Chapter VI: Part 6

"No, your Honour," he said quietly, "she did not die. This little story of real life followed the conventional.... Sometimes God is as good as the dramatist. They told us the meagre details. _He_ didn't; he had a pressing engagement and slipped away, resuming, I suppose, his 'reservations' on his Blue Diamond.... He wasn't very prepossessing, anyway, from all accounts. Any ten-twenty-thirty dramatist could have given us a more presentable, better manicured hero."

Wallace sauntered a little.

"This object that tumbled from a box car, sprawled, picked himself up, and then jumped like a cat, was, as a matter of fact, a nobody, an outcast, a crook----"

Casually, it seemed, his hand rested on the bowed shoulder of the broken old man.

"Just a one-eyed yeggman, making his way----"

He got no further. The courtroom was in an uproar and unrestrained applause ran its riotous course. There was none to check it.

His Honour, savagely surreptitious with his handkerchief, finally took command of himself and the situation.

"Mr. Wallace, the Court requires no argument in this case. We will accept the guarantee of future good conduct which you were about to offer, and, if necessary, underwrite it ourselves.... Sentence suspended!"

Then as the Court was adjourned and they crowded about the pair of them, counsel and client, a shouldering, demonstrative throng a dozen deep, the Judge, before retiring stilled them for a brief afterword.

"Mr. Wallace, in the matter of the--ah, of certain refreshments, in which we had rendered a mental ruling incidental to the costs thereof, we would say that ruling is hereby reversed and the--the refreshments--are on--the Court."

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LOST AND FOUND

By John Kendrick Bangs

-- I --

The week-end was over, and Begbie had returned to town, restless, and strangely unhappy. There was within him a curious sense of something lost, and yet, now and then, the intimation of another something that seemed to be gain wholly would flash across the horizon of his reflections like a ray of sunshine attempting to penetrate a possible rift in the clouds.

He unpacked his suit-case listlessly, and compared its contents with the catalogue of his week-end needs which he always kept pasted on the inner side of the cover of his suit-case. Everything was there, from hair-brush to dinner-coat--and yet that sense of something left behind still oppressed him. A second time he went over the list and compared it with his possessions, to find that nothing was missing; and then on a sudden there flashed across his mind a full realization of what the lost object was.

"Ah!" he ejaculated with a deep sigh of relief.

"That's it! I will write at once to my hostess and ask her to return it."

Action followed the resolution, and, seating himself at his escritoire, Begbie wrote:

"The Mossmere, New York.
"August ----, 19--.

"My Dear Mrs. Shelton:

"Upon my return from the never-to-be-forgotten series of golden hours at Sea Cliff I find that, after the habit of the departing guest, I have left at least one of my possessions behind me. It is of value perhaps to nobody but myself, but, poor as it is, I cannot very well do without it. It is my _heart_. If by some good chance you have found it, and it is of no use to you, will you be good enough some time soon, when you have nothing better to do, to return it to me? Or, if by some good fortune you find it worth retaining, will you please tell me so, that I may know that it is in your custody and is not lying somewhere cold and neglected? It is the only one I have, and it has never passed out of my keeping before.

"Always devotedly yours,
"Harrison Begbie."

-- II --

It was on the morning of the second day after the mailing of this letter that Begbie found a dainty-hued missive lying beside his plate at the breakfast-table. It was postmarked Sea Cliff, and addressed in the familiar handwriting of his hostess. Feverishly he tore it open, and found the following:

"Sea Cliff, August ----, 19--.

"My Dear Mr. Begbie:

"What careless creatures you men are! I have found ten such articles as you describe in my house during the past ten days, and out of so vast and varied a number I cannot quite decide which one is yours. Some of them are badly cracked; some of them are battered hopelessly--only one of them is in what I should call an A1, first class, condition. I am hoping it is yours, but I do not know. In any event, on receipt of this won't you come down here at once and we can run over them together. I will meet you with the motor on the arrival of the 12:15 at Wavecrest Station.

"Meanwhile, my dear Mr. Begbie, knowing how essential a part of the human mechanism a heart truly is--_I send you mine_ to take the place of the other. You may keep it until your own is returned to you.

"Always sincerely,
"Mary Shelton."

"P.S.--Telegraph me if you will be on the 12:15."

-- III --

Ten minutes later the following rush-message sped over the wires:

"New York, Aug. ----, 19--.
"Mrs. Shelton, Sea Cliff, L. I.:

"Haven't time to wire you of arrival on 12:15. Am rushing to catch the 9:05.

"Harrison."

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YOU CAN NEVER TELL

By "B. MacArthur"

Very dimly shone the lamps of the rickshaws; very faintly came the tap-tap of the sandals passing to and fro on the Bund. Yokohama was going to sleep, and the great liners in the bay looked dark and ghost-like against the rising moon. The three men sitting on the terrace of the Grand Hotel met here every ninth week. They were captains of three of the liners. All were Englishmen. Blackburn, who commanded a ship owned and manned by Japanese, lit his pipe and gazed out across the harbour, drawing his hand over his brow and hair.

"Same old heat," he said.

The others nodded.

Bainbridge, a slight little man with fair hair, moved restlessly.

"A week, and we'll all be at opposite corners again," he said, "none of them much cooler."

"Not bad at home now," mused Villiers, broad and silent man, with the gray eyes of a dreamer. He leaned forward, smiling slightly.

"D'ye know, it's three years next month since I've seen th' wife. Devil of a life! And I don't see my way to getting back yet, either. No place for women, the East."

Bainbridge stared at him uneasily.

"Yes, deuce of a life," he assented, "but worse for the women, even in England. Always standing on their own legs, as it were, pinching and skimping for a chap they only see once in a couple of years. I say, y'know, it's rotten bad for them, at best."

"Quite right," said Villiers, "and it is an experience that is bound to have its effect. The strong woman will be stronger, the weak woman weaker, and the bad woman--will go under."

Blackburn smiled.

"Then we are three lucky chaps," he said, and blew a ring of smoke and looked at it rather sentimentally.

Villiers laughed.

"The queer part about it is the faith they've got. It's that which pulls them through. I believe if I wrote the wife to-night that I'd a Japanese girl in Nagasaki she'd never believe me, though she's quite sophisticated enough to be cognizant of the prevalence of that sort of thing out here. She takes the attitude that such things might happen--but not to her or hers. It's rather a potent point of view."

"It's an absurd point of view--no offence to you, old chap," said Bainbridge. "Suppose it was a fact and she had to face it--what would be her attitude?"

"It couldn't be a fact so long as she felt as she does about it," answered Villiers; "it is that which insures her being quite right in her belief."

"Oh, rot!" said Bainbridge. "You're an idealist." He took a deep drink from his tall glass. "I'll bet you if all three of us wrote home to-night in the light of remorseful confession every one of us would receive replies, next mail out, to the same effect."

"There's just one way to prove that," said Villiers, "and that's to write."

"Done!" said Bainbridge.

"Hold on, old chaps!" Blackburn knocked out the ashes from his pipe. "D'ye know you're about to play a devilish risky game? Shouldn't care to enter it myself. Luck to you, however, if you must. But both of you are taking too much for granted."

"You hold the stakes, then," said Villiers complacently. "Next trip we meet here, as per schedule, we'll have our mail first thing and rendezvous at eight for supper. If we can't read our letters aloud we can at least describe the attitude taken therein, which is the point under discussion."

"Very well," said Blackburn, "but I warn you it's a silly affair."

* * * * *

Nine weeks later Blackburn, tying his tie before the mirror in his cabin, felt a curious interest in seeing his two friends as had been arranged at their previous meeting. They would have received their mail from home even as he had received his, but it was with a thrill of satisfaction that he remembered he had not endangered his own or his wife's happiness in what he considered the mad manner of his friends.

Very promptly, then, and most serene, he appeared on the terrace and seated himself at the usual table to await their arrival.

Bainbridge presently appeared and, after greeting Blackburn, sat down and lit a pipe. They talked spasmodically. A curious tranquillity seemed to have enveloped the little man, which so held Blackburn's attention that he could think of nothing to say. They sat in silence, Blackburn mentally taking stock of his friend. All his nervousness and cynicism seemed to have left him, and his eyes, usually so furtive, looked very still and deep.

"Wonder why Villiers doesn't come along," said Blackburn at last.

Bainbridge nodded.... "I'll read you my letter now," he said, and in a lower voice: "By Jove, old chap, I was quite wrong, d'ye know? Never would have believed it possible any one could feel so about a chap like me."

He laid the letter on the table. "Wonderful thing that," he said; and Blackburn took it.

"Are you quite sure you want me to read this?" he asked.

"Quite," replied Bainbridge, "because--because it's changed things so--for me, you know."

Blackburn read:

"Dear Lad:

"Something in my heart tells me this horrible thing isn't true. It can't be. Such things may happen to people, but somehow I can't feel it has happened to me and mine. But if it has--and you will begin again because your best nature still cares for me--won't you begin right now, because I love you and will try to forget. I can't write more.

"Minnie."

When Blackburn had finished he folded it very gently and handed it to Bainbridge.

"I congratulate you, old fellow," he said gravely, and then: "Let's go up to Villiers' room and stir him up. He may be snoozing."

They rose and climbed the stairs to the room Villiers was wont to occupy during his stay in port. The door was unlocked, and after knocking and receiving no reply they entered. It was so dark at first they could see nothing. Blackburn, dimly discerning the bureau, shuffled toward it to light the gas. But before he reached it his foot struck a soft object, and simultaneously a nauseous wave of horror swept over him.

"My God! Light a match," he said.

Bainbridge did so and, stepping over the prone figure, lit the gas with trembling hands.

Villiers was quite dead. His gun lay by his side, and in a little pool of blood by his right temple a crumpled letter lay, face up.

"Nothing should be touched," said Blackburn, "until the proper steps have been taken--except----"

Bainbridge stooped and lifted the bloody page.

"Except this," he said, and, folding it carefully, put it in his wallet.

* * * * *

When, many hours later, Blackburn was aboard his ship, he locked his cabin door, and Bainbridge, who had accompanied him for the purpose, spread out the sheet and read it slowly.

"My Dear Frank:

"Your rather extraordinary epistle has reached me, and I assure you it was quite unnecessary. You surely do not expect me to have lived all these years alone and to have known men as I do without realizing that I could scarcely expect you to live the life of a celibate in the 'Far East.' In this strange little game of life we must take our pleasures as they come, and I have taken mine even as I have not prevented you from taking yours. Foolish boy! If you expected me to have hysterics over your self-imposed confession you may be relieved to know that I merely laughed at it. We are all in the same boat, we sinners, so why should one of us cavil at another? Cheer up and don't take life so seriously.

"Sue."

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THE ESCAPE

By A. Leslie Goodwin

The tent flap lifted and dropped. The prisoner could make out the dim outlines of a man's form.

"To be shot at sunrise, eh?"

The prisoner stirred quickly. That voice was strangely familiar to him.

The figure moved nearer. A knife flashed and the prisoner's bonds fell off.

"Follow me, and not a sound."

They crept out of the tent, past a dozing sentry, and across a dark field.

"Now," said the guide, as they straightened up in the shadow of a hedge, "a proposition, for cousins will be cousins, even in war."

He paused, looked warily around, and emitted a low chuckle.

"Six months ago," he continued, "when I was captured by your side and sentenced to be shot you rescued me, as I have you. You showed me our lines and gave me two minutes to get away. After that two minutes you were to fire, and you----"

He stopped, wheeled like a flash, but too late. A shot rang out, and another.

The two men stiffened, leaned toward each other, gasped, and dropped to the ground.

Around the corner of the hedge stepped the sentry, a smoking automatic in his hand.

"Huh!" he growled, stirring the prostrate figures with his foot. "Relatives have no business on opposite sides, anyway."

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TWO LETTERS, A TELEGRAM, AND A FINALE

By H. S. Haskins

"New York, September 10.

"Dearest Marian:

"Is it not time to break silence? Three months have passed since we quarrelled on the eve of your departure for the mountains. I wrote twice during the first week. You did not answer. Pride forbade my risking another rebuff.

"Frequently I have been so desperate that it has consoled me to run into needless danger. Often, during the summer, I have swum out beyond the breakers when there was a heavy undertow. I have taken automobile tours by myself, speeding at seventy miles an hour over narrow roads along mountainsides.

"These foolhardy adventures were backed by what must seem to you an unaccountable desire for revenge. I pictured your face as you read an account of my death; gloated over the horror in your eyes when they scanned the ghastly details.

"I invented such news items as these: 'Blake's body was cast up on the beach, horribly gashed by the rocks'; or, 'The automobile leaped into a chasm. Blake, clinging to the wheel, was crushed into an unrecognizable mass when the car turned turtle.'

"This desire to punish you for your neglect seems a barbarous instinct or a childish whim, as you choose. But, ashamed of it as I may be, and struggle against it as I will, such a thought is often with me.

"Take this morning, for instance: alighting from the train at Jersey City, I stopped to admire the huge locomotive which has been lately put on the morning express. I laid my hand on one bulky cylinder. 'What if this monster should explode with me standing here!' I thought. 'What if one side of my face and my right arm were blown off! What would she say, my little Princess of Indifference, far away in her mountain fastness?'

"I gave imagination its head. It soon seemed as if the horrible thing had really happened. They picked me up, conscious and suffering frightfully. Before I slipped into merciful oblivion the awful truth was apparent to me--my right arm was gone and the right side of my face was terribly scalded by the blinding steam.

"Weeks grew into months. The day before the bandages were to be removed from my face I escaped from the hospital. I took a night express to Montreal. From Montreal I plunged into the wilderness, anywhere to get away from the sight of man, where, slowly and painfully, with my untrained left arm, I built a hut on the side of a mountain. Besides the rough furniture I installed a typewriter and a framed photograph of you. Just these two things with which to start life over again.

"Here I learned with difficulty to typewrite with one hand. At first it baffled me to devise some way of depressing the shift key. Then I attached a rough contrivance for working the shift key with my foot. Finally I became fairly expert, and began to submit magazine stories, with some success.

"Often I dreamed of a footstep outside my cabin, of the swish of skirts, of a cry, and somebody rushing across the floor. Two hands, unmistakably yours, pressed my eyes--my good eye on the good side of my face and my useless eye on the useless side of my face. Then I seemed to play a gruesome hide-and-seek, twisting, turning, dodging--ever striving to keep the undamaged side of my face toward you, concealing the stricken side from your eyes.

"That's enough of such rubbish. Fancies, made morbid by your long silence, have run away with me. Forgive me. But have mercy, and write!

"I have stopped running risks in the water. I observe the legal rate of speed in my car. But I have not given up an equally hazardous adventure--loving you.

"Forever and ever yours,
"John."

"Paul Smith's, Adirondacks, N. Y., September 14.

"My Own Silly John:

"Your letter gave me the shivers. Forgive me. I have been thoughtless and brutal. Your letter was so graphic, your description of your make-believe accident in the train-sheds so real, that I cannot get it out of my mind, I love you, love you, love you! I shall leave here two weeks from to-morrow. I'd leave to-night if it were not for Mother, who is not well enough yet to travel. That fictitious cabin on the mountainside with you blinded and alone frightened me. Be careful, John; be careful, you dear, dear thing!

"Always yours,
"Marian."

(Telegram)
"Noonday Club, New York,
September 24.

"Marian Blackmar:

"Paul Smith's, Adirondacks, N. Y.

"The cabin on the mountain was not fictitious. Neither was the explosion of the locomotive, which happened three months ago. I gave an assumed name at the hospital. Do not try to find me. There is nothing left worth finding. I want to be remembered as I was when we parted. Good-bye.

"John."

The Finale

An October moon shone through the scarlet leaves of a Canadian forest. Shadows from the thinning branches fell across the clearing where John Blake's cabin clung to the side of a mountain. The light from a shaded lamp, within, fell upon a typewriter with its singular attachment for depressing the shift key.

Before the machine John sat, bowed in thought, his right sleeve hanging empty. He was thinking of the letter which he had written to Marian Blackmar, and which he had enclosed with a note to the steward of the Noonday Club, to be mailed from New York, for the sake of the postmark, of the telegram which had been relayed through the same club.

The autumn wind coaxed the logs in the fireplace. The responsive flames lighted with a warm glow the photographed features of the beautiful girl in the oval frame.

There was a footstep outside the cabin, the swish of skirts, a cry, and somebody rushing across the floor. Two hands, unmistakably hers, were pressed over his eyes, the good eye and the bad eye alike. Two lips, every now and then interrupting themselves against his, wept and laughed and pleaded and made-believe scold, and finally persuaded John that no life can be disfigured where love dwells.

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THE INTRUDER

By Reginald Barlow

Midwinter, bitterly cold.

Having entered the house, I drew the blinds and lit the gas-logs, stretched myself in an armchair, and dozed. A strange feeling crept over me; some one else was in the room.

I slowly opened my eyes; they stared straight into a gun-muzzle; my hands flew up.

"Stand up!"

I stood.

The other hand deftly extracted my revolver.

"Sit down!"

I sat.

"Rotten weather!"

I agreed.

"How did you get in?" I asked.

"Basement window. How d'you?"

"Front door, of course."

He looked quizzically. "Ain't Richman coming home to-night?"

"Certainly not; don't expect him."

"That's funny. Where's the servants?" The curtains behind him trembled.

"With the Richmans, Atlantic City," I informed. "Why not call when he's home?" I inquired. A gun, hand, and arm divided the curtain.

"Right; feel warmer now; must get to work."

"Been here before?" I asked, as the newcomer, tall and strong, covered the bullet-head before me.

"Sure. Remember the burglary in this house five years ago? Well, I was on that job. Another night like this. I sneaked up----"

"Biff!" The newcomer landed squarely. "Cord in that drawer," he said. "Tie him up."

I obeyed.

"You're Mr. Jones, I believe!--I'm Mr. Richman," he continued. "My agent wired that I'd find you here. Knew I'd be late, so sent you the key. What's the matter with our friend?"

Our prisoner had come to, gasping, "You Richman?"

"Yes."

"I'm Burns, Headquarters. Damn you, I'll pinch you, too----"

He raved on. Richman lifted the 'phone. Found it out of order. I knew he would.

"Police Station is two blocks south," he informed me. "Go and notify them. I'll take care of this noisy person."

"Damn fool! He's a crook!" bawled the helpless one.

"He thinks you're as bad as himself," laughed Richman.

"How did you learn of my danger?" I inquired.

"I borrowed a basement key from the servants. On entering I heard voices up here; crept upstairs, peeped through the curtains, saw your predicament, and nailed the fellow."

"I'm eternally grateful," I said warmly.

"Don't mention it. Now, go for the police, like a good fellow."

"Surely. Take care of yourself," I said. Entering the hall, I lifted a heavy fur coat as the thud of footsteps approached the front steps. I opened the door quickly and faced the newcomer, closing it behind me.

"Pardon! Is Mr. Richman in?" he inquired.

"Are you Jones?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Richman is waiting for you. Pardon my haste. Let yourself in. You have a key."

My bag was very heavy, being full of Richman's silver and a few thousand dollars' worth of jewellery, but I made good time through the snow.

I remembered Richman saying the Police Station was two blocks south--which, of course, explains why I went north.

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MOLTEN METAL

By Hornell Hart

The president of the Canfield Iron Works sat at his desk, poring over departmental reports. The hush of Saturday afternoon had settled over the deserted works. Instead of the rumble of trucks, the tattoo of steam hammers, and the shrill of signal whistles, a fly droned at the window screen and birds twittered from the eaves.

It was with a startled feeling that the president looked up and saw, standing at the end of his desk, a tall, dully dressed working girl. Her eyes were circled with shadow, and her thin lips were set with the expression of one who forces back tears.

"I came to get five hundred dollars," said the girl, in a tense voice. He looked up at her in dumb astonishment, and she hurried on. "We just got to have it, and you owe it to us. Pa, he kept telling the boss that the big ladle for the melted iron was cracked and it would spill some day, and the boss just laughed. Well, one day, about three months ago, he came up here to the office to tell you about it, and the fella out there told him to go on out and mind his business.

"Well, last month--on Thursday, it was--the handle broke off and spilled the hot iron all over Pa and the men in his gang. They brought him home, and his legs were all burned off, and he was dead. John Burczyk his name was.

"I'm the oldest at home, and all the others are little. There ain't one of all six of them that can work yet. And Ma, she ain't very strong, and she can't earn much, washing. Well, we needed money awful bad, and a smart fella from you came to our house and gave Ma ten dollars. Ma's Slovak, and she can't read English, and she didn't know what it was she was signing. Well, she found she'd signed away her rights to sue for money from you, because dad was killed. Now you're going to give us that money." She finished with a harsh peremptoriness and paused. The president started to speak, but she stopped him with a crude, imperative gesture.

"You wait," she said; "I ain't through yet. It was bad enough that you killed Pa and stole the damage money from her and the kids. But that ain't all. You done worse than that. There was another man burned with that melted iron. His name was Frank Nokovick." The girl's voice rose and broke in a sob, but she choked it back harshly and struggled on.

"Frank--he and I was sweethearts for a year and a half before that, but he couldn't get the money for the furniture and things. Well, we was to be married on Saturday, but Thursday the ladle broke and the iron burned Frank all down the side. He made 'em bring him home, and he sent for the priest. 'Run for the priest, Pete,' he says to my brother. 'Run like hell, and make him come quick.'

"Frank, he was groaning terrible, but he just grabbed hold of my hand and hung onto it, and he kept saying, 'Our kid's got to have a father, Mary. Our kid's got to have a father.'

"Well, the priest came as quick as he could, and he was going to marry us, but Frank was dead."

The girl's voice trailed off into a wail, but she choked on defiantly.

"Now I lost my job, because they can all see my trouble. And we got to have the money. You give me that five hundred dollars! You give it to me!"

The president had turned his back toward her. She fumbled nervously with a queerly shaped thing covered with a handkerchief in her right hand. The president turned silently and handed her a bundle. Dumbly she counted five one-hundred-dollar bills. At the bottom was a check.

"Pay to the order of Mary Burczyk," it read, "two thousand dollars."

Mary sank on the floor in a little heap. "I'd rather have shot you," she sobbed.

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THE WINNER'S LOSS

By Elliott Flower

"Bet you fifty!"

"Aw, make it worth while."

"Two hundred!"

"You're on. Let Jack hold the stakes."

"Suits me."

Four hundred dollars was placed in the hands of Jack Strong by the disputatious sports, and he carefully put it away with the lone five-dollar bill of which he was possessed.

Jack, although sportily inclined, lacked the cash to be a sport himself, but he was known to the two who thus disagreed, and they trusted him. He might be poor, but he was honest.

Nor was this confidence misplaced--at least so far as his honesty was concerned, although there might be question as to his judgment and discretion.

For instance, carrying that much money, it was a foolish thing to let an affable stranger scrape a barroom acquaintance with him when he stopped in at Pete's on his way to his little mortgaged home. He realized that later. He was not drunk--positively, he was not drunk, for he recalled everything distinctly, but he did fraternize briefly with the jovial stranger. And in seeking his lone five-dollar bill, that he might return the joyous stranger's hospitality, he did display the four-hundred-dollar roll. It was all very clear to him the next morning, when he found nothing in his pockets but the change from the five-dollar bill.

Naturally, he hastened to Pete's to learn what he could of the amiable stranger, which was nothing. Then he sought his sporty friends, and made full confession. They regarded him with coldly suspicious eyes, deeming it strange that one so wise should happen to be robbed when he was carrying their money. He promised restitution, but they were not appeased, for well they knew that it would take him about four years to repay four hundred dollars.

He went to the police, and the police promised to do what they could to identify, locate, and apprehend the sociable stranger, but there was still much in the attitude of the sporty pair to make him uneasy.

He remained at home that evening, having neither heart nor money for livelier places, and about eight o'clock he had his reward. The police telephoned him that they had the genial stranger in custody.

"Hold him!" he cried jubilantly. "I'll be right down."

He was rushing for his hat when his wife, who had been strangely silent and thoughtful, stopped him.

"John," she said, "I'd like a word with you before you go out. Why have you deceived me?"

"Deceived you!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, deceived me," she repeated severely. "I've suspected this duplicity for some time, and now I have proof. When I asked you for ten dollars yesterday you said you didn't have it, but last night I found four hundred dollars in your pocket."

"Howling Petey!" he cried. "Great jumping grasshoppers! I've had a man arrested for that, and two others are just about ready to beat me up! Where is it, Mary--quick!"

"I applied it on the mortgage," she answered calmly.

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THE RECOIL OF THE GUN

By Marian Parker

Yes, I will tell you why I did it. I can talk to you, because you are a gentleman. You will understand. Those others were horrible men, policemen. They hustled me, they took me by the arm--me! Did you ever see a prison cell before? I never did. It's a queer place to receive you in, but that isn't my fault. They won't let me out.

You wish to know why I killed my husband? It does sound rather dreadful, doesn't it? Though, you know, a woman might get angry--might throw something at a man. But I wasn't angry. It's not really hard to kill people. Why, even now, here, alone with you--but they haven't left anything handy. May you call in your friend from the corridor? Yes, of course.

About my husband. He was a very good man, very fond of me; a little tiresome, but I wouldn't have killed him for that. People won't understand that I did it from the highest motives.

This is the reason. It's very reasonable. _I did it for the children._ Now you know.

He began to follow me about. He began to watch me. Even when I was alone he watched me. He was suspicious. That's a very bad sign. I know what it meant. It was dreadful to know, but everything proved it. He was going insane. But no one else knew. If I waited people would find out. I had to think of the children, my little girls. No one would have married them. It's hereditary, you know. So I shot him.

Your friend's a lawyer? He will get me off? They won't hang me? I knew they wouldn't if I explained. What's that you said? I heard! To plead insanity. _For me?_ But he mustn't do that! _The girls_--don't you see? Why, you're crazy! No one would marry them! And I did it for them! I did it for them!

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"MAN MAY LOVE"

By Robert Sharp

"Miss Young, I want to ask you something," and Geoffrey modestly pulled the sheets close up under his pink chin. "I suppose you'll think me an awful bore for saying this to you so abruptly, but I'm dreadfully in earnest. Will you marry me, please?"

Miss Young did not stop a minute in her deft arrangement of his breakfast tray. She didn't even blush. "No, I don't think I will," she answered. "You see, I can't marry every one that asks me."

"How many have you married already?"

"Well, I haven't married any yet."

"Then marry me."

The unruffled little nurse smiled at his impetuosity. "You know," she said, "every marriageable male that I have ever nursed has proposed to me. It is merely a sign of recovery. It ought to go on the list of symptoms."

"My proposal is a symptom, all right, but not of recovery. It is a symptom that I am desperately in love."

"You do it beautifully, but you are not quite so romantic as Antonio, my last potential husband. He wanted me to flee with him to Italy, but his wife came and took him away."

Geoffrey was indignant. "Do you think I'm going to let you stay here while every Dick, Tom, and Dago Henry proposes to you?"

"Better eat your breakfast, Sonny."

"Sonny," Geoffrey flounced over, his face to the wall. "I don't care for any breakfast, thank you."

"All right, I'll take the tray away in a minute," and with a knowing smile she left the room.

Geoffrey was twenty-one, possessing all the impetuousness and dignity accessory to that age. He had offered his love and had been laughed at. She had called him "Sonny."

Yet, during those three past weeks of antiseptic nightmare she had been extremely kind to him. Perhaps she loved some one else. At the thought Geoffrey became quite disconsolate.

But finally he turned over and his eyes fell upon the breakfast tray laid temptingly beside his bed. A ravenous hunger assailed him. He pulled the tray onto the bed and began to eat. After all, things were not so bad. A woman always had to be coaxed.

Meanwhile Miss Young was talking it over with a sister nurse at breakfast in the nurses' quarters. "What I want to know, Heine, is this. When do we ever get a fair chance at a man? We don't get away from the hospital long enough at a time to capture one, and here, where we receive proposals every day, it's against the rules to marry the patients."

"Did he propose to you?" interposed Heine.

"Yes, he did. And he's a nice boy, too."

"Excuse me, not for mine. I'm vaccinated against marriage. I'm tired of having men growl and grumble at me all the time."

"Sure, so am I. But, Heine, wouldn't it be perfectly grand to have just one great big man to jaw at you! He asked me to call him Geoffrey."

"Look here, kid, you're not falling in love, are you?" demanded the quizzical Heine.

"I wonder if he has another girl," answered Miss Young irrelevantly.

About noon Geoffrey became exceedingly restless. Miss Young smoothed his pillows again and again. Once, when her hand strayed temptingly near, he grasped it and kissed it. It must be confessed that Miss Young didn't withdraw her hand quite so quickly as the superintendent would have thought proper. She even blushed, and that was very unusual for the sophisticated nurse.

"Gee, I know I'm an awful bore to keep bothering you like this, but haven't you changed your mind? Don't you think you can marry me?"

"Look here, Geoffrey"--she really hadn't meant to call him Geoffrey--"you don't know what you're talking about. I'm the only woman you've seen in the last three weeks. I may have helped pull you over some pretty rough places. Of course you think you have to marry your benefactor."

"I have to marry you, Miss Young, but that's not the reason. I'm going to ask you three times a day until you consent to be my wife."

"Well, keep it up, Geoffrey. It will help pass the time." Miss Young had quite regained her customary impenetrability.

Geoffrey kept his word. When his nurse was in the room he watched her continually and at the most unexpected times propounded the old question. If she left the room he always developed a dreadful thirst as an excuse for an imperative summons. Even Miss Young found it hard to doubt his sincerity. She floundered between natural emotions and her professional indifference.

At last Geoffrey was pronounced well, and yet the girl had not consented. He had no excuse for remaining longer, so with evident bad humour he consented to go.

"Miss Young," he said, "I'm going home to-day, and I just won't leave you here for some dirty 'Dago' to be grabbing at your hand and proposing to you all the time. Marry me and come away from here."

"Geoffrey, I'm going to give you a square deal. You go home for a month, see other girls, and if you then still want to marry me, come up here and I'll think about it."

"I'm on, Miss Young. Say, I've found out your first name. It's Claire, isn't it? You know I used to think 'Diana' was a peach of a name, but 'Claire' beats it a mile."

Geoffrey went home. Miss Young cried a little in the solitude of her room. Then she settled down to a half-hopeful vigil of waiting. During the first two weeks she received seven letters, each one declaring Geoffrey's undying devotion and his firm desire to return for her. Every night she read the entire collection up to date, and wept over them, as is the manner of women beloved. Then for days she received no word. She fought this rather hopeless portent with trusting heart.

Often during the long day's work when patients grumbled, when some ogling male became amorously persistent, when the little nurse found herself almost hating mankind, she slipped into the vacant corridor and reread one of the treasured epistles to give her faith.

The third week dragged along and the beginning of the fourth, and still she received not a word. At first she waited impatiently for each day's mail, but finally she began to delay her call at the desk, dreading the recurrent disappointment.

At last one morning at breakfast she received a letter addressed in Geoffrey's handwriting. All aflutter she slipped it into her pocket until she could be alone. But she couldn't wait, so she tremulously tore the envelope open and read:

"My Dear Miss Young:

"I shall always regard you as a woman of the rarest good sense. You
must have thought me a great fool. I think a man is hardly
responsible for what he does when he is sick. I must thank you for
your splendid nursing, and, furthermore, for the way in which you
brought me to my senses. You see, Diana and I have made it all up
again. I'm sending you a card."

The card bore the conventional "Mr. and Mrs. W. P. Harvey announce----"

Miss Young slowly crumpled up the letter and shoved it into her pocket. "Heinie," she said, "one of these days I'm going to take advantage of some guy and marry him while I've got him down."

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ONE WAY--AND ANOTHER

By Noble May

"That's where my finish will be," said the girl. She rested her odd-looking bundle on the railing of the bridge and looked moodily down into the river.

Tough Muggins wasn't particularly strong on the conventionalities, but he had stopped on the bridge to look at the river coquetting under the moon's rays, not to listen to idle talk from strange girls. It listened like a touch, too, so he slid an indifferent eye around in the girl's direction and advised her to chop it. Something, however, about the tense look of her as she gazed fiercely down into the rippling water compelled him, in spite of his natural inclination, to carry the matter slightly farther.

"What's got you sore on the livin' proposition?" he asked grudgingly.

If he had expected melodrama he was doomed to disappointment.

"Same old trouble," she said quietly. "I was workin' for some swell folks up on the North Side--real swells _they_ was, believe me. They thought I was bad. Maybe I am. I don't know. He promised. What more could a girl expect? When they found out, the lady she says to me, 'Of course, I can't keep you here, Molly. It wouldn't be right with me with two daughters of my own, but I'm awful sorry, and I hope it'll be a lesson to you. There's plenty of chances for you to start again. It ain't never too late to turn over a new leaf. Don't tumble down them stairs,' she says when I kind of stumbled. Like it would make any difference! Then she shut the door on me. 'There's plenty of chances for you to begin over again.' That's what she said. Lord, ain't it funny?" cried the girl. Her laugh rang out high and shrill, seeming to cut into the clear darkness.

Tough agreed that it was funny. Having, perhaps, less sense of humour than Molly, he qualified the statement by adding that it was kind of tough also.

"How about the fella?" he asked casually.

"Ditched me," replied the girl. "After I come out the horspittle I never seen hide nor hair of him. Gee," she concluded bitterly, "I was crazy about that lad."

"Must 'a' been a kind of a mean skunk, though," judged Tough. "How about the kid?"

The girl's eyes sought the glittering river. "I give it away," she told him finally.

"Oh!" ejaculated Tough.

The girl seemed to feel a tentative rebuke in this. "What could I do?" she asked. "I tried to get another job before--and I couldn't. I don't know's I'll try again. There's easier ways"--the sentence hung suspended for a moment--"you know."

There was no polite veil of assumed ignorance thrown over such situations in the circle in which Tough moved. He knew, of course. Still----

"There's better ways," he ventured.

Tough was startled at the flash of anger that lit up the girl's shrunken face. For a moment she looked as if she would strike him. Then, with a sharp, quick movement, she buried her face in the covering of the bundle which she had been holding lightly on the railing of the bridge. The next instant Tough heard a soft splash as something struck the water.

"There's that way," a voice shrieked in his ear.

Tough sprang to the railing and looked down.

"Gawd a'mighty, girl!" he panted.

"I seen--seen--Gawd, woman!" he moistened his dry lips. "Was it--say, it wasn't the kid?"

Molly burst into a blood-curdling laugh.

"Sure it was," she cried. "I doped it a-purpose. I been trying to get up the nerve to do it ever since this morning. Do you think I was going to let her grow up into a thing like her mother? Man, you're crazy."

Tough's coat had been already flung off. "Don't be a quitter, girl," he gasped. "Run for the cop and tell him to put out a boat, and then you wait for me. We'll save her and she'll be an all-right one and like her mother, too."

Just how near Tough came to seeing his finish there in the rays of the moon which he loved nobody but Tough ever knew. It was easy enough to swim with the current and overtake and seize the tiny bundle held up for the moment on the surface of the water by the expanding draperies. It was when he turned and tried to swim back to the bridge that the waves pushed and beat at him like cruel hands. He thought somebody was trying to strangle him. What were they hanging to his feet for? Why did they push him and strike him? He wouldn't go that way. He had to go the other way. He must make them quit twisting him. And then through the awful pounding at his brain came a cheery voice: "Ketch a hold, bo. Ketch a hold."

Sputtering, gasping, sick, exhausted, Tough hitched his elbows weakly over the side and let the unconscious thing he had so nearly lost his life for slip gently into the bottom of the boat.

"Why, it's Tough Muggins," said the officer, looking down into his face. "For the lova Mike, what was you doin'?"

Through the dank drip of his hair Tough winked.

"I just dropped in to get a drink," he said. "I belong to the cop family and I got the habit."

It was not until the boat had ground itself gratingly up against the rough stone ledge that served for a landing that Tough openly acknowledged Policeman Connelley's right to an explanation of a sort. He jerked his head toward Molly, who stood, wild-eyed and trembling, on the narrow ledge above.

"My girl," he said succinctly. "We was scrappin', and she pitched my bundle of clothes that I was fetchin' home overboard. There was money in the pants," he added by way of gracious explanation. "That was why I jumped in after 'em."

"Didn't know you had a girl, Tough." Big Jim Connelley may have had his suspicions, but his tone was of the most conventional.

"That so?" inquired Tough as he scrambled up the ledge. "Say, Jim, the things you don't know would fill a city directory right up to the limit."

Then he turned to Molly. "Guess you're cooled off, now, old girl, what?" he said. "Come on, then. Let's beat it home."

Gathering her unconscious baby to her with trembling, passionate hands, the girl went with him trustingly.

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THE BLACK PATCH

By Randolph Hartley

I wear a black patch over my left eye. It has aroused the curiosity of many; no one has suspected the horror that it hides.

Twenty years ago Bernard Vroom and I, fellow students at the University of Jena, were devotees at the feet of Professor Malhausen, the foremost optical surgeon of his time. Living, working, dreaming together, Vroom and I became almost as one intelligence in our passionate study of the anatomy of the eye. Vroom it was who advanced the theory that a living eye-ball might be transferred from the head of one man to the head of another. It was I who suggested, and arranged for, the operation, performed by Professor Malhausen, through which Vroom's left eye became mine and my left eye became Vroom's. Professor Malhausen's monograph, published shortly afterward, describes the delicate operation in detail. The ultimate effects of the operation are my own story.

Very distinctly do I remember the final struggle for breath when the anesthetic was administered; and quite as vividly do I recall my return to consciousness, in a hospital cot, weakened by a six weeks' illness with brain fever, which had followed the operation. Slowly but clearly my mind advanced through the process of self-identification, and memory brought me to the moment of my last conscious thought. With a mingled feeling of curiosity and dread I opened my eyes.

I opened my eyes and beheld two distinct and strongly contrasting scenes. One, which was visible most clearly when I employed only my right eye, was the bare hospital room in which I lay. The other, distinct to the left eye alone, was the deck of a ship, a stretch of blue sea, and in the distance a low, tropical coast that was to me totally unfamiliar.

Perplexed and vaguely afraid, I begged the nurse to send at once for Vroom. She explained gently that Vroom had recovered quickly, and that, although deeply distressed over leaving me, he had sailed for Egypt, a fortnight since, on a scientific mission. In a flash the truth came to me overwhelmingly. The severing of the optic nerve had not destroyed the sympathy between Vroom's two eyes. With Vroom's left eye, now physically mine, I was beholding that which Vroom beheld with his right. The magnitude of the discovery and its potentialities stunned me. I dared not tell Professor Malhausen for fear of being thought insane. For the same reason I have held the secret until now.

On the second day of double-vision my left eye revealed a gorgeous picture of the port and city of Alexandria--and of a woman. Evidently she and Vroom were standing close together at the ship's rail. I saw on her face an expression that I had never seen on woman's before. I thrilled with exultation. Then suddenly I went cold. The look was for Vroom, not for me. I had found a love that was not mine, a love to which every atom of my being responded, and it was to be my portion to behold on my loved one's face, by day and by night, the manifestation of her love for another man.

From that moment on I lived in the world that was revealed to me by my left eye. My right was employed only when I set down in my diary the impressions and experiences of this other life. The record was chiefly of the woman, whose name I never knew. The final entry, unfinished, describes the evidences that I saw of her marriage to Vroom in the English Garrison Church at Cairo. I could write no more. A jealousy so sane and so well founded, so amply fed by new fuel every new moment that it was the acme of torture, possessed me. I was truly insane, but with a true vision, and to me was given the weapon of extreme cunning that insanity provides. I convinced Professor Malhausen that my left eye was sightless, and by simulating calmness and strength I gained my discharge from the hospital. The next day I sailed from Bremen for Port Said.

Upon reaching Cairo I had, naturally, no difficulty in finding my way through the already familiar streets, to the Eden Palace Hotel, and to the very door of Vroom's apartment, overlooking the Esbekieh Gardens. Without plan, save for the instant sight of her I loved, I opened the door. Vroom stood there facing me, a revolver in his hand.

"You did not consider," he said calmly, "that my left eye also is sympathetic; that I have followed every movement of yours; that I am acquainted with your errand through the entries in your diary, which I read line by line as you wrote. You shall not see her. I have sent her far away."

I rushed upon him in a frenzy. His revolver clicked but missed fire. I bore him backward over a divan, my hands at his throat. His eyes grew big as I strangled him. And into my left eye came a vision of my own face, as Vroom saw it, distorted by the lust of murder. He died with that picture fixed in his own eye, and upon the retina of the eye that once was his, and is now mine, that fearful picture of my face was fixed, to remain until my death.

I wear a black patch over my left eye. I dare not look upon the horror that it hides.

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A SHIPBOARD ROMANCE

By Lewis Allen

"Isn't that young Griggs and Miss Deering?" asked the captain, peering down from the bridge at a dark spot silhouetted against the moonlit sea.

"Yes, sir," replied the second officer.

"It's the speediest shipboard romance I've ever seen in all my thirty years aboard a liner," remarked the captain, smiling.

"I understand they never saw or heard of each other until they met at dinner, Tuesday. Have you talked much with them, sir? I see they sit next you at table."

"Oh, yes, that's true. Why, on the second dinner out he complained because there was no jewellery shop aboard. She looked as happy as a kid with a lollypop, and blushed."

"Whew! Engaged within forty-eight hours! Going some! I suppose they'll be married by the American consul before they've been ashore an hour."

"Not a bit of doubt of it," grinned the captain. "True love at sight in this case, all right. Well, they have my blessings. I fell in love with my Missus the same way, but we waited three months. I'll go below. What's she making?"

"Nineteen, sir. Good-night."

* * * * *

Two hours later there came a terrific explosion away down in the hold amongst the cargo. The ship trembled and listed.

"Women and children first! No danger! Time enough for all!" shouted the officers, as the frantic passengers surged about the life-boats.

She was going down rapidly by her stern. There came another explosion, this from the boilers.

"All women and children off?" bellowed the captain.

"Aye, aye, sir," answered the second officer.

"Married men next!" shouted the captain as the men began scrambling into the boats. A score of men paused, bowed, and stepped back. Young Griggs tore his way through and started to clamber into the boat.

"Damn you, for a coward!" cursed the second officer, dragging him back.