Part 13

"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.