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é \ | ha % @ ee eee. r" * re, ~ THE EVENING WORLD'S FICTION SECTION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1921. 8 ft to Captain Leffley for his ap- proval—— Disregarding the military title thus easily conferred, Helen took the folded ocument which the Judge whipped » out of his little cock-robin coat. “You're very kind,” she told him, and hoped that he would go. He arose at the unapoken hint, bowed again stiffly and wished her a very good night. “I hope Captain Leffley’s health will be improving,” he said as he backed away. “And if you hear suspicious noises in the night, ma'am, don’t fall to enlist my services, and those of my very capable dog. Good night, ma’am.” : # night and thank you, Judge Mallok.” The door was scarcely closed upon him when Fred, his body bent, his eyes alert, came slinking down the stairs “Who's that?” he asked shrilly. “Our neighbor from next door,” she Informed tim. “He’s been attending to the lease for Miss Turnbull.” “Oh.” Something in that monosyllable told her that his suspicions had been rang- ing far afield with a monstrous Jealousy. “B-r-r-r!" Fred shivered. “This chateau’s like a barn, What do these people do in winter—hibernate? A great fireplace in every rvom and nothing to burn.” ‘ “Miss Turnbull feft plenty of wood in the basement,” ehe suid. “I paid her for a cord and a half.” He had followed her to the kitchen, and when she had turned toward the basement dour he stayed her with an impatient hand, “I'm starved,” he drawled. “Go right ahead with the cooking, old girl. rll bring up wood and we'll start a blaze in the dining-room.” As he shuffied toward the door the scarecrow shabbiness of his attire struck her anew. The man who had Owned the suit must have been tall and fat, for the coat hung straight from Fred's narrow shoulders as though it had been stretched across a lath. Was it a hope that he would speak and tell her what she must know that caused her to ask as lightly as she could: “Really, Fred, if youre putting on a disguise, why don’t you get one to fit you?” He wheeled suddenly and faced her with a scowl. “Aren't they good enough for me?" he snaried. “Am I any better than a tramp? Can't [I wear my rags in peace?” His grumblings died away like his footsteps, down the basement stairs. She went on trance-like with her work. In the tin cake-box she found the nugget of cheese which Miss Oc- tavia lad concealed from robbev- mice; this ehe laid out on the table with some vague idea of a recipe she could not remember, The ferror came upon her this time in another form. What if she, too, should lose her rea- fon in this lonely house, chained to *he half-man with whom she was foresworn to endure? Again she bul- lied herself into calm and fell to set- ting the black walnut table with nicked Turnbull china. He was gone a long t.ve, Helen thought—or did it only seem a long time to her apprehensive mind? She knew how it enruged him to be spied upon, therefore she went on with sup- per preparations, straining her ears the while for any sound coming out of the depths. A musical tinkle, some- thing like the touch of glass on glass, sounded from somewhere underfoot. Unable to endure the uncertainty. Helen tiptoed over to the basement door and peered down the dimly- lighted stairs; the flickering candle made wild shadows through the clut- tered vault. A great shadow moved like a hunch-back goblin against the farther wall. “Fred!" she called softly. There came at first no answer. Then she heard the freezing sound: a series of low, idiotic chuckles. ‘She bounded down the stairs to find him seated on the floor. The candle Stood sentinel on the shelf and il- luminated a company-front of bottles in shapes and sizes as ill assorted as an awkward squad of Bolsheviet in- fantrymen. One of those bottles Fred had removed from the ranks and was flourishing it wildly, As she ap- ‘roached he tilted it to his lips and permitted a rill of thin pinkish liquid to trickle down the waistcoat of his borrowed suit. “Currant wine!" he explained va- cantly as soon as the lingering swig was completed and he had broken the bottle on the floor. “Good place this, Nell. Ol lady brews her own. Sour and snappy, makes you happy——" “What in the world are you doing?” she asked in a half-whisper. 66 HAT do you think I'm doing? Keeping books in a Turkish bath? Why didn’t you tell me the old maid had a stock of hoech? Wouldn't said a word against the place—-not a ‘word. No grouch for me, we'll all stay drunk till Sunday fe “No grouch for me!" echoed the resident gnomes of the basement ds Fred reached out and snatched the tallest bot’ ‘rom its regiment, . “Pp do that!” she cried, remembering all the things the doctor had said about the effects of alcohol on an unbalanced mind. “But I'm doing it, my dear.” He arose to his feet and jabbed clumsily at the cork with a fragment of ice-pick he had found somewhere. “My word, but that’s a tight corff! Too bad I threw away my knife yes- terday when I went into a disguise. That knife had a corkscrew blade. Must have a corkscrew——”" “But you can’t—” (She had plucked him by the sleeve to be thrown rough- ly aside, ~ “There's too much can’t in your vo- cabulary, old girl,” he said thickly—it was strange how instantly the sour wine had affected him. “There’s a thing or two you can’t do, too, if youl think "em over.” . She stood irresolute, terribly afraid of him, yet more afraid of leaving him alone with Miss Turnbull's collection of bottles. “Understand me?” he _ growled, thrusting, hig pallid face close to hers. “I'm referring to Bob Spurting.” “You don't know what you're say- ing,” she managed ‘to reply. “You sold your bonds, didn’t you?” he jeered. “You know damned well you sold ‘em before I left the hospital. Now look here, if you’re going to keep on taking money from Spurling——" “You can’t talk like that to me!” whe cried, cold tears rushing to her eyes. “Put down that bottle and come up-stairs."” “TH put it down, all night. Don’t you worry ‘bout that, old girl.” The bottle’s long neck protruded from his misfit coat as he went stum.- blingly up he steps. She followed him to the kitchen where he fumbled in a drawer and found a corkscrew. The cork came out with a silly pop. “Give that to me, please,” she plead- ed, laying hands on the bottle. In the struggle currant wine spurted across the floor. “Leggv, I tell you!” He had snatched the bottle away from her and stood at bay. “Touch it again and I'l bash you with it.” “It will make you deadily ill, Fred,” she said, and she was giddy with the fear of him. “Hands off!" His face was all con- torted like the face of a Japanese mask. “You needn’t go on playing the school teacher with me, Nell. I wasn’t born yesterday. I know a bit too much abont you and your little affair——" There was something snakelike in the speed with which his hand plunged into an inner pocket of the colored waiter’s wrinkled coat and brought out a yellow slip of paper. So he had been carrying the telegram all the time! He handed it to her with a bow of mock chivalry and stood emiling as sho read: “Ordered to Cuba would like to see how Fred is doing; will arrive in Charleville to-day. BOB." “Weil?” said Helen, deathly pale as she held out the scrap of paper. “What do I want of it?” he asked. “I'm not collecting your love letters.” Without another word Helen opened the kitchen range and tossed Bob’s telegram into the coals. “You might go into the dining- room,” she suggested, having surren- dered him to his bottle. “Oh, no,” he announced pleasantly. “We'll eat at separate tables, if you don't mind. I'll take the drawing-room. Perfectly satisfactory arrangement. Hello! Piece of cheese. Love cheese. Too good for me, but love it just the same. And see the pretty mouse!” Fred had spied the thief behind the cake-pox. “Come on, mice! Misery loves company.” He snatched a nub of bread from he oilcloth, placed it on a thick blue plate beside the slab of cheese and bore his Spartan supper with royal dignity into the parlor. Helen, too dis- couraged for either words or tears, watched him from a distance as he sat on the jigsawed eofa beside the grandfather's clock; between long pulls from the bottle of sour wine he bolted savage mouthfuls of bread and cheese. Up to this moment she had pitied him, Without tasting the supper she had prepared she raised a_ stove-lid and began ecraping pan and skillet into the fire. The sight of food sickened her. Not so the mouse. Even though an- other feast of Tantalus had been snatched away from under his yearn- ing nose, he raised that nose to enjoy the distant smell of cheese. Charmed as if by a call from the Piper's whistle he scampered into the parlor. “My God, what's that?” The madman on the sofa raised his cheese dish as if to throw it .then low- ered his head cunningly until his eyes were almost on a level with the car- pet. “Parbleu, a mouse!” he gurgled and sat bolt upright. “Welcome, little mice, I called and you came. Righto! Isn't every friend would keep a date like that. Have something with me?" He spilled a drop of currant wine on the carpet with the result that the mouse, who had been crouching in plain view, took a safer station in the shadow of a chair leg. “On the Wagon, sonny? Never do you a bit of good, ol’ mouse. Aw, don’t go ‘way. Take off your hat and have a bite—”" He tossed a crumb of cheese across the carpet, It was not a darge crumb, but it had scarcely ceased rolling be- fore the mouse was upon it. He picked it up daintily between his forepaws and sat up to his food, never forgetting his manners. The game proved diverting to the extent of a few crumbs, then Fred Leffley gave himself up to the sengual joy of yawning. “See here, lil’ mouse,” he said in a tone of gentle chiding, “cheese you get that way won't do you a bit of good. Not strictly honest. That's what I've been trying to tell the wife. Lot of good it’s done her! Now I'm going to sleep, understand? Trist in your honor, Don't want any looting, see? Do I make myself plain, mouse?” NDER less trying circumstances Helen would have taughed at the drunken dignity of the man sitting there in his comic suit, a half-empty bottle in one hand and in the other a heavy dish of broken cheese; on the carpet before him, as though fascinated by his lec- ture, the mouse sat upright. “y’ see that clock?” asked Leffley, pointing his bottle at Miss Turnbull's graceful heirloom. “Let that represent Woodworth Building to you. And there’s no elevator. Would I shinny up the Woolworth Building for a chunk 0’ cheese? Cor'niy not!” With amazing agility Fred Leffiey stood on the old-fashioned sofa and proceeded to set wine bottle and cheese dish on the decorative summit of grandfather's clock. The bottle was braced securely enough behind a little turret, but the dish, poised on an or- nate cornice, teetered precariously, threatening an avalanche at the least vibration of the antique works within. “That's borrowed cheese,” said the lecturer solemnly, his feet struggling among broken springs. “We got to pay that back, every ounce of it, to Bob Spurling some day——” The ancient springs gave way and a spout of dust marked the spot where Leffley fell into the faded upholstery. When Helen came in a few minutes later Fred was fast asleep on the sofa, his mouth wide open to the earnest work of snoring. She had closed the kitchen door on his empty talk. Now the sight of him sprawling and snor- ing roused in her heart a hitterness she could not down. She might have gone away to weep quietly, as she often had before. But the time will come when a heart can no longer feed on tears. There was a new hardness in her eyes when she leaned over the fallen image of her love. “Fred!” she cried, shaking him by the shoulder. He opencd his eyes to a glazed stare. “Let me alone!” he growled and beat her hands away. The rest of the evening was a daze for Helen—a daze in which she moved from room tv room, candle in hand, like another Lady Macbeth, through echoing chambers where sleep had been murdered for her. At eleven o'clock she found herself in a great faded bedroom whose heavy pieces of wainut stood around like waiting mon- sters. She had worked automatically, bringing warmth and order into unin- habitable spaccs. An ancient gas heater under the mantelpiece had im- parted a mild glow; she had converted the bed into a possible place of rest. The night lay under a deathly still- ness. Wel, they had come to Scarlet- burg for quiet, and they had found it. Helen went over to the bay window and peered through frosty panes to see @ moon drifting amoung cold clouds. The air was soundless. There was no movement among the naked twigs, etched on the whiteness of freshly- fallen snow. UDDENLY the Maltok dog barked, the sound exaggerated out of its true value against a background of silence. It star- tled her as a gunshot might have done. Coming across the snow from the lot beyond Helen saw the figure of a tall man, draped in a furry overcoat. He advanced rapidly a few steps, then paused to look around. Then-he came forward again. Again the dog barked. and the man made straight for the- Turnbull door. Terror had made Helen Leffley brave. She had no fear of the outside world, since the great fear lay sleeping in her house. Her only thought now was: “If he rings the bell he'll wake Fred, ‘and there’s no telling what might happen.” She tiptoed down, past the couch where her husband lay and out into the vestibule. Drawing the night-latch she threw the door open and faced the intruder. Bob Spurling, swathed in furs to the brim of his soft hat, stood in the patch of light, and when he saw her he emiled and held out his hand. It was like a bad dream for Helen Leffley: a sense of dreadful peri! prompted her to lay finger to lip and say softly: “Bob, be very quiet. Fred's having a terrible spell. He's been drink- ing——" “I'm sorry,” whispered Spurling, and his broad kindly face kindled to sym- pathy. The sight of him seemed to bring health and normality to the sick air of the place “Please don’t go away,” she said on _ he'll come out. an impulse. “If you only knew how I've been wanting to talk to you. And you've come all this distance — Bob, he's asleep now.” She left him standing in the vesti- bule and peered into the drawing- room. Fred lay motionless beside the tall olock. A volume of snores un- couth and frankly animal, told how thoroughly he had abandoned himself to slumber. Helen beckoned and led her visitor a-tiptoe through the hall. In a niche under the walnut staircase there stood an ornate oak settee, conceived by some German woodworker in the reign of President Arthur. Here she motioned Spurling to a seat beside her and they talked together in guarded tones. Spur- ling’s bigness, his forthright American- ism, his very clumsiness and incoher- ence. brought to her a sense of protec- tion. He was a homely man; the slight limp in his gait betrayed a physical de- fect. To Helen that very lameness seemed to accentuate his strength. “How did you find us?” she asked. “Easy enough,” he grinned. “Colored woman at the boarding-house had your address, I came by the ten o'clock train. You seem to be the only people in town who havent’ gone to bed. Sorry I came so late, but I've got to run back in the morning.” “You're going to Cuba right away?” she asked. “Yes,” he replied in the deprecating way he had when mentioning his own affairs. “It was either that or Porto Rico.” He looked at her for a moment with eyes which were small and shrewd and somehow pathetic. “You aren't hurt about that—about my letter?” “Bob! You've done so much ready-——" “Pshaw!" was all he said. “The money was a godsend just now.” “Look here, Helen.” The seams’ ig his cheeks deepened as he turned to ree gard her. “I was going to Cuba.” “You mustn't do anything foolish,” she told him weakly. “This mess here has got to he straightened out. Fred's in no shape to take care of himself, let alone look out for you. It's ridiculous to think of your trying to swing it alone.” “No, Bob.” She shook her head hope- lessly, and after a moment of reflection, ale said, “You'd only make hings a lot worse—I can’t teli you how much worse.” - “Of course 4 wouldn't do that, Helen.” “I know you wouldn't if you under- stood. But he seems tobe suspicious of everybody. Bob, he's so jealous that I'm sure he'd do something dreadful——" “Jealous of me?” S$purling’s mouth fell open at the idea. “I didn’t dare tell him where the money was coming from. This morning he read your telegram. He's been quite insane all day.” “I see. And that's what I'm doing to help.” He gazed reflectively round the payeean splendors of the Turnbull all. “Helen,” Spurling held her with his earnest eyes. “I've been fooling myself along, thinking I was doing a little something for—for both of us. But the time’s come to look at things straight. If you really think I make it worse, 10 go. But that's no solution.” He paused and sat shyly studying her face before he whispered. “T'd do anything for you.” There was no trace of the experienced philanderer in that worshipful look he gave her. Yet always since she had known him she had dreaded the bour when he might speak like this. And now that the hour had struck she knew to her shame what bitter-sweetness his de= votion brought to her. “I didn’t come here to talk this way,” he apologized. “It's just because I'm stepping out. What I say oughtn’t te matter now.” ee no answer and he blurted, “What a love f ial mai 4 you've given him, “I've tried.” she whispered. “Tried more than any mortal man deserves,” he said huskily. “I'm not underrating him, Helen, But he's cru- cifled you.” “Just what do you mean by that?” she asked, trying to make her tone de- fiant. “Where would plained?” She gazed upon him, wide-eyed, In her new sight he was no longer the commonplace New York business man, heavy with prosperous living. His broad face was rugged like a mountain, his small eyes pitiful and kind, “What else could I have done?” she asked. “Taken one of the easy roads,” the tender smile was saying. “There's no such road for me. I sup- pose it's because I loved him too well, He's still there—somewhere behind the dark cloud. Sometimes still I feel that What sort would I be it get us if I ex- to quit now?" “Sull," he insisted, “if you'd taken the easy roai——”" The look in his eyes finished the sen- tence, for it said—"I never could have loved you as I do now.” Love is a timeless thing—or is It Time's self? Two eternities meet and touch! and a wise man once said that Time is nothing more than such a con. tact. Helen gazed across the shadows, them O der Your Evening World in Advance