigative ses- sion. Kent had fought his way tri- umphantly through the special election to a seet in the' House, aided and abetted manfully by Ormsby, Hildreth, and the entire ‘Transwestern influence and vote. And new men were begin- ning to say that without the tireless blows of the keen-witted, sharp- tongued young corporation lawyer, the junta might sill have reasserted itseif. But the House Committee, of which Kent was the youngest member and the chairman, had proved incorrupti- ble, and the day of the Gaston wolf- pack was over. Hendricks resigned, to escape a worse thing; Meigs came over to the majority with a show of hearti- ness that made Kent doubly watchful of him; heads fell to the right and left, until at the last there was left only one member of the original cabal to reckon with; the judicial tool of the capitol ring. Kent had hesitated when MacFar- lane’s name came up; and the Judge never knew that he owed his escape from the inquisitorial House Com- mittee, and his permission to resign on the plea of broken health, to a young womany whom lse had never seen. It was Elinor Brentwood who was his intercessor; and the cccasion was the last day of the third week of the extra session—a Saturday aftermoon and a legislative recess when Kent had bor- rowed Ormsby’s autocar, and had drivep Elinor and Penelope out to Pentland Place to look at a house he was thinking of buying. For with means to indulge it, Kent’s Gaston- bred mania for plunging in real estate had returned upon him with all the acuteness of a half-satisfied passion. They had gone all over the house and grounds with the caretaker, and when there was nothing more to see, Penel- ope had prevailed on the woman to open the venetians in the music room. There was a grand piano in the place of honor, presided over by a mechani- cal piano*player; and Penelope went into_ecstacies of mockery. ““Wait till I can find the music scrolls, and I'll hypnotize you,” she said glee- fully; and Kent and Ellnor beat a hasty retreat to the wide entrance hall. “I don’t quite understand it,” was Elinor's comment, when they had put put name and address legibly on 00000000000000000002700000000000000 a judge, and he was bribed.” She sat down beside him in the cushioned window seat and began to plead with him. “You must let him go,” she insisted. “It is entirely in your hands as chair- man of the House Committee; the Gov- ernor, himself, told me so. -I know all you say about him is true; but he is old and wretched, with only a little while to live, at best.” There was a curious little smile curl- ing his lip when he answered her. ““He has chosen a good advocate. It ig quite like a man of his stamp to try to reach me through you.” “David!"” she said again. Then: “I really shouldn’t know him if I were to see him.” “Then why—" he began; but there was a love-light in the blue-gray eyes to set hiz heart afire. “You are doing this for me?” he said, trembling on the verge of things unutterable. “Yes. You don't know how it hurts me tc see you growing hard and merci- less as you climb higher and higher In the path you have marked out for your- self.” “The path you have marked out for me,” he corrected. “Do you remember our little talk over the embers of the fire in your sitting-room gt home? I knew then that I had lost the love I might have won; but the desire to be the kind of leader you were describing was born in me at that moment. I haven't always been true to the ideal I couldn’t be, lacking the right to wear your colors on my heart—" “Don’t!” she said. “I haven’t been true to my ideals. I—I sold them, David!" She was in his arms when she said it, and the bachelor maid was quite lost in the woman. ’ “I'll never believe that,” he said loy- ally. “But if you did, we’ll buy them back—together.” Penelope was good to them. It was a full half hour before she professed her- self satisfled with the mechanieal piano toy; and when she was through, she helped the woman caretaker to shut the venetians with clangings that would have warned the most oblivious pair of lovers. And afterward, when they were free of the house, she ran ahead to the waiting autocar, leaving Kent and Eli- nor to follow at a snail’s pace down the leaf-covered walk to the gate. There was a cedar h to mark the side- walk . and while it still screened them Kent bent quickly to the upturned face of happiness. “One more,” he pleaded; and when he had it: “Do you know now, dearest, why I brought you here te-day She nodded Joyously. “It is the sweetest old place. And, David, dear; we'll bring our ideals—all of them; and it shall be your haven when the storms beat.”; THE - END.